I’ve had it on my heart for a good while that, if it were possible & God’s plan for my life, I want to live physically near my family. I want to go home. But, lots of things run through my mind while trying to sort out the endless possibilities and literal directional choices for my future. With life so open ended it is very easy to get lost among the choices, so much so, that you forget to listen to the prompting of your heart in it all.
I’ve definitely had really mixed feelings about where and how I’m supposed to live my life in service to God. During PT school I had to write a “career plan”. Included in that plan was the goal to participate in a medical mission trip to Africa 5 years into my career. That didn’t happen, but, I did go on a life changing evangelistic mission trip to London 3 years out of school. (refer to my prior post: Trying to Recapture the Passion). Living life primarily single, has often left me contemplating: missions & my role in them. Specifically feeling almost a sense of requirement to DO SOMETHING BIG for God… as if that explicitly means it has to be done somewhere else, somewhere in the 3rd world… All the aspects of my life are perfectly set up for it. I have no attachments, no husband, heck- no serious boyfriend, no children, no mortgage, heck- not even a lease. Even my job right now is a set of 13 or so week assignments, between which I can take off as little, or as much, time as I wish. I could easily walk away at the end of a work assignment for a year or more and know with full confidence (and deep appreciation) that in my field I would be able to fairly easily find another job when I returned. And so, I kept coming to the conclusion: well, I must be required to go live as a missionary if I’m going to even begin to adequately serve God.
Why else would everything in my life add up for it to be such an easy task to undertake? Digging deeper and checking my motivation: for me, was/ is being a missionary just a check mark on list for me to rack up in my faith and make ME feel as if I’ve done something important, as if my “normal” 9-5 life isn’t an effective forum to serve?!?! Was this just another way for me to run away from the possibility of pursuit and the possibility of rejection for my real heart’s desire of finding the love of my life and making a life together? A way to avoid the judgment I often feel as a result of being 31 and single… “Oh, Anna’s not married yet?... oh, but she’s a missionary in Africa- she’s doing God’s work- she doesn’t have time to get married and worry about all that yet!!!” (Seriously, thoughts like these have gone through my mind!!!!) In the end, I’ve somehow believed the lie that my everyday life is inadequate; when, IN FACT we are all called to be fully awake in our time, our generation, where ever we are placed THAT IS OUR MISSION FIELD!!!!!
So, I’ve been torn & questioning… God told Abraham ‘Go. Go to the land that I will then show you…’ (Gen 12) When Jesus walked on water in the storm he didn’t give Peter a play by play on how to do so, he simply told him, “Come!” God commands in Deut 10:11, “ARISE.” & “GO”… “Up. Resume”. God doesn’t want me “standing still” contemplating for years on end how I can serve Him best; He wants me to GET UP AND GO GET TO DOING IT. And, God doesn’t need my permission or to send the itinerary across my desk for approval of His plans for me… As Mark Batterson states in one of my favorite books, “God wants you to get where God wants you to go more than you want to get where God wants you to go!” …He is faithful. He’s got the details under control. He’s in the business of caring about the small things and details of my life just as much as the big things—an infinite God is not limited by finite dimensions. {Batterson; Beth Moore}
And so, I’m left with: ‘Arise. Go’… without the details. In faith…. DO I HAVE TO GO SOMEWHERE ACROSS THE GLOBE TO ACCOMPLISH HIS MISSION? Maybe, in a sense, that’s easier. Taking nothing at all away from the often dangerous and undesirable situations and places that missionaries around the world willingly serve in daily, for me, stepping out in boldness for Christ where no one knows me, where I don’t have to care so much about what they think about me for doing so…. Well, for me: how much faith does that take? Stepping out in boldness for Christ in the place where I was born and raised… where I might have to expose my innermost struggles and pains to impact others for Christ. Now, for me, that’s intensely scary…
So, trying to discern God’s will for my life has been made overly complicated by my persistent over analytical disposition. Sometimes, it’s quite simple to figure out what He wants me to do, if I just shut up my own brain for a minute and listen!!! With highly variable and seemingly endless possibilities in front of me: All things being equal; with none of my selection of choices in blatant opposition to God’s Word/ will… well, there’s nothing wrong with following/ going for the desire of my heart. I don’t have the exact quote, but Piper wrote that in a book once, and the idea of it was reinforced for me just a few days ago. As Beth Moore surmised at a conference I attended this past weekend, “You don’t have to feel like you MUST choose suffering for Christ to be good enough; we will all suffer a plenty anyway!”
