STOKED!

I was recently in Japan for a gathering of missionaries in action sports around the world. One afternoon we had the opportunity to do outreach to the local communities in Japan and naturally, I hopped into the car headed to surf in Chiba, where the first surfing olympics were held. The whole 1.5 hour drive to the beach, we were AMPED! We couldn’t wait to surf in Japan and share Jesus with any of the surfers on the beach or in the lineup. There was NO way we weren’t going to paddle out and catch a few waves, even though it was freezing cold outside. We parked the cars, ran towards the beach to check the waves first, and just as we were running over the sand dune, a crazy icy wind whipped us right in the face. It was howling onshore, absolutely freezing, and not one surfer in the choppy small waves… We all looked at each other with quizzical glances and found ourselves in a dilemma… Do we paddle out?

After only a couple of minutes our faces and hands were numb from simply being on the beach and we decided that maybe today was just not the day. We still wanted to form some connections with the Japanese surf community, so we decided to hit up some of the local surf shops. There were many locals we chatted with who were blown away that all of us came out from South Africa, Maui, California, England, Taiwan, Switzerland, and Australia, just to connect and meet them. Looking around at our group and all the many people we had conversations with, I couldn’t keep a smile off my face and I could tell everyone else was struck with joy as well. Even though we didn’t get to surf waves in Japan, we were absolutely STOKED to share Jesus and our joy with the Japanese surf communities.

What makes you STOKED? Are you excited and full of joy, even when you don’t catch waves? It says in the Bible the JOY of the Lord is our strength (Nehemiah 8:10). Our external circumstances don’t project our joy, the LORD does! So go out and be joyful in whatever you do and know that your unexplainable stoke may just make someone curious about Jesus!

Image: Josh Schieffer