Here I am in month 11 with 16 days of ministry left and the thought provoking question that is constantly popping into my head is “What’s next?”. My life for a whole year has been mission work and in 24 more days I’ll be back in the United States living with my dad, no job, no school, and no idea what I am going to do, but wanting to live in this new life I have found. Thankfully God has given me a starting point, which I will save for another blog, but for right now I want to ask you a question; what’s your motivation?
See instead of asking what's next I should be asking myself what's my motivation for finding out what's next? Racers frequently wonder what’s next in their lives especially when family, friends, and supporters genuinely want to know. As racers we throw around terms like "feedback", "time to process", and "finding a calling". After listening to a sermon today by Francis Chan called "Living a Life that Matters", I found myself lost in thought. Francis Chan makes a very valid thought provoking statement. Something along the lines of most of us are waiting to find our calling from God, but what we don’t realize is that it should start from a biblical conviction and not just sitting around praying and fasting hoping to hear an audible voice from God saying do this or that. If you want a calling just open up your bible. Here’s a fact that may be hard to swallow: Sometimes God chooses not to hear our prayers. Say What?!? It's true. Let’s go to Isaiah 58:1-12.
(I like the NIV version but I feel the Message version is easier to understand at first so that’s what I am using for this blog.)
1-3 "Shout! A full-throated shout! Hold nothing back—a trumpet-blast shout!
Tell my people what's wrong with their lives,
face my family Jacob with their sins!
They're busy, busy, busy at worship,
and love studying all about me.
To all appearances they're a nation of right-living people—
law-abiding, God-honoring.
They ask me, 'What's the right thing to do?'
and love having me on their side.
But they also complain,
'Why do we fast and you don't look our way?
Why do we humble ourselves and you don't even notice?'
(*The NIV version says, "For day after day they seek me out, the seem eager to know my ways, as if they were a nation that does what is right and has not forsaken the commands of its God. They ask me for just decisions and seem eager for God to come near them. 'Why have we fasted' they say, 'and you have not seen it?' 'Why have we humbled oursleves and you have not noticed?'" Basically asking God why do you hear our prayers?)
Now here's the response
3-5"Well, here's why:
"The bottom line on your 'fast days' is profit.
You drive your employees much too hard.
You fast, but at the same time you bicker and fight.
You fast, but you swing a mean fist.
The kind of fasting you do
won't get your prayers off the ground.
Do you think this is the kind of fast day I'm after:
a day to show off humility?
To put on a pious long face
and parade around solemnly in black?
Do you call that fasting,
a fast day that I, God, would like?
(clearly we are all about putting on a show, but read Matthew 6:1-4 "Be especially careful when you are trying to be good so that you don't make a performance out of it. It might be good theater, but the God who made you won't be applauding. 2-4"When you do something for someone else, don't call attention to yourself. You've seen them in action, I'm sure—'playactors' I call them— treating prayer meeting and street corner alike as a stage, acting compassionate as long as someone is watching, playing to the crowds. They get applause, true, but that's all they get. When you help someone out, don't think about how it looks. Just do it—quietly and unobtrusively. That is the way your God, who conceived you in love, working behind the scenes, helps you out.")
Still wondering what your motivation is or still looking for your calling? Well here you go:
6-9"This is the kind of fast day I'm after:
to break the chains of injustice, (*NIV "loose the chains of injustice")
get rid of exploitation in the workplace, (* NIV "Untie the cords of the yoke")
free the oppressed, (*NIV "Set the oppressed free)
cancel debts. (*NIV "Break every yoke")
What I'm interested in seeing you do is:
sharing your food with the hungry,
inviting the homeless poor into your homes,
putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad,
being available to your own families.
(What will happen?)
Do this and the lights will turn on,
and your lives will turn around at once.
Your righteousness will pave your way.
The God of glory will secure your passage.
Then when you pray, God will answer.
You'll call out for help and I'll say, 'Here I am.'
9-12"If you get rid of unfair practices,
quit blaming victims,
quit gossiping about other people's sins,
If you are generous with the hungry
and start giving yourselves to the down-and-out,
Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness,
your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight.
I will always show you where to go.
I'll give you a full life in the emptiest of places—
firm muscles, strong bones.
You'll be like a well-watered garden,
a gurgling spring that never runs dry.
You'll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew,
rebuild the foundations from out of your past.
You'll be known as those who can fix anything,
restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate,
make the community livable again.
Now please understand this blog is not meant to make anyone feel guilty. I just wanted you all to think about what your motivation for doing things are and point out that maybe we should act first on what the Bible calls us to do and then God will answer us. I don't even know if I am right to say that, but I bellieve to be true. Now I also know that God calls everyone to a different purpose. "We are all one body, but we all are different parts that make up that body." Some of us have been called to go and some people are called to be senders and supporters, but what's your motivation for it all?