I have, and have had, a strong desire to be at home, with my family. To be near… And I’ve been toiling with the truth that: where ever you are, that IS your mission field… you don’t have to be ½ way around the globe to be a missionary. Being home, the desire to be with family… there’s nothing in that remotely against God’s will/ Word for my life that I’ve yet discerned.
So, how do I decide between several choices that could easily align with His word and will??? LOVE GOD LOVE PEOPLE… Well, all things being equal: there’s nothing wrong with following the desires of your heart.
As soon as I was fairly certain on my decision to move back home to WV, to live near my family, I was faced with the opportunity to go on an around the world mission trip extravaganza… 11 countries in 11 months. Saturday night I was already questioning the decision I’d made so surely Saturday morning. So, I did what I do: I prayed. And I asked God for a word. For something. Anything. And I asked for something kinda’ bold because due to the timeline for my work and the mission trip possibility I had to make a decision rather quickly… It is truly amazing God never loses His patience with me!
And, God in His faithfulness to me, and fully understanding my chronic tendency to second guess my choices, well, he gave me a word.
Eze 1-2:11...
Where ever I go, the spirit is there… not just there, but LEADING me there… I have been called not to foreign lands where I don’t speak the languages with hardship of communication… I’m called to my own countrymen (home) where I am called to be BOLD for Christ whether it pleases them or not. I’m called out of my “comfort zone” to share “IT” with my own people. I’m called home. And I’m going. WOW!
**(I have to thank Beth Moore, John Piper, Mark Batterson and Steven Furtick for their interpretations of scripture and messages over the last few weeks that I’m sure have highly influenced the thought processes in this writing.)**
I’ve definitely had really mixed feelings about where and how I’m supposed to live my life in service to God. During PT school I had to write a “career plan”. Included in that plan was the goal to participate in a medical mission trip to Africa 5 years into my career. That didn’t happen, but, I did go on a life changing evangelistic mission trip to London 3 years out of school. (refer to my prior post: Trying to Recapture the Passion). Living life primarily single, has often left me contemplating: missions & my role in them. Specifically feeling almost a sense of requirement to DO SOMETHING BIG for God… as if that explicitly means it has to be done somewhere else, somewhere in the 3rd world… All the aspects of my life are perfectly set up for it. I have no attachments, no husband, heck- no serious boyfriend, no children, no mortgage, heck- not even a lease. Even my job right now is a set of 13 or so week assignments, between which I can take off as little, or as much, time as I wish. I could easily walk away at the end of a work assignment for a year or more and know with full confidence (and deep appreciation) that in my field I would be able to fairly easily find another job when I returned. And so, I kept coming to the conclusion: well, I must be required to go live as a missionary if I’m going to even begin to adequately serve God.
Why else would everything in my life add up for it to be such an easy task to undertake? Digging deeper and checking my motivation: for me, was/ is being a missionary just a check mark on list for me to rack up in my faith and make ME feel as if I’ve done something important, as if my “normal” 9-5 life isn’t an effective forum to serve?!?! Was this just another way for me to run away from the possibility of pursuit and the possibility of rejection for my real heart’s desire of finding the love of my life and making a life together? A way to avoid the judgment I often feel as a result of being 31 and single… “Oh, Anna’s not married yet?... oh, but she’s a missionary in Africa- she’s doing God’s work- she doesn’t have time to get married and worry about all that yet!!!” (Seriously, thoughts like these have gone through my mind!!!!) In the end, I’ve somehow believed the lie that my everyday life is inadequate; when, IN FACT we are all called to be fully awake in our time, our generation, where ever we are placed THAT IS OUR MISSION FIELD!!!!!
