home: the most fruitful mission field ever

Last Blog Post! I’m home! 

I used to run Cross Country in High School. At the end of every race, without fail, I’d collapse in the grass having used every ounce of energy in me to cross the finish line. That’s how I thought the World Race would be for me: a huge bout of exertion and excitement, to finally collapse back into the comforts of home.

But coming home, I found that the race had mostly been a warm up lap, when your muscles are still a little stiff and you realize you probably should have hydrated more last night. 

The world race wasn’t ever meant to be a one and done sprint. Boom. You did it. Go back home now. Not even close. It’s a marathon, it keeps going on and on and on. We’re just getting started.   

Last night in an old college dorm that has been converted into a small apartment north of Forest Park, I prayed with a high schooler named Nahum who finally decided to follow Christ after a life of being in church without feeling welcome. The same sinner’s prayer I’d longed to pray with someone in the Dominican Republic was spoken right in my hometown. Praise God. I saw the Holy Spirit speak through the words of my friend Isaac, a self identified “baby Christian” who decided to trust the Lord while complex and theologically sound words came out of his mouth to minister to Nahum. I saw repentance happen, grace comprehended maybe for the first time. Pray for Nahum. God is so so crazy. 

Last week at a Juneteenth event in St. Louis, I saw a largely black church take the lead to carry love across the dividing wall of hostility to a largely white church on the other side. Grace just doesn’t make any sense at all without a God who died for you. 

I see God working in Burmese moms and dads who pick up their kids from the tutoring place I work at. Most of them don’t know the Lord, but they’re sending their kids to a Christian summer school. Maybe I went on the whole race just so I could learn how to love people despite language barriers. Maybe one of them will see God in the way we love their kids. 

What would the church look like if we were truly reconciled to one another, across ethnic, political, and generational lines? I think we’re gonna find the answer here pretty soon, because I see reconciliation happening all around me in the church, and it makes me want to cry for joy. 

The race taught me that participation in the kingdom of God might mean that nobody knows my name or cares about the “awesome work that I’m doing.” Why would I want that? How could I seek glory that comes from men when God’s glory is so near? Thanks to the friends who gave me that painful reproof, you know who you are. Refinement rocks. 

Participation in the Kingdom of God means that they know His name rather than mine. Participation in the Kingdom of God means washing the feet of my enemies, leading by humbling myself.

It means I don’t have to have all the right answers I was so desperately searching for at the beginning of the race, because the truth is out there, the truth is the Gospel, the Gospel makes sense and holds up through every intellectual or practical ringer I try to force it through. 

God is real. Some of you think I’m crazy. Thanks for being here. He’s real and I see him moving every day. He loves us so much and the word says we will find him if we seek him with all our heart.

The world race is over. Ok. The race is just the race. What I’m excited about is the resurrection. What God did for us on the cross changes everything. 

Thanks to all of you who have loved me so well this year. I love you guys so much. Let’s get coffee soon.