John 20:21 – Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.”
I want to tell you about one of the best Christmas gifts I ever got from my parents. I asked for a remote control car. The one that’s bad to the bone; not like the simple forward and reverse kind. AIR. I want this thing to catch air.
Christmas morning comes around and I am so jazzed up and ready. I knew that after presents I was going to be building ramps and jumping stuff by 2 p.m. that afternoon.
I got the present I wanted. I knew which one it was. I had scoped them out in Hobby Lobby for months. Even though I knew what was inside, I played it cool anyway. When I unwrapped the box, there it was. Oh, yeah, the Hornet. I double checked the cover. YES. Awesome. I raced to the front room and opened the box. 100 million pieces. The car was not even recognizable. It had no form. There was nothing there, not even a tire to roll around. Everything had to be put together. I burst into tears, devastated.
It was not what I wanted. We are pretty good at knowing what we want.
For years, we did the Jimmy and Jeannie plan. We worked to get what we wanted. The school we wanted. The house we wanted. The life we believed was for us.
But it wasn’t until I got on my knees that I got what I needed.
As I sat there crying on Christmas morning, my parents came in and they told me it was going to be all right. They were devastated too because they wanted to give me what I wanted. Just like we all want to provide for our kids.
But they knew I could put this thing together. I was a lego-building machine. I pulled it together, and I started right there on page 1 and started putting that thing together. Piece by piece. Section by section. I had some trouble getting the differential gear working and had to get help back at the store where we bought it, but after that it was smooth sailing. Wheels, computer, shocks, paint all done by hand. After many weeks, it was still my most beloved toy ever. I think that was because of the process and the work that went into it.
In 2008, I went on a mission trip and stood in a small courtyard with trash everywhere and met this 2 year old little girl. She came walking up to me wearing a diaper and nothing else. She was barefoot and on the ground at her tiny feet were shards of glass and a tin can lid. Everything in me screamed, “We need to clean this place up.” But we were in the middle of the largest mass migration the world has ever seen; the one that took place when Nafta passed and the promise of jobs brought millions to the Mexico and U.S. border. There was no cleaning up the mess. It was too big. It was impossible. But in that moment something deep inside me said, “She does not need you to fix this. She needs you to pick her up. She needs love. So do her parents.” So we played right there in the mess.
When the Lord moved in my life things changed. There is no other way to put it. He changed me. I did not decide to change the person I was. I decided that I was going to trust God and ask Him to make me into what HE wanted.
Psalm 139: 23-24 Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
Ephesians 3:20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.
Praying this for my life was very much like opening that box on Christmas. Jeannie and I were devastated together at times, like when we decided that we needed to leave the extra career, house and school we had picked out. The reason we did that is not so much that it was wrong. It was because God led us to a different place, because He wanted to show us something about ourselves. About Himself. He loves us and was preparing us. That was the hardest thing we have ever done, but it has been the best thing we have ever done. And now, he’s inviting us to go with Him to Costa Rica. We are not going for adventure or to show our kids the world. We’re not going to learn Spanish, to surf, or eat all the pineapple we want. We’re just saying yes.
Young Life has been part of our story for many years, but more importantly I think it is a look into His plan. HIS plan. HIS PLAN. I’ll say it three times. I will say it on my knees. That is the goal. That is the only goal. To be on my knees seeking and searching for His plan. Young Life has given us a look at ways that God moves in the lives of kids, and I believe that Jeannie is uniquely made to be around kids, loving them and leading them. I have watched it happen and I love seeing her around kids and especially around their leaders. She has a gift.
I think the Lord gives us gifts and I think that they are often like the Hornet gift I got on Christmas 30 years ago. When you open them up and you see a 100 million pieces we just see a mess. He sees your potential. He sees how you will thrive and grow with a 100 million good opportunities.
Going international is another gift. I can remember that morning very well too. We were at a Young Life International Weekend, which is when they take you to a camp property and explain all the ins and outs of going international. Basically, they scared the crap out of Jeannie and I. We were done. Ready to head home and get Plan B going. The last ten minutes they asked us to pray and ask the Lord about going. So we got still, and as I sat there praying, I decided I would ask. I knew I had to know. So I asked, “God, are we supposed to do this?”
“GO” rang in my head and big bold letter type. Then a person’s name that I didn’t know rang in my head. No real idea what to do with that. We got in the van and I told Jeannie I heard “Go” and this name. She asked, “Who’s that?”
“I don’t know,” I said. She started asking around and then gets on the web. Google knows everything. The next day she sends me a note. This guy is a Christian songwriter in Australia that writes about going on mission. So I shot him a note and told him that God wanted Him to pack his stuff and GO.
No dice. It was our call. It is time for us to open a new box, a new gift and step into what God has for us. There are a 100 million pieces to this puzzle. We do not know truly what we are building. The front of the box has the YL logo on it and it has a picture of lots of kids going into the gates of Heaven and that is what we want you to be part of. Please get on your knees and ask Him to tell you if you should join us.
“You’ve been walking down this road too long.
You could be as free as bird in the sky
With a little bit of faith now
There’s a new life waiting.” – parsons