2,887.71 Miles.

That is the distance, as the crow flies, between my comfort zone and the place that God has led me to spend my summer. You might be thinking to yourself: that’s a really long way for a crow to fly, and I would have a really hard time arguing with you about that. That’s a really long way for a Cade to fly, too, in more ways than one. The way my heart and life has changed in the last year can be explained in only one way — that the Creator of the Universe, and the only one who can change the hearts of people, got ahold of me. Big changes happen over long periods of time, and as I look back on my freshman year I can see how God was preparing me for this time in my life. This year, more than ever, I’ve seen the truth in Proverbs 16:9.

The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps.

I walked into the University of South Carolina ten months ago with a plan. It was a hollow plan, one that I cooked up to make sure people knew that I knew what I was talking about, but it was a plan nonetheless. I entered the Honors College as a Political Science and Economics double major, on the pre-law track. I was accepted into student government, ran for and won hall government president for my dorm building, and began interning for the local Congressman. My Google calendar looked like a really bad game of Tetris, full of oddly-shaped rectangles with just enough empty space to say “I have time!” if someone asked me to do something. For a while, I loved it! There is something exhilarating about knocking items off a checklist and doing a lot of “stuff,” even if that “stuff” isn’t really significant. Yes, I was an excellent yes-man. Then, real life got real crazy, real quick.

It started after about the first quarter of the fall semester. I started to realize that I didn’t particularly enjoy digging the hole I found myself in. I struggled to fulfill obligations as I ran around in sweaty business-casual from meeting to meeting. I was frustrated at the end of the day when I couldn’t even explain to myself how I was pursuing my passion in college — I didn’t find joy in much of what I did. I thought I knew what I wanted. In my head, I struggled to be someone that people saw as successful. I might have even done a decent job at portraying that image to people. But if you peeled away the paint, my life was racked with a bunch of jacked-up junk — clinically referred to as sin — that I refused to really deal with. I failed to love people well. I hurt people because I was callous toward how they felt, and relationships suffered and broke because of it. Then, as he tends to do, God kept knocking at my door with a better plan until I couldn’t ignore it anymore. Another great piece of God’s Word started to show up here – 2 Corinthians 12:9-10.

But he (Jesus) said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

If you want more context for that, read the rest of 2 Corinthians (I recommend you do!). Right now, though, I want to let you know how God started to change my life. As a Christian, I’ve always been one to try really hard to act like I’ve got my ducks in a row. If you know me, you know exactly how that’s true. I have always taken pride in what I’ve achieved, worked for, or been given by other people for most of my life. If you walk into my bedroom back home, you’ll see a shelf on my bookcase that’s essentially a museum of me. Medals, plaques, framed pictures, even a gold spray-painted spatula fill the wooden rectangle. They date from high school until this very year. But when you look at it, the medals are made out of cheap material. The plaques are made from thin plywood. The framed pictures are dusty. The golden spatula is starting to show the black plastic beneath the thin veneer of metallic paint. I took pride in – I boasted in – those things. Ahead of my salvation by the Son of God, I boasted in my perceived ability to win an argument. I boasted in the “prestige” that came from being known by people at school. I boasted in winning an election and making a good grade. Here’s the kicker… anywhere I placed my worth, other than in being a sinner saved by God’s grace, I was guaranteed to know nothing but disappointment.

God speaks in a variety of ways, and all of those ways shouted for me to drop what I was doing and run to him. God speaks through circumstances; I had a plate about as unhealthily full as a six-year-old’s at Golden Corral for the first time. God speaks through wise people in your life; my parents, my calculus teacher from high school, and my discipler in Cru saw that my life needed to be centered in something better. God speaks through the Holy Spirit; I could always hear this small voice inside me, urging me: “What if you got rid of all of the extra junk in your life and followed God? Do you want to be free? Chase after Him.” God speaks through his word; in Matthew 16:24, Jesus says this:

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?”

So where did all that leave me?

In a crazy place. How do you boast in weakness? It goes against the grain of our culture, what we want, and who we are as people. In reality, it’s a process. One that I will hopelessly fail in without God’s work in my life each and every day. But here’s where I started. Over the next few months, All of the things that I boasted in started to fade away in my life. I quit Hall Government. I scaled back on Student Government and stopped pretending to be the guy with all of the answers. I am no longer a double-major, and I am no longer banking my future on whether or not I get into law school. Now, to be clear, I’m not trying to say that the answer is to quit everything. God’s word teaches us to let our “yes” be yes and our “no” be no. The point I’m trying to make is that those things were my sources of worth. When I realized that running to Christ was worth infinitely more, I had to make some drastic changes in my life. Because of his work in me, I have found what my purpose – and it’s really our purpose – is: to live a life that glorifies God. It’s to love people as we love ourselves. It’s to seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God. It’s to live life with the goal of sharing the Good News, the truth of salvation from the human condition by Jesus Christ. I don’t know what exactly that looks like in my life, but I know that the one who matters does know. And his Word is going to light my path.

All of this brings me to the place where I am now. I am writing a blog post in my bedroom, on my laptop, with an empty glass of what was sweet tea on the desk beside me. In a week and a half, I’m going to hop on a plane and go to Alaska, where I’ll be getting a job somewhere around Juneau and using it to show people how incredible Jesus is.

Throughout the Bible, God provides for people that follow him. In fact, he promises to do so! So now, you can imagine how dumb I feel to have been nervous about preparations for this trip. The trip cost $2,950. God saw fit to bless me with $4,820! The outpouring of support from my community has been incredible, and words cannot express how grateful I am! If you have written a check to either Cru or Cade in support of the mission trip to Juneau that I’ll be going on, God has already used you. He’ll continue to use you too! If you have prayed for the kingdom of God to grow and for people like me boldly live for the kingdom of God, God heard you! In Romans, 10:13-15, we see the breakdown of God’s plan to save the world. Through us!

For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent?

You are the senders! I thank you immensely for your prayers and support. Not a cent of it will be wasted!

If I’m honest, I’m just now starting to feel excited – nine days to go, and I’m finally starting to feel it sink in! You know, that tingly, giddy feeling that pours out from back of your mind and spreads to the tips of your fingers – that’s what I’m talking about. Think of Christmas morning/birthday/first day of school (for the nerds reading this)/waiting for a letter in the mail, and then put that experience on crack. That’s the 300% non-hyperbolic way to describe how I’m feeling! I have so many reasons to be joyful. Joy isn’t really a word we use commonly anymore, but I think it fits to describe where I’m at right now. When I think of how only God could have, and did, provide for me this year, I just get excited! I know what my purpose is, I know where I’m going, and I know that I’m being led there by a God that never fails. Ain’t it good?