how the world race changed my life.

“How the World Race changed my life,” is a daunting question to answer. I’d be lying if I said I haven’t dodged it, several times, since returning home 16 months ago. Where are the words? There are so many faces, so many voices inside me. There are voices that whisper like wind in the night—the voice of lifeless idols, of poverty, of pain. And there are voices that sing like sun over the valley—the voice of victory, of colors, and bare feet chasing after your van as it pulls away for the last time.

The world used to seem much smaller, simpler, and to be honest it was easier that way. But on my 11-month adventure with God, my world expanded—no, exploded. I used to think life was all about me.But like Donald Miller wrote, we are merely trees in a story about the forest. On the World Race, God lifted me up to see there is a bigger story playing out than I one I had been living in. And for a brief moment, I came up off the ground and saw everything from the tops of the trees. It turns out, my tiny tribe of trees—everything and everyone in my everyday American life—is all part of a forest billions of trees big. How had I missed it before?

From the tops of the trees, God helped me see that the story is all about Jesus—and it’s advancing. I saw the family of God across the nations. Sometimes during worship now, I still see it. I close my eyes and in a rapid succession, I see every place I ever worshipped on the Race—a secret alleyway full of believers, an African church under the stars, a muddy hut full of praise. I remember the night we preached in India. Hundreds pressed around and at the edge of the crowd walked up a cow and her calf, gods to the Hindus. The pair stood there quietly, but I remember glancing up as I spoke about Jesus: the calf started jumping in circles—as if dancing. I see these pictures, full of people with raised hands, closed eyes, singing songs to the Messiah, and for a moment, I imagine I’m seeing what God sees every moment: the view from the tops of the trees. Pockets of healing, spreading across the face of the earth.

God is winning back the forest. I heard a man doubt Jesus once. He said that religious beliefs are strictly a matter of the culture you’re born into. I wish he could see what I’ve seen. I wish he was there to hear the testimonies of two men—born on opposite ends of the earth—both describe the moment they first believed using the same words: “It was like I saw color for the first time.” I wish he met the Nepali husband and wife I lived with, saw how they gave up everything to follow Jesus, even being ex-communicated from their families. I wish he felt the joy on the faces of orphans in the Nicaraguan slums and in the Swazi mountains: the joy of children loved by a Father. God is writing a great story and bringing everyone he can inside of it.

On the World Race I saw more clearly than ever that this story has two main characters. There is the one Truth, and the one lie, both at work across the face of the earth. The Truth takes one form, while the lie takes many. In Central America, the lie looked like deafening moralism. In Eastern Asia, piety on golden alters at noon, hellish darkness under the cover of night. In Eastern Europe, a hopeless feeling, a void left by fallen communist rule, and a time that demanded worship of the government and the government alone. Even at home in America, we hear the lie chanting: more, more, more. The lie is clever, and like a chameleon, it dresses to the culture.

But the Truth? I also saw the Truth at work everywhere I went. And every single time, the Truth looked like this: Jesus Christ, the Son of God, nails in his hands, hung on a cross, raised from the dead and spreading life across the face of the earth.

The Truth is that a historical man named Jesus from Nazareth, really lived, really was mutilated by the Roman government under a humiliating death sentence, really was buried in a tomb. The body really was NEVER found. Because this man named Jesus REALLY WALKED OUT OF THE GRAVE. Thousands of witnesses really saw him ALIVE. The disciples were so sure of it, they themselves would die unthinkable deaths because they could not deny the fact that they saw Jesus with a spear through his side and three days later they touched the scars with their own hands.

He isn’t dead! He departed from earth and promised to return (John 14:3). This means He is alive, right now. Capable of having and desiring a relationship with each of us.

I know the above to be true, not only because it is recorded testimony, written history. But because of personal revelation.

I have heard the voice of Jesus and I have witnessed things with no natural explanation, only a supernatural one traced to the power of the Holy Spirit.

(Anyone interested in these things I would like to point to the following places: the book of John the gospel, the television show The Chosen and the book The Case for Christ)

It’s the greatest story ever told and we are inside of it. On the World Race, there were times I actually felt I was inside the Bible. It came into focus for me in Nepal when the Middle Eastern culture opened my eyes. I saw shepherds tending flocks, women at the well; we traveled by foot and villages turned out their sick. We encountered things I only read about in scripture and I realized, the story never ended—we are inside of it. There were days I woke up and imagined the words God was writing on the page… “The team set out for a new town today. Little do they know who I have arranged for them to meet…”

Friends, we are all guilty of thinking the story is about us. But what would it look like if we saw the world for the forest, not the trees? How would it change our everyday American lives if we believed we are actually in the pages of God’s Living Story, and the plotline is winning back the forest?

The Father is inviting each of us to have a part. “Go and make disciples,” Jesus said.

But God won’t force us to be characters. We get to choose—dynamic or static? But nevertheless, the plotline is advancing. Through the World Race God gave me a glimpse from the tops of the trees. There is a bigger story being told here. Jesus is inviting us to be a part. The forces are at work. And the Father will win back the forest.

Do you want to be a part?

The World Race caused me to answer back louder than ever before: yes, yes I do.