I sat at a scenic overlook, on Highway 360 looking out over the Texas Hill Country, pleading for God to give me an answer. Asking desperately for His plan for my life.
I had just learned I had been accepted to the World Race. And I thought I knew my answer.
Until God started speaking.
“Read Jeremiah 1,” He said. “I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb. Before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as my prophet to the nations…Don’t say ‘I’m too young’ for you must go wherever I send you and say whatever I tell you. And don’t be afraid of people, for I will be with you and will protect you…Look, I have put my words in your mouth! Today I appoint you to stand up against nations and kingdoms.“
“Really, God?” I said. “You want me to go to the nations?! Now?!?”
After much debate, I acquiesced to His demand, still not thrilled with this thing God was calling me to.
But He promised to do big things.
He promised to show up.
To change me.
To change my perspective.
And He did. The God I have met this year doesn’t fit in the box I have had Him in my whole life. He goes beyond all my preconceptions. Destroys my idealistic understanding.
Because He DOES move and speak. He IS ALL the things He says He is, even when it doesn’t seem logical or normal.
He DOES do big things, and I have seen them. And He’s not done doing them. He has not finished leading me out of the wilderness. There is always further to go. I can’t wait to see where He takes me.
But just like Jeremiah preaches, sometimes God calls us to go home.
“I will come and do for you all the good things I have promised, and I will bring you home again. For I know the plans I have for you. They are plans for good, and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. In those days when you pray, I will listen. If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me. I will be found by you. I will end your captivity and restore your fortunes. I will gather you out of the nations where I sent you and will bring you home again to your own land.” Jeremiah 29:10-14
I have seen God do the good things He has promised. I have seen Him be faithful. I have found Him in Cambodia and Swaziland. He ended my captivity in Guatemala and Vietnam. He restored my fortunes in Malawi and Ukraine.
And now He is bringing me home again, to Austin. To my own land.
I am so eager to see all that God continues to do, as my spot on the globe changes, but I remain in Him.
Today I sit on a Greek beach thanking God that He is so big that He has brought me out of the desert to bring me into His promise land. That even though I fought him two years ago on the side of a highway in Austin, He is good and let me find the freedom in Him I so desperately .
