Why I am going on the World Race Gap Year

If we have had a conversation in the past few weeks, I probably talked your ear off about the World Race, so you know how incredibly excited I am about this, but a question I get a lot is why? Why a gap year? And why, specifically, the World Race? To be completely honest, I don’t have a super-clear answer. What I do know, is that no other option felt as right as this one. I am oftentimes blown away by how the Lord works in my life because it always takes different forms. One thing I have learned over the course of my walk with the Lord is that He does not pick one way to speak and sticks to that without variance, and I have been so blessed and humbled to have seen His tendency to move in new ways many times in my life. As much as sometimes I wish that the Lord would just speak to me audibly as He did many times biblically, I have really learned to appreciate the more subtle ways that our God speaks. In this case, it was a deep, strong, familiar feeling towards the World Race. Hard to mistake for anything else, I knew in my gut that taking a gap year with this program was where I was supposed to be next year.  

Now, this doesn’t mean there weren’t a million questions and concerns that ran through my head, because trust me, there were. What if I really struggle without my family? What if I get really sick? How am I supposed to live nine months out of a backpack? What if I don’t get along with the people on my squad? (To name a few) There were soooo many what-ifs running through my head from the minute I applied, but what stayed more prevalent than those questions, was the indescribable peace of the Lord. He has reminded me weekly, sometimes daily, that this is a good thing, that He has chosen me to take a leap of faith and trust Him, that He is sovereign over everything. With that, I can take a deep breath and sit in the truth that God has a plan and a purpose for the next year of my life. 

I cannot wait to devote my time and energy to something greater than myself, His Kingdom. The Lord commands us to love Him and love others, regarding those two things as the greatest of all His commandments. I truly believe both of those can be lived out by anyone in any stage of life, but I feel fortunate to be able to fully commit to obeying and pursuing both of those commandments with everything that I have no matter what that looks like. I have found that when you give everything to the Lord, even if it’s not much, He will multiply for His glory. As thrilled as I am to serve, I must admit that I am also selfishly looking forward to the growth in my own personal relationship with the Lord. A girl on my squad recently said that a heart on fire for Christ is so much more fulfilling than a lukewarm faith, and I think she is so right. The thing I find most exciting in that is that there is no ceiling on the passion to be had for Christ. There will never be a point where I could truthfully say, “Well, that’s it. I can’t love God any more than I do.”. How beautiful is it that the more that God reveals to us about Himself, the deeper we fall in love with who He is! And to add on to that, how incredible is it to think that the more we love God, the more fulfilling the relationship becomes! Wow. I just cannot help but feel incredibly blessed that the Lord has clearly highlighted His plan for me to not only serve as Jesus did, but also to know Him deeper. I look forward to this year, expectant for the Lord to work powerfully and boldly. I trust in His love for His children, from here in Marietta, GA to the other side of the globe. This is going to be an amazing and exciting adventure, and I am so glad that I get to share it here. Thank you for taking the time to read this! I hope you are doing well 🙂