Back to being a YWAMer...for a week

For the second time in 6 months my packed bags lay next to the door ready for another adventure. Such a similar scenario.  The flight, the bags by the door, the early morning drive to the airport. It's eerily familiar. But its a very different person who will boarding that plane tomorrow for one final flight to Hawaii. When I left PA on that early April morning I was so excited and joyful that I could barely contain myself. Tomorrow there will be joy but also a sort of grief at realizing that I will be seeing this airport again in a week and that my DTS will be officially over than. Grief at the missed experiences that I am sure to hear and the awesome people who I will only be able to spend a brief time with.

Life has a way of throwing the unexpected things at you. When I left PA in April I was expecting the "classic" DTS experience, amazing lecture phase, awesome outreach phase, and a fantastic time of debrief swapping stories with all the amazing friends I will have made. In many ways that is exactly what I got. An amazing lecture phase, an outreach phase, that while probably the toughest time in my life, I can honestly say that the results of it will be awesome (I may have to wait awhile until I view them that way but I have faith that someday thats exactly what I will think), and I'm expecting a fantastic time of sharing with friends from DTS.

But there is a key difference. I'm not coming off the emotional and spiritual "high" I expected I would be at the end of DTS. In fact in many ways I feel like a beat up, emotionally drained, weary man who has engaged in a battle that put everything he learned on the breaking point. A time of testing that left me exhausted and realizing that I had nothing I can give except the daily bread that God continues to pour out. Sometimes the daily bread seems so small but its always enough.

So Hawaii I look forward to seeing you,  Although with the bittersweet reality of life. The reality that I will soon be leaving your sunny shores and back to the battle that God has called me to fight. The battle of normal life where the real tests and struggles come, but the sweet victories and hope are always within reach. By God's grace I will return to PA a little refreshed and more settled about DTS. Right now I feel as though I'm in some short of limbo, living the normal life after DTS deal but soon to be thrust back into the end of DTS. It could be a weird week going back. But I'm ready to finish this adventure so I can jump right into the next adventure that God calls me to! Hawaii here I come!

A battle against normal

My hand grabs another can as I listen to the all to familiar beep of the scanner. "I'm back", the thought seems to never leave my mind. I give the customer the best smile I can muster and quickly try to change the trail of thoughts running through my head. I try... and fail. My mind continues to wonder what my team is doing, I find myself checking the clock and quickly making the time difference. It's Tuesday, so probably the orphanage. I wonder how Ethan's doing with soccer, and if Paul's having any luck teaching any of the guys photography. I struggle to pull my mind back to the present. "Come on David, you gotta focus on where you are." I send up a quick prayer for my team and finally am able to return my mind to the task at hand. Scanning groceries at the grocery store I was hoping I wouldn't be seeing for another month.

I'm back. The concept has finally sunk in in a most unpleasant way. I've gone through the small moments of joy of enjoying the things I missed on DTS and now am faced with the reality of normal life. Of waking up in the morning, going to work, meeting with friends, going to church, the system is scarily familiar. Scary because I see the person and the life I used to live becoming increasingly close to becoming a reality. Scary because I remember the desperation I felt before leaving, the gnawing to experience God and become who I was created to be, I now feel the warning signs that that person must be fought for.

Every day I must choose to be the person God created me to be. The person that He meant for me to be. On DTS I saw a little bit more of who that person is. I saw a little bit more of the passions God has placed in me. Of the hunger that is so deeply engraved in my soul, a hunger that is only met by His presence. I saw that theres is courage in me, a warriors heart, it merely needs the opportunity to be shown.

So as I came home I was greatly excited to see how God would use these knew things that I had discovered while I was away. I jumped at the opportunity to see Him move. What I found was the greatest of opportunities and the toughest of struggles. I watched as the man I had become became tested at every point. As the wounds that I had hoped were healed become ripped open again. The fears that I had so proudly thought I had conquered became the nightmare of my faith.

It was the battle.

The battle that I have to  fight, and the one that I must win. The one that says you haven't changed, you haven't become the man you thought you were. That it was all just a sham, you are now back to your true self. It's the lies that tell me that God couldn't really change someone like me. So I now am forced back to the battle I thought I had beaten. The one of complacent Christianity, of being apathetic and only pursuing God when I feel like it. The one of falling back into the old comforts and lies of this world, believing the horrible lie that they will satisfy the hunger in my heart.

The reality is simple.

This is the true battle, the battles of my journey these past few months have merely been the training for this. The battle of actually living a life of radical faith in Jesus. Of being willing to fight in every moment of every day for the truth of who God created me to be and not who I think I am. I was created to know and love God. I was created not for myself but to bring glory to the Creator of the universe. The sooner I wrap my mind around that the sooner I learn to live out the life I was called to. A life of radical obedience and devotion to God. period.