If you have experience in emergency response, or have seen it on TV shows, or anything of the sort, you are probably familiar with the term “standby”. The word is defined as a person or thing who is in a “state of readiness for duty or immediate deployment.” In emergency situations, people who are on standby are in a position to engage in help and perform duties whenever they are called on. They don’t need to prepare to start the duty when their name is called. It is their job to be in the position to go as soon as they hear the word.
This week, I came to understand the implications of the word “standby” a little more intimately.
Let me paint you a word picture. Our month in Chile was amazing. We stayed in a city called Antofagasta, which is pinned between the desert/mountains and the pacific ocean. It was beautiful, our hosts were amazing, we didn’t want the month to end. But as is life, the month did come to an end, and soon it was time for us to begin our journey to El Alto, Bolivia. A few days before we got on the bus, we spent some time in a smaller town closer to the border with our host family, called San Pedro. It was a wonderful time and made it even harder to say goodbye, but we still knew the time was coming and we did our best to prepare ourselves for the next leg of our journey.
Tears were shed, hugs were held tightly, noses were runny as we got on the bus and left for Bolivia. Five hours later we arrived at the border and were taken aback by the fact that our visas had been denied and we were being deported back to Chile. Our team was herded back onto a bus and dropped off at the Chilean border control, where we waited for hours for a bus to take us to Calama, a city right next to San Pedro, aka basically back to where we started that morning. Our host called his friends and we were set up with a place to stay for the weekend within a couple of hours. Thirteen hours since we had left that morning, we arrived back in Calama exhausted, starving, and a little stinky, to a church where we had hot showers, food ready for us, and plenty of room to set up our sleeping pads and sleep. Thanks God!
The next day, we had to figure out how we were getting to Bolivia. We knew we had to wait until at least Monday to try to get visas again, since that was the next time the embassy opened. So our plan was to get all of our paperwork together, get there on Monday, get our visas, get a night bus, and get into Bolivia by Tuesday.
Fortunately it’s month 10 and we don’t rely too heavy on plans actually working out exactly like we want them to, because this one did not. We were told that the embassy wouldn’t be processing visas until Wednesday, but that we could try again at the border and hopefully get through this time. A good plan except that the busses wouldn’t sell us tickets until we had the visas. You see the catch-22 there? So today our team leader sat us down and told us this: we were going to try again Tuesday morning at the embassy to get the visas, even though they said they wouldn’t do them until Wednesday. If that worked, we would get a bus for Tuesday night or Wednesday morning. If it didn’t work, we would try again Wednesday morning to go get the visas and then hopefully be able to get on a bus that afternoon, unless it was sold out and then we would have to wait. So basically, we had dozens of directions that each hour of the day could potentially go.
“Just be packed and ready to leave at a moments notice” was the summary of how the next few days would go. Aka, be on standby.
I’m a pretty ~roll with the punches~ kind of person, but living on hourly notice of what to do can start to get to you after a while. When we got put back on the bus to be deported, our team just looked at each other, a little speechless, and then we prayed. We prayed that God would open our eyes to the purpose in this, because we know that everything is in His plan and for His glory. There was no real reason our visas were denied, we had all the paperwork, so the only thing we could do was be open to move when God wanted us to move, and stay when He wanted us to stay.
When God asks you to be on standby, what is your response? To sulk because it’s annoying to wait when you don’t know the answer? That’s me more times than I like to admit.
I hope that I learn to keep my shoes on so to speak. To be ready to run when He says run and stand still when I need to listen for His voice. I can’t be ready to act unless I’m listening for His call. I can’t listen for His call if I’m stuck in my own plans.
I want to be ready to jump in when He says go, even if that means getting deported and having to find lodging for a week in a random city. Because being on standby isn’t as much about the action as it is about the being still. Being in the posture of readiness to act.
I read a journal prompt the other day that said “what are the things in your life you need to mute in order to hear God’s voice?”
Are you in the position to hear? Or are the things around you drowning out the call to action?
Be present in the moments when God puts you on standby, He’ll call you in for the moment He needs you. Don’t miss that call.
