I’ve been home from the World Race for almost five months now. Sometimes it seems like that journey was forever ago, but most times, it feels like it all just began yesterday. I’ve gotten many questions since I’ve been back, but the one everybody seems to ask is, “What’s next?” For a long time, I didn’t know. Because this year changed me. It challenged my ideas of what’s important, it shifted my priorities, it gave me new passions… And when you come home to a place that has changed little while you have changed so much, it’s really hard to know where you fit in.
Enter The Center for Global Action (CGA), a program built around the understanding that there is often a gap between life on the Race and life back home. In short, CGA is a second-year apprenticeship program that aims to fill this gap and help people discover and prepare for whatever they’re called into next. I could definitely use a little bit of this direction in my life 🙂 Through discipleship and leadership courses, apprenticeship work, and intentional community, it is a season committed to growth in so many different ways. As soon as I heard about it, I just felt like this was the next thing for me, but I didn’t really want it to be. How could I explain to people why I was leaving them again to do something most thought I could do at home? As everyone’s questions echoed with my own, I found myself in a battle between my logic and my heartbeat. I had just been away from my family and friends for a year and am leaving again? Yes, but it’s not because I don’t love them like crazy. We’re told to follow God at ALL costs, even the biggest ones. I’m twenty-three… am I ever going to settle down and focus on a career and stability? Maybe someday, but not yet. Is CGA the best option? Maybe not… but sometimes we have to stop waiting for the perfect option and take a really good one instead because we might otherwise be waiting forever. And in the end, my heartbeat won out because in the midst of a thousand reasons to say no, all we need is one good reason to say yes: I felt God calling me, and I’ve learned that His plans are better than my own.
A year ago, I was preparing to go on the World Race without fully understanding what it was. I was just trusting that God was leading me there and that it would be amazing. CGA is very much the same: I don’t fully understand what it is or exactly why I believe it’s the next thing for me, but I feel in my heart that it is. I want my life to be a journey of growing closer to God and bringing people with me, and I’m confident that CGA will play a great role in this. So beginning at the end of January, I’ll be spending some time in Georgia, and I’m excited to share this CGA adventure with you all!
God used the World Race to stir up so many things inside of me, and I need a season to solidify these things. He has begun a work in me that isn’t finished yet, and I’m excited to see how He will use CGA to continue this journey. I’ve never experienced a community of people I’ve felt so encouraged by and connected to as my Race squad, and I’m eager to be surrounded again by people who challenge me and push me to be my greatest self, while I in turn do the same for them. I’m ready to continue living this great adventure called life and I’m hungry for the season of growth and discovery I know I’ll find there. Last year wrecked me for what is ordinary and created in me a deep craving for the extraordinary. Like my restless heart is God telling me that I’m meant for something greater than settling… that He has big plans for my life and I need only to say, “Yes!” In a culture where so many people depend on reason and prioritize careers and stability in measuring success, I can understand why so many have questioned this next step. Reason and stability both absolutely have their place, but it’s just not how I’m wired. I like to do the crazy thing, the one that people challenge, the one which others might think is illogical. Maybe this is one of them, but that just makes my heart beat a little faster and my feet move a little quicker as I race towards what could be, marching to the words of Steve Jobs: “STAY HUNGRY. STAY FOOLISH.” There are no limits when we have such an awesome God!
(If you want to subscribe to blog updates and havent already for the World Race, please do so one the left side of this page. I pray that, like the World Race, God will use CGA as a journey for so many of you as well!)
