God had gotten me to a place where…
I had stopped trying to figure out how everything was going to come together. All of that spinning had gotten me nowhere. I had seen and experienced a God who lines things up in astonishing ways, sometimes after I’d long given up.
I had resolved that I wasn’t going to try to make things happen. He has never been anxious that things won’t work out. I had begun to simply commune with Him wherever I was, whatever I was doing.
While I had always asked Him questions, I was starting to trust His silence and His seeming inaction. He hears me and He loves me and the fact that He hasn’t given me an explanation for why my circumstances haven’t changed or worked out, didn’t mean He doesn’t care. Faith necessitates the absence of things hoped for.
I had paid attention to the ways God had moved other people. There is often this process before that moment when He says, “Go and I will show you.” What He had been saying to me the months leading up to this was, “Be careful not to commit to anything prematurely” and “I am doing a new thing.”
One of the primary lessons of the last several years had been learning to let God lead. Every year I’d asked if I was where He wanted me to be. When He assured me I was I usually responded with “but what about this? And what about that?” Followed by the answer, “Trust me.”
In many ways 2012 had been filled with let downs. After waiting for God to move, seeing things start to unfold in promising ways only to have them fizzle out into nothing had left my heart weary. My response had been to expect less from Him and asking,
“What is so wrong with trying to settle for what seems possible?”
That was where my heart was in October when I went to my church’s women’s retreat. In the midst of that time He said,
Tina, you’ve tasted of the Kingdom and you know that it’s good. You know that there is a power that can take hold of you and enable you to live like Jesus. But how badly do you want it? Because this Kingdom Life is going to take everything you’ve got. Do you want a minor adjustment or are you ready to be transformed?
I suddenly recognized that over the years I’d started limiting God in terms of what He could say, especially if it seemed crazy, irresponsible, and if it involved leaving San Francisco.
Enter: The World Race. A trip where God builds the kingdom inside me by building the kingdom outside me. Having Him build my faith by ministering to others. The point not being in where I am going, but how I’ll bring the Kingdom of God as I go. Something I don’t think I can learn in my hometown, where I will inevitably lean on the crutches of my talents and knowledge of how things work. Join Him in accomplishing something that is entirely out of human reach. Entering the risk zone, where what I have and know is not enough that I might see the glory of God.
Initial excitement turned into misgivings which turned into a sense that this really was what He had for me next. It involved things that I had dreamed of but could never figure out how to make happen. Answering unspoken prayers from years past.
I was strongly considering quitting my job, when I got laid off. It still took a couple more months to commit. The final kicker was realizing that this was about more than just my life. That all this is part of something bigger that He is doing for the restoration and healing of the world. As I spent time remembering my prayers and what God has shown me about Himself, I knew that He wanted more for me and so did I.
