Do what makes you soar
It has been Khmer new year this past week in Cambodia, meaning the dust settles on the well used roads of Phnom Penh, and everyone moves out to the provinces. It’s the one time of year where things lay low; shops and markets close, street sellers retreat, and food is bought in advance to last the week ’till the buzz of the city sounds once more.
For me, with everyone in my house out of town and the girls at ‘Esther’s house’ visiting family, it was a perfect opportunity to take a trip to Vietnam’s, Ho Chi Minh city, where Mark and Jess live, and run the other side to their charity.
If I thought Cambodia bustled with life, Vietnam does even more so. If I thought Cambodian traffic was something to behold, Vietnam takes it that notch higher, where Cambodia is dusty, Vietnam is green, where Cambodia nails the mango salad, Vietnam nails the pho.
Just a few days ago I got thrown the keys to Jess’s motorbike and as a rode around the city shoulder shoulder, I felt the nearness of those everlasting arms, not only because of His protection, but His delight in seeing me soar.
I asked Him what He was teaching me, and as I wove through traffic (sorry Mum) these were His words: ‘Freedom is never limited to experience’. Freedom is never dependent on thrill, or a bi-monthly event, freedom is ours. Freedom, is never something He intended us to acquire, it’s who we are. If we aren’t free, it’s not because we have lost our freedom, it’s because something else has taken dominion.
There is not an individual on this planet who wasn’t built by our creator to soar. He never wanted us to ‘get by’, or to ‘participate’, He built us to thrive.
And soaring looks different to each of His children, but He’s longing for them to find out what it is, because He gets so much joy in seeing His kids step fully into who they were created to be.
So much of my trip so far has been finding that out and being able to put myself in positions where I thrive, and can give most of what He’s put inside of me. And, this will never look the same as the person next to me, just as He doesn’t want it to. I can serve with excellence inputting data into computers and working on facts and figures, working in between four walls or holding business meetings, but for me, it’s outside the walls, playing in what remains of the water left from the storm with a bunch of rowdy kids, helping children find family, and telling once vacant faces about the love of Jesus that makes me soar. Not one of these expressions is more valued than the other, it’s just hearts put together differently, thriving in their own unique way.
Many people are waiting for the permission to climb higher and jump higher. You don’t need permission. Jesus living inside of you contains all that is necessary to eradicate the apathy and the normalcy. It is He who is inside of you that abolishes fear and enables you to do what is humanly impossible. Ask Him where He created you to soar, and that very thing, that very thing will most probably be the ‘will’ for your life that it’s seemed like you’ve been searching your whole life for.
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