So, I’ve been torn & questioning… God told Abraham ‘Go. Go to the land that I will then show you…’ (Gen 12) When Jesus walked on water in the storm he didn’t give Peter a play by play on how to do so, he simply told him, “Come!” God commands in Deut 10:11, “ARISE.” & “GO”… “Up. Resume”. God doesn’t want me “standing still” contemplating for years on end how I can serve Him best; He wants me to GET UP AND GO GET TO DOING IT. And, God doesn’t need my permission or to send the itinerary across my desk for approval of His plans for me… As Mark Batterson states in one of my favorite books, “God wants you to get where God wants you to go more than you want to get where God wants you to go!” …He is faithful. He’s got the details under control. He’s in the business of caring about the small things and details of my life just as much as the big things—an infinite God is not limited by finite dimensions. {Batterson; Beth Moore}
And so, I’m left with: ‘Arise. Go’… without the details. In faith…. DO I HAVE TO GO SOMEWHERE ACROSS THE GLOBE TO ACCOMPLISH HIS MISSION? Maybe, in a sense, that’s easier. Taking nothing at all away from the often dangerous and undesirable situations and places that missionaries around the world willingly serve in daily, for me, stepping out in boldness for Christ where no one knows me, where I don’t have to care so much about what they think about me for doing so…. Well, for me: how much faith does that take? Stepping out in boldness for Christ in the place where I was born and raised… where I might have to expose my innermost struggles and pains to impact others for Christ. Now, for me, that’s intensely scary…
So, trying to discern God’s will for my life has been made overly complicated by my persistent over analytical disposition. Sometimes, it’s quite simple to figure out what He wants me to do, if I just shut up my own brain for a minute and listen!!! With highly variable and seemingly endless possibilities in front of me: All things being equal; with none of my selection of choices in blatant opposition to God’s Word/ will… well, there’s nothing wrong with following/ going for the desire of my heart. I don’t have the exact quote, but Piper wrote that in a book once, and the idea of it was reinforced for me just a few days ago. As Beth Moore surmised at a conference I attended this past weekend, “You don’t have to feel like you MUST choose suffering for Christ to be good enough; we will all suffer a plenty anyway!”
I have, and have had, a strong desire to be at home, with my family. To be near… And I’ve been toiling with the truth that: where ever you are, that IS your mission field… you don’t have to be ½ way around the globe to be a missionary. Being home, the desire to be with family… there’s nothing in that remotely against God’s will/ Word for my life that I’ve yet discerned.
So, how do I decide between several choices that could easily align with His word and will??? LOVE GOD LOVE PEOPLE… Well, all things being equal: there’s nothing wrong with following the desires of your heart.
As soon as I was fairly certain on my decision to move back home to WV, to live near my family, I was faced with the opportunity to go on an around the world mission trip extravaganza… 11 countries in 11 months. Saturday night I was already questioning the decision I’d made so surely Saturday morning. So, I did what I do: I prayed. And I asked God for a word. For something. Anything. And I asked for something kinda’ bold because due to the timeline for my work and the mission trip possibility I had to make a decision rather quickly… It is truly amazing God never loses His patience with me!
And, God in His faithfulness to me, and fully understanding my chronic tendency to second guess my choices, well, he gave me a word.
Eze 1-2:11...
Where ever I go, the spirit is there… not just there, but LEADING me there… I have been called not to foreign lands where I don’t speak the languages with hardship of communication… I’m called to my own countrymen (home) where I am called to be BOLD for Christ whether it pleases them or not. I’m called out of my “comfort zone” to share “IT” with my own people. I’m called home. And I’m going. WOW!
**(I have to thank Beth Moore, John Piper, Mark Batterson and Steven Furtick for their interpretations of scripture and messages over the last few weeks that I’m sure have highly influenced the thought processes in this writing.)**
