This season at the Center for Global Action has looked like a lot of different things. It’s been busy days and nights of intense prayer, tears, and laughter. It’s been moments of soul-baring vulnerability, feeling afraid to bring parts of my heart into the light. It’s been a continual fight to create a close-knit community that’s honest with each other and carries one another’s burdens. It’s felt unbelievably rewarding at times, and incredibly pointless at other times.

I’ve cried, I’ve laughed, I’ve felt stuck and bored and hopeful and absurdly joyful. I’ve seen Papa’s love in the people around me, in beautiful north Georgia in the Autumn. I’ve shared my story and the Gospel with people at work and helped those who already know it to remember what’s true about themselves.

I’ve worked through pain in my story and my heart and found immense healing. I’ve dug into the soil of my soul and the Lord has torn up roots of insecurity, comparison, and unforgiveness.

Choosing into these things has been a daily decision. Every day I have been faced with the simplest of choices: to say yes to what the Spirit has for today, or to close my heart off to being present. And what I’m learning is that life in the Kingdom is a continual yes, a slow and steady pressing on toward Jesus.

“Thy Kingdom Come” is a daily yes; that’s why Jesus told us to ask for our daily bread.

CGA has looked like that daily yes for me. It hasn’t been the overwhelming leaps and bounds of growth like the Race was for me, it’s been the steady, constant pushing forward until I see the Kingdom come here in my life as it is in Heaven.

It’s been a season of solidifying the change I experienced overseas, settling my growth down into a firm and solid foundation that won’t be shaken by what may come next, and learning to let Jesus lead me faithfully each and every day, whether I’m in sorrow or joy, peace or confusion, in India or in America, around faithful friends and family or not.

In saying yes every day, I’m seeing all the fruit of this last year and a half since my training camp coming into reality here and now. 

A year and a half ago, I needed others to steward me into the presence of the Father; now I am confident of my great high priest Jesus, and can stand in his presence in a way that even leads others to worship. 

A year and a half ago, my identity was based in what others said of me; now I know who my Abba says I am and fight to live as that man whether others see it or not.

A year and a half ago, I didn’t know what I had to bring the Kingdom; now I walk in the strength God gave me in a steady dependence upon him.

A year and a half ago, I performed in order to hide my brokenness from the people around me; now I know that vulnerability is the path to freedom and the risk of exposing my darkness is worth the connection.

I’ve become a lot less cocky, a lot more open-handed, and have understood so much more deeply how truly my Jesus loves me through and through. While my time on the Race gave me much of that growth, my time here at CGA is what solidified it and has helped me carry these things without someone else telling me how to do them.

I have just under 2 months left here, and I am so excited to see what else the Lord has prepared in that time. However, to stay here in Georgia for the second half of CGA, I need to raise $1,058 within the next week. If you’re reading this, would you consider partnering with what the Lord is doing in this community in Georgia? Use the Donate button at the top of the page to give—I am confident that this is where I’m meant to be, and I trust that God will make it possible for me to continue in my time here.

As always, thank you for reading, and for your prayers.

In Christ,

~Joel Larson