As we sat around the fire one evening in Kentucky, we asked the students, “What makes you uncomfortable about this trip?” A plethora of answers filled the room: being far from home, the difficulties of hiking, lack of control, and being around new people. I, a first time teacher and never taking students to an entirely different state, had endless reasons to be uncomfortable. The overall feeling of underqualified was filling my thoughts. However, there was a level of peace knowing everyone was united by a similar unsureness.
Throughout the Bible we constantly see God using uncomfortability in His followers to empower His works; Moses had a stutter yet was the mouth for God, nervous Peter walked on water, and of course David was a small incapable boy that defeated Goliath. Having these fears and uncomfortability isn’t a bad thing. They are real feelings we are chased by every day. However, we can’t allow that to deter us. In the midst of our most uncomfortable experiences is when God is the most miraculous.
So, as we all sat around the campfire admitting our places of weakness, God was there using those to guide us. One of our students was incredibly shy and hesitant to even go on the trip. After lots of back and forth she decided to go. By the last hike of our trip she was the first person to conquer the rock wall and that night at dinner she even asked if we could do another hike before heading out the next morning. We would have never imagined she would thrive on these hikes the way she did. The even better part, she couldn’t have imagined it either. If she would have stopped at the face of fear, she would have missed out on the opportunity to grow. However, when she trusted that there was potential on the other side of that fear, she was able to truly live free.
I learned this trip was never how capable we were, how good we could hike, or how well things stayed on schedule. This trip was about embracing the uncomfortability and seeing the joy God can provide in the midst of it.
