You’re supposed to have some pivotal moment. When you decide to backpack around the world to serve the least and the lost, to sell your belongings and leave everything behind, its supposed to be because there was this moment. This moment where you just knew. But I didn’t.
Maybe there was a moment and I just missed it. I don’t know. What I do know is that when I started looking at the application for the race, it was as if the decision was already made. Like somehow my heart had been thinking this over for a long time and just decided yes, but forgot to tell me. And because I’m stubborn and I wanted my heart to know that it wasn’t allowed to make important decisions without me, I waited. I thought about it. I pretended that I hadn’t decided. I pretended that I might do something totally different. I was fooling myself.
The thing is, when your heart is set on Jesus, its going to follow the pull of His will whether your head wants to or not. So I applied. I prayed. I said to Jesus, “Hey, if you don’t want me to do this, you better make that really, really clear. I tend to miss things, so there had better be neon signs pointing me where to go.” I got accepted. I prayed some more. And then, I said yes to His call.
I didn’t have that one moment. I had many moments. For me, it was like the waves in a calm sea. Strong but soft, slowly pushing and pulling, always headed for shore. Sometimes its frightening, sometimes you feel as if you might go under, but I know Jesus has called me and He will sustain me. His promises are true. As C.S. Lewis said “There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.”
