When I Wonder Why On Earth I Am Still In YWAM

I could be.

The "I could be's" are one of the enemy’s biggest assaults on YWAMers, I think. If he can get us thinking with I could be, then he’s luring us in.

I could be finished college by now.

I could have my own car.

I could be paying my own phone bill and rent and groceries, instead of having other people pay it for me.

"What if you never get the things you want?"

I hit nineteen as a full-time staff member in YWAM and all the "I could be’s" slammed me in the face. The enemy laid out his trap and I walked straight into it. I went from "I could be" to "oh my gosh, what is it going to be like when I’m twenty-five" to "wait, what the flipping heck am I even doing here?!"

There are the obvious tough parts of mission work like working in dire situations, raising support and leaving behind friends and family. Fighting those physical things have been easier to tackle in comparison to the mental battle I fight sometimes.

It feels like almost every other week the devil’s in my head, whispering accusations. He knows what I want and he taunts me with it. Why aren’t you in college? Do you really want to live on support for the rest of your life? What if you never get the things you want?

"Because deep down, so many of us are all thinking the same thing"

We joke in YWAM about where we would be if we weren’t here. "I’d be done with university, I’d be managing a store, I’d be married, my kids would be in a better school or I’d be done paying off my student loans." We joke, but the humor has leaked out of it. Because deep down, so many of us are all thinking the same thing.

I’d definitely have more money in my bank account and I’d be driving my own car and sleeping in air conditioning every night and my legs wouldn’t be infested with so many freaking mosquito bites.

But man, let me tell you with every ounce of faith and strength in my body that, my "I could be’s" are nothing... nothing when I remember the things that God has done and is doing in our mission.

I am ashamed of all the things I want when I look up and realize what’s going on in front of my eyes.

A few months ago, I found myself smack dab in the center of an overrun refugee camp brimming with people from the most closed Muslim nations on this earth. They came up to me every day, grabbed my hands, held my face between their fingers, asked me for clothes, asked me for hope. I’ve been praying for the Muslim world for years. Every few weeks, those nations come up in our times of intercession and I cry out for them, ask God to open the doors to reach them.

"I stood in the camp one morning and realized, oh my gosh, God, you brought them all to us!"

There’s a ship sailing down to Mazatlan in a few months. A 100-ft, big ship that will sail along the coast of Mexico and give free health care to every isolated person that has been forgotten about, to the people that are dying of diarrhea and childbirth.


The second most dangerous community in our city—riddled with drug lords and prostitution—is being transformed before our every eyes. The people are falling in love, with love Himself, drugs are being thrown out, and families are reconciling. All because a bunch of YWAMers left their home countries and all the things they could’ve had and said "yes" to this place.

Yes, I could be. I could be, I could be, I could be.

But I’m not.

I’m still here. We’re still here. He’s still here. We’re not going anywhere.

What I could have is nothing compared to what He’s already given me.

Read "16 reasons why you should do your YWAM DTS in Mazatlan, Mexico" 

Check out "3 WAYS TO JUMP-START YOUR YWAM DTS FUNDRAISING"

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