waiting in expectation.

I wish I could let you all crawl in my brain and see what happened this past week.
Or that I could play a video of all the highlights.

For those of you who didn't know, I was in Nashville this past week with 18 other people on a mission trip over our spring break.  To be honest, I went into this trip without expectations.  I was a little hesitant.  In fact, as I was thinking about it today, I was realizing that I never fully made a decision to go on this trip.  I think I had a couple different people tell me was I was going and someone even signed me up.  I wasn't sure what to expect because I haven't even been on a mission trip since the summer of '06 and it wasn't until recently that God had even given me the desire to do mission work.

Needless to say, God didn't need my permission to do some crazy, awesome things this week.  In fact, I have to say that I was blown away with God's readiness to answer our prayers.  We did a lot of ATL exercises this week; ATL stands for Ask the Lord.  Basically, our group would sit and pray and ask God what he wanted us to do.  We would sit and listen for his voice.  Sometimes what we would hear and see would be ridiculously clear but other times we just felt lost.  Nevertheless, we were always lead to amazing encounters.  Christ was always pointing us in the direction he wanted, whether we knew it or not.

  http://me-inside515.deviantart.com/art/C-o-l-d-F-o-o-t-p-r-i-n-t-s-157140723

I think my most meaningful encounter was one of those days where we felt like we had no direction.  We were doing an ATL scavenger hunt.  We were split into groups and told to pray for what the Lord wanted us to do.  Whatever we saw, whatever we heard, we were supposed to write down.  We were basically set loose in Nashville for an hour.  After praying for awhile, my group had come up with a handful of images and such that seemed to have no connection.  We decided that we should just start walking and go where we left lead.

After walking around downtown for the majority of the allotted hour, our group ended up in front of Bridgestone Arena, the basketball arena in Nashville, which was CRAZY because of the tournaments this week.  The five of us stood there, completely lost in the sea of Tennessee orange.  Here we were, amongst all these people, just waiting for God to pick out someone for us.  Just as we were thinking of leaving, I saw a guy cross in front of us.  He didn't look like he belonged there.  He was wearing an orange sweatshirt but it was Texas orange and he was carrying a large backpack and suitcase.  My heart clinched.  We needed to talk to him.  I turned to another member of my group and his gaze told me he already knew what I was going to say.  The only problem was we had no idea what to say.  Thankfully, another member of our group did.  He walked right over and started a conversation with the Texas guy.

The guy's name was Mike and he was from Seattle.  He told us he had just gotten off a Greyhound from Louisville.  We all stood and talked, us telling him we were from Virginia and doing mission work.  Come to find out, he was believer as well and had originally set out from Seattle to be a part of The Simple Way, a community started by a young, radical Christian named Shane Claiborne.  Sadly, they weren't training anyone else at the moment but Mike decided to go ahead and travel the country and said that God had been providing for him the entire way.

He told us that originally he had set out on a bike from Seattle with $35 and made it all the Boise, Idaho before his bike broke.  Someone paid to have his bike fixed.  He also said how he had brought a tent so that he could sleep outside but for the first two weeks of his journey he only had to sleep outside twice.  He had people offer to put him up in their homes and had three different people pay for hotel rooms for him.  One day he stopped for dinner and when the waitress came back with his check, she told him that someone had already paid for it with a $100 bill and had left him the change.

We were all amazed at the greatness of God.  But the thing that got me the most was what Mike said afterward.  He explained to us that miracles don't happen because Americans don't need them.  If we are sick, we go to the doctor.  If we need food, we go to the store.  But if we believe that God can do something miraculous in our lives HE WILL.  If we ask for it, he will give it to us. 

That is what I realized most from this week.  By not waiting in anticipation, in expectation for something amazing from the Lord, we limit him.  We put him in a box.  We think that we don't need what he can give us.  But after experiencing the greatness that is God when we let him be limitless in our lives, I would never want to put him in that box ever again.

I'm currently reading a book called The Unexpected Adventure by Lee Strobel and Mark Mittelberg.  It's a 40 day read that shows followers how to take "everyday risks to talk with people about Jesus".  Yet, their biggest point is that we will never know God's plan or what he is going to do in our lives.  God has given us this unexpected adventure, this UNEXPLAINED adventure!  Everyday is the chance for something new, something mind-boggling, something supernatural.

Someone this week told me that I'm at the canyon's edge, I have no barriers between me and the Lord I just need to jump to the other side.  I pray that everyday I accept God's unexpected, unexplained adventure for me with an open, willing and servant heart.  I have been so blessed this week and I'm just so ready to do what God has in store for me.

"We not have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure.  This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves." -2 Corinthians 4:7

"If you only look at us, you might well miss the brightness.  We carry this precious Message around in the unadorned clays pots of our ordinary lives.  That's to prevent anyone from confusing God's incomparable power with us."  -The Message

Only through Christ can I do anything.  I have no worth, no value, no brightness of my own.  I credit Christ with anything that is good in me.  Through Him, I am limitless.