twenty-three days.

In twenty three days, my team is heading to Central Asia.

Twenty three days.

My team.

Central Asia.

How in the world…

This past January, I was in Romania with my DTS outreach team. I remember we were speaking out what was on our heart and what we saw as our strengths and weaknesses. After I was done sharing, one of my leaders pulled me aside and spoke an encouraging word I still carry.

“I can see in you that one day, you’ll lead teams. When you speak, you speak with authority. You can lead.”

I took it in, but not really, as the last thing I wanted to do was lead anything. I wanted to do this DTS thing, and return home. At that time, I honestly would rather have gagged on a spoon, as I was so stuck in the rut of my own world. Leading? Me? No thank you.

And now I find myself three months in to a season of leadership, and twenty three days away from stepping into the role much further. I will be taking a team to countries I just recently figured out how to pronounce correctly, on the word of the Lord.

And you know what?

I could not want to do anything more at this point.

And I’m ready.

Ready as I’ll ever be.

Ready to depend on God in every moment.

Ready to daily surrender to His will and desires for us as a team.

I recognize, this will be the hardest thing I have ever done.

But I am in it, heart, mind and spirit.

Because I have watched first hand, in my own life, the power and love of Jesus radically transform my world. I have seen Him strip me from anxiety and bring me through the fire. I have watched Him pick me up from the depths of pain and bring life and joy. 

I know He is the answer to the nations. I know He is the answer.

He has wrecked me with His Glory. Wrecked, in the best way possible.

And yet, I am not anywhere close to being there yet. I am still journeying as we all are.

The beauty is, there is no going back.

There is no going back to making God a part time thing.

No going back to days on end without including Jesus in my daily life.

I could lose sleep over a lot of things at this point.

Whether it be uncertainty in schedule or the fact that I have zero finances to cover outreach fees. But man, God is good. He is entirely good, and I pray that every day I am reminded to hand it all over to Him.

This week has been an overflow of refreshment for my heart as I remember that walking with Jesus does not mean walking in perfection. Slowly but surely, the burden of being ‘the perfect outreach leader’ is being lifted off my shoulders and falling in its place is the ability to accept His grace.

And as I step in to this role with confidence, knowing I lead by His strength alone, I realize that before I simply never believed I could do such a thing. He has so graciously and patiently allowed me to realize, that it isn’t about what I can do or what I am capable of. It is through Him, it is what He can do, and what He is capable of. And I have the choice to believe this, or the choice to walk away.

There is undeniable beauty in choosing to live by faith and trust.

To choose to commit when it is difficult, to choose to be obedient and to learn to have vision for what is ahead.

It comes at a price, yes.

But how worth it it is to know deeper the character of our Creator..