Has God ever blown your mind? Or maybe a better question would be, when was the last time God blew your mind? God is an awesome God, and if we’re being honest, He should never stop blowing us away with His glory and wonder. The problem is, we forget. We forget to see His beauty because we drive that way to work every day. We forget to look for His handiwork in our daily lives because of, well, our daily lives. We typically see life through a self-absorbed lens because we forget to view life through a God-absorbed lens.
I say we, yet I’m speaking for myself. I know that God wants me to step back and be overwhelmed by His wonder every day instead of every now and then. Thankfully, He is so patient with me. And thankfully He steps in to blow my mind even when I’m not looking for it, reminding me to keep my eyes fixed on Him.
Ok, with that said, here’s the story.
Last Thanksgiving, a college friend of mine named Josh asked me if I would be the guest speaker for his youth group’s summer camp in Illinois. I of course said yes and was pumped for the opportunity! But if I’m being honest, by the time it actually rolled around more of my focus was on world race than this teen camp.
Now, don’t be too hard on me. The world race gives us the crazy task of raising eighteen thousand dollars in less than a year! Trust me, you would be distracted too.
The week before I flew to Chicago my fundraising status was just over $7,000.00. Only $3,000.00 from my next fundraising goal – $10,000.00 due by the end of August. But I was nervous about this next goal because at camp there would be little to no cell phone reception, nor would we have reliable wifi during the week. For lack of a better term, I would be almost entirely “off grid.” I wouldn’t be able to post updates, reach out to potential donors, or manage a fundraising campaign. Yikes.
The funny thing is, that’s exactly what God wanted. Like Gideon, I believe He wanted to put me in a place where the ONLY explanation for a miracle would be… GOD. So here’s what He did…
> The day before my flight a couple told me that they would be donating $1,000.00!
> Three days later another couple dropped a bomb telling me they would be donating $2,000.00!
> One day after that, I received an email informing me that someone else just donated $3,000.00 to my world race fund!
WHAT THE HECK!?!?!
Within the five days that I had been away from home and three days into the camp, God dumped Six Thousand Dollars into my lap!!!
But that’s not all…
On the last night of camp (Friday August 3, 2018), Josh asked me to join him in front of the teens so that they could “thank” me for speaking. As I walked up I noticed Josh’s wife Cara, holding my camera and videoing. I thought this was kind of odd, but truthfully didn’t think much of it at the time. I reached the front of the room where Josh shook my hand and thanked me for taking time to be with and invest in their youth group. He said that, as a youth group, they wanted to partner with me throughout my world race in prayer and… and then Josh got choked up. Like, he was actually fighting back tears. I was taken back by this and couldn’t understand why he was fighting back tears. He quickly composed himself and finished his statement,
“We’re gonna support you in prayer, and we want to get you there all the way. So you’re set.”
Yeah, that just happened.
MIND = BLOWN!
God used a youth group and volunteers within that youth group to cover the rest of the cost for my missions trip!
AHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In one week’s time, God took me from just over $7,000.00 to $18,200.00 in donations and commitments! The one week that I was out of touch with social media simply doing what God asked me to do a year prior. He asked me to trust Him, He asked me to fix my eyes on Him, and then HE BLEW MY MIND!
All I can say is WOW! Thank you, Thank you, Thank you Jesus! You are faithful! You are magnificent! You are true! You come through each and every time! Thank you for blowing me away. Thank you for reminding me that NOTHING is too hard for you.
As of right now, I am still waiting on those commitments to come in but that’s not the point of this blog. The point is to say and remind you that GOD IS AWESOME!
Let Him blow your mind.
Just brings tears to my eyes reading this! Our God is an awesome God! I am just overwhelmed by the teams blogs so far and I enjoy every word I read. It is such encouragement to me personally, but also to know what a wonderful team and squad my daughter is on! It does a Moms heart good! I smile from ear to ear knowing what God is doing in each of your lives and how he will use you guys this next year! I look forward to reading more! Love and prayers, Momma Starbuck
I love this soooooooo much!!!! Yayyyyyy God!!! So happy to have a friend in you Conoor and can’t wait to follow your journey as we embark on this amazing adventure with Jesus!!!
This is so awesome !! God definitely has BIG plans for you.. I can’t wait to watch your journey ..??????????????????
Thank you so much for sharing this amazing story about our amazing God!! He is so faithful EVERY time.
This is so amazing!!!
Wow!! God is AWSOME!! So happy that this is happening for you, what a blessing!! So proud of you!!