“Suppose God tells you to do something that is an enormous test of your common sense, totally going against it. What will you do?” -Oswald Chambers
What will I do?
What will I do when God tells me to leave my family for 9 months straight?
What will I do when God tells me to not go to college next year, potentially giving up scholarship opportunities?
What will I do when God tells me to give up the comfortable blessings I have and trade them for 9 months in a tent and sleeping bag?
What will I do when God calls me to do His work around the world, even though I don’t know exactly where I’ll be or who I’ll be working with?
Last August, I was praying a lot about going on the World Race Gap Year trip. There was one day when i was especially thinking about all the hard and sad things about going. I was struggling the most with leaving family and close friends for 9 straight months.
While I was thinking about all of this, I was also reading Follow Me by David Platt (which i highly recommend). In chapter 1 he quotes Oswald Chambers’ well-known devotional, My Utmost for His Highest. Here’s what I read from Chambers:
“Suppose God tells you to do something that is an enormous test of your common sense, totally going against it. What will you do? Will you hold back?…Jesus Christ demands the same unrestrained, adventurous spirit in those who have placed their trust in Him…
“If a person is ever going to do anything worthwhile, there will be times when he must risk everything by his leap in the dark…
“By the test of common sense, Jesus Christ’s statements may seem mad, but when you test them by the trial of faith, your findings will fill your spirit with the awesome fact that they are the very words of God. Trust completely in God, and when He brings you a new opportunity of adventure, offering it to you, see that you take it.“
Reading this passage was the first time I was confident that I felt God calling me toward the World Race Gap Year. God used Oswald Chambers (and David Platt) to challenge me. In many ways this trip is indeed against common sense. And yet as I continue following Christ on this path, I know that following Him whole-heartedly, adventurously, and with abandon, is the best thing this life has to offer.
I hope that Chamber’s words challenge you as much as they do me. I pray that each of you reading this will listen to what Christ says to you and will choose to follow him wholeheartedly. He is completely deserving of our obedience and of our whole lives!
Thanks to so many of you who have faithfully given financially toward my trip, I am up to $3,900 now! My total amount needed to go is $12,500. That means that I only need about $270 more to reach 1/3 of my total amount! Friends, please help me reach this 1/3 marker soon! I ask that you simply pray and ask Christ if He wants you to give to support His work through me. If He tells you “yes, give!” don’t hesitate. Obey and trust your Savior! After all, doesn’t everything we have really belong to Him anyway?
