It’s hard to hear a voice when you’re not listening.
It’s hard to fulfill a calling when practicality is staring you in the face.
It’s hard to let God lead when you’re waking up with closed fists.
It’s hard to let go of control when you can’t see whom you’re giving it to.
We all know that God is the one we are giving our lives to, He is the one who will guide us and He is the one we will follow. But, it is really that easy?
Do you really wake up every morning trusting that his plan is greater, that his words are wiser, that his strength is stronger? Can you honestly say that every day you have lived thus far is a day where you have given God everything, all that is within you?
It’s because it’s not that easy.
Whether knowingly or unknowingly, we live our lives gripping control so tightly that our knuckles are white. We want so badly to do what we think is right for us, what we think makes the most sense, what we think will please others, what we think will make us happy. We pursue these things, we get in lost in them and eventually we become them. We grit our teeth and clench our fists until the job gets done, until the goal gets met, until the sale is closed, until the day is over. And then we do it all again.
I am just as guilty as anyone else of living this way. I have pursued careers, I have pursued degrees, I have pursued relationships and I have invested so much of myself into a plan that I thought was right for me. I followed the directions of this life with such rigor and eventually came to a place where I was so overwhelmed because despite doing everything right, it all felt so wrong.
I was overwhelmed by a feeling that there was more to life and that I was meant to be a part of whatever that “more” was. It was a paralyzing thought because how was a twenty-one year old suburban girl with no degree and no credentials going to play a part in God’s plan? I had so many obligations and so much on my plate already. I had to finish school, pay off student loans, go to seminary, learn my bible better, know how to defend my faith, I needed to be someone that others looked to and thought, “Wow, what an accomplished and respectable young woman. Surely God will use her.”
Then God began to change the way I saw my life.
It was the twenty-ninth of May, after a long shift at work and all I wanted to do was sit down, eat some pizza and watch a movie. However, my neighborhood was having its semi annual block barbecue and for some reason it was God’s genius idea to give up my relaxing evening to go socialize with my neighbors. It wasn’t long before I started conversing with a friend that her words brought tears to my sleep-deprived eyes.
“God wants you to take the headphones off. All you’re hearing is static.”
The static, the busyness, the obligations, and the checklist I had in my mind of what my life would be… I was so caught up in making sure I would be qualified to answer the kingdom call that I couldn’t hear the King calling. I knew in my heart that God had called me to be a missionary but little by little he is teaching me that that means something different than what I expected. God has shown me that he doesn’t call the qualified but instead qualifies the called.
But as I started off saying, It’s hard. But what would faith be if it were easy?
In 2 Samuel 24, King David is in need of a place to give a burnt offering to God. A man named Araunah asks David what he needs and David asks to buy the man’s threshing floor in order to make an offering. The man kindly offers the floor as a gift to David. Then in verse 24 He says, “No, but I will buy it from you for a price. I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God that cost me nothing.”
God is a God worthy to be praised, worthy to be fought for, worthy to be loved. But if we were to think and do all these things without paying a price, how much do they really mean to us? How great is my God if I can’t give up my pride and follow him without yet graduating college? How much does Christ’s sacrifice mean to me if I would rather hit snooze than wake up to read his word? How confident am I in his plan if I feel the need to defend myself to those who don’t understand that God’s call isn’t always practical? How much does my faith truly mean to me if it costs me nothing?
This journey will be hard but I would rather fight in the battle than wait to see if we’ve won because my God is a god worth fighting for, my God is a god worth sacrificing for, my God is a god that is worth costing me everything if that is what it takes. I am not qualified to fight in this war but God has called me and therefore I will go… the question is, are you with me?
