Leaving for Kenya!

I woke up a few days ago with a strange kind of feeling. For the past few months I had spent so much time thinking about raising support to start this job with CARE for AIDS in Kenya, that I never sat down to process all changes and challenges that lie ahead of me.

For that moment when I lay on my bed, I thought about the depth of my decision to leave, and it hit in me an uncommon chord of fear. The worrying and fearful side of me began was thinking about all that I am giving up to move to another country: working in a different culture away from friends and family, missing out on the comforts of a “normal” American lifestyle, and starting over with many relationships. But as I began to spend time in the Word and praying, the peace of God reclaimed much of the fear that had swept over me. I realized at that point that stepping out in faith almost always comes with a mix fear and excitement.

I had been feeling the excitement for months. I was thinking about going to another country and exploring another part of the world rich in culture and tradition. And I get to be apart of seeing people come to know Jesus! What could be better? But it’s the fear I had not dealt with. The fear of change that tries to hold us back; to stop us from going to a place of complete dependence on God. This fear is a way that Satan tries to stop us from making progress in the kingdom of God.

The fear and anxiety of making a huge life change is not one that I had anticipated. But I am realizing a hard truth: following God never plateaus to a point where we feel comfortable about taking leaps of faith. Faith never gets easy. God is always calling us to a higher place of more faith and hence greater risk. There will always be the fear of the unknown, fear of something we cannot control. In this instance it was also a fear of being ready to go to another country and learn a language and meet new people, make new friends and find a church. On top of that, there is the fear of unworthiness. I feel so unworthy and prepared to represent Jesus. Who am I to go? I am a sinner like everyone else. I am broken and weak and tainted by sin. Then again, that is the point. We are all unworthy sinners humbly telling other unworthy sinners that Jesus is our only hope.

We must not let fear overwhelm us and stop us. We have to push through fear in faith. Take skydiving (which I recently did) as an analogy. Most people would say that skydiving is mixed with both great fear and excitement. And everyone who has done it will most likely tell you it was one of the most incredible and exciting experiences of their life. But it did come without a little fear. It usually precludes events of great excitement and faith. It can be expected. What matters is our reaction to that fear. If we back away, we have fallen prey to our emotions and perhaps missed out on a great opportunity. But…if we continue on in faith, chances are we will never regret taking that leap.

So my conclusion is this. If fear is of the unknown and lack of control in a situation, then logically fear will come before any opportunity to trust in God. Because leaps of faith, by definition, put us in a place where we are less in control and God is in the driver seat. But we must not give into the fear and stop there. We must move forward in faith. Then we will see that situations that bring fear are in fact opportunities trust and glorify God more. They are opportunities to draw nearer to Jesus and be more like Him. When I finally thought about it like that, I realized that I could not possibly pass that up!