Its true.
Here I sit again in Waynesburg, Kentucky. Every time I come home to this place I find myself saying things I don’t think I ever say anywhere else in the world. For instance, I just referred to laundry detergent as “warshin’ powders.” Oh yes I did.
The last time I blogged from this bedroom was before I went on the world race and I’m having flashbacks to excitement, nerves, and the smell of adventure in the air. However tonight…well there are still some nerves here, mostly because I feel apathetic, which does not sit well with me. And the only thing I smell is my dog Maggie, who is damp because she just ran in from outside where it’s raining. She has dry skin and won’t stop scratching which is really annoying so I’ve been rubbing lotion on her. She’s lucky I love her. I didn’t know dogs could get dry skin, but it’s a real thing.
It’s also a real thing that my life has felt a little slow lately. I seem to be so much more in love with God, so much more enchanted by Him, and so much more willing to pursue Him when I am in a foreign country. Even before the race, I felt that I encountered God more intimately on overseas mission trips than I ever did in the U.S. And I know I’m not the only one.
Nomads or wanderers we may call ourselves. Not everyone has it in them, this relentless desire to go and see. There is a certain spark in the eyes of us who do. A spark that becomes a flame bent on consuming all the wonderful things in the world and burning the images into our brains or maybe our hearts because somehow that helps us understand our Creator better. But why? Why does it take boarding a plane to Asia and getting lost in a night market to find Him? Did Abba plant it within us? Did He make us to pursue him through adventure, travel, and exploration? Can we only see His face from a mountain top in Nepal?
I’m asking lots of questions, I know.
The question my heart really wants to ask – and it scares me – is this: Am I truly chasing God, or am I running from Him? Have I flitted from country to country, and Kentucky to Minnesota to Georgia, in attempt to outrun what God truly wants for me?
The answer is NO. I just heard it from within, clear as a bell (maybe another Waynesburg phrase there). Good thing I asked that question instead of letting it spin cobwebs in my brain.
Some people call me flighty. They might shake their heads and say, “Just can’t keep your finger on that girl! And if you managed to she’d move again and you’d have lost her!”
So maybe I pride myself a little on being unpredictable and hard to pin down, but I’m not flighty. I’m not running from anything. I am pursuing God as He leads me.
If I were following my own will I would be moving to Guatemala. God knows how much I want to and He said, “Now is not the time for that.” Or maybe I’d be opening a hostel on the beach in South Africa, but God said, “Maybe one day, darling. Keep dreaming that dream.”
In my next season of life, which starts next week, I am returning to Adventures in Missions in Georgia to continue CGA for a second term. A couple months ago I really wasn’t sure that I wanted this, and God said, “I want it for you, and if you trust in me, you’ll come to want it too.” And He was right (surprise, surprise). So I will be doing leadership track and I’m not really sure all the reasons why or what God has after that for me, but I know that He’s given me about 293,573,487 wild and crazy dreams that will be impossible without Him. I might have just hit numbers on the keyboard there, ya got me.
So you nomads and wanderers like me, who might be struggling to find God in the seemingly mundane American life *cough* World Race Alumni *cough,* let’s remember that it may not always feel like it, but God lives in the United States as much as He lives in Nepal or Botswana or Romania or any other country in which we have encountered Him deeply. We can see, feel, and know Him here just as intimately and powerfully as we did there.
I know, because I chased Him all around the world only to discover that He was inside me the whole time, and that really it was Him who was chasing me.
And I could never catch Him, I could never contain Him. But he caught me. Pulled me right down into his big strong arms, and He’s still holding on.
