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We were asked to write a blog about how we were called
to this mission trip. Here is my story….
Over
the past year-and-a-half, God has forced me to take a long, hard look at my
values, goals, and direction in life. The catalyst for this major change can be traced back to one event:
going on my first mission trip. God used
my month spent in Ireland
to light a fire within me that has only grown stronger and fiercer with
time. The words of Pastor Rob Bell in
his book Velvet Elvis could very well
be my own:
“Now I had
something I could do with my life…. I found something I could give my life to.
Or it found me.
planned. No angels were involved that I
know of – just a young, restless soul discovering a purpose.”
Nowmy discovery was not an instantaneous event. Rather, it has been a slow, steady process, like the rising of the
tide. While in Ireland, God
opened my eyes to the bigger picture. I
got my first taste of God’s heart for the
world. Learning to give of myself in
service to another was one of the most freeing experiences of my life. I guess Jesus really did know what He was
talking about when He said that in order to gain your life, you must lose it! Serving in Ireland gave me the opportunity to
experience this firsthand, and I returned home craving more.
It
turns out that the frantic pace of life here in America is extremely good at
distracting us so that spiritual truths and values get buried in the midst of
our “to-do” lists and busy schedules. I
got caught in that trap too. For my next
two semesters at college, I had very little time to cultivate the seeds that
God had planted within me the summer before in Ireland.
But
God caused them to grow anyways.
That
big realization came this past summer as I prepared to enter my senior year in
college. God brought me to a critical
junction of my faith. I saw before me
two paths that I could take. The first
path led me to the typical American dream – a great job, a nice house, possibly
a family somewhere down the line. To me,
this option seemed so … dull. Lifeless. Now please don’t get me wrong. I think that God can use everyone in powerful
ways. To some people, God has called
them to be a light in a corporate setting. These places need Christ as much as anywhere else. But I wrestled with the sense that this was
not what God was calling me to.
The
other path I saw before me ended with a huge question mark. I felt that God was inviting me into the
unknown, and at first, I was terrified. He was asking me to let go of my illusion of control over my life and to
enter into the messiness of reality. What
do I mean by that? Real life is
messy. We live in a fallen, sinful
world. We have all messed up somewhere,
and we are all in desperate need of redemption. God didn’t shy away from this messiness; He dove right into the middle
of it. He engaged with the “sinners” of
His day – prostitutes, thieves, tax collectors. Today, He calls us to follow in His footsteps.
on the World Race is my answer to that call. I see this trip as a chance to follow God’s leading. It will force me to give up my sense of
control. It will also throw me right
into the “messiness” of our world. My
hope is that I will learn to see God more clearly through the messiness. As I go out and engage others with the love
of Christ, I believe that God will also change my life. This is something that I can give my life
to. And I am becoming more and more
convinced that I did not find this.
found me.
