During Sunday morning worship, recently, as a preview to a song, we were challenged to think about going deeper in our faith - to step out into tumultuous water where we have no control and our faith will be challenged. So often we avoid those opportunities where we feel that there is no way we can control what happens or where we feel our own gifts and talents are inadequate to accomplish what needs to be done, but we so easily forget that those are the situations where God works best.
“That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weakness, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
- 2 Corinthians 12:10
Inside I was laughing a little, thinking about how our perception of what is stormy water changes over time and how my current struggle is so opposite of what it was 6 years ago.
It was in 2008 that Sandy and I began the planning, in earnest, for our first trip to Niños de Mexico, an orphanage our church supports outside of Mexico City. Neither of us really knew what we were doing. We felt completely inadequate and had many moments of doubts, wondering what we had gotten ourselves into. We had no experience even being on a short-term mission trip, much less leading one, but we had jumped in with both feet and were learning to trust God in the process. I am still amazed at how God worked through that year, not despite our incompetence, but, maybe, more because of it. Often it felt like we had little control, but that was good!
I have now led two teams to Mexico and I find myself in the beginning stages of planning a third trip... but this one is different. I find myself in a completely different position than I was six years ago. I am no longer afraid of going or leading, I am eager to go and eager to lead the team. Planning the trip is no longer an unknown and it is no longer stressful. It no longer feels like I am incompetent, I feel like I have a handle on what needs to be done and how it should be done. To a certain extent I have gained control... and now I am giving it away.
This trip is different, because I am not going. It is different because Sandy and I are handing over the leadership to someone else - something that is so near and dear to our hearts, we are entrusting to someone else. This time we are helping prepare the team to go without us. This time we are helping to prepare someone else to lead in our absence. Where my fear was once in going, it is now in staying behind. Where my fear was once in leading, it is now in giving up my leadership. Before I felt compelled to go, but my fear kept pulling me to stay. I am still longing to go, but now my fear is in staying behind.
It is an agonizing thing, but I am grateful for it. It is good to be able to look back and see ways that I have changed and grown. It is good to know that God is still at work in me, changing me and using me. It is a good reminder that I will never “arrive,” but that there will always be another lesson to learn and an opportunity to grow. It is also good to have a little mystery - I don’t know what this current condition will lead to during the next six years, but I hope and pray that the change in me will be as good, or better, than the change produce over the last six years!
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