A Season For Every Activity

These are not the
exact words of my prayers but, if I was being honest, these are the request I
presented to God, I just didn’t put it so bluntly. I don’t like to admit it but
I do, or did, pray for comfort and then at the end I tagged on a “Your will be
done” in hopes that “comfort” was God’s will for my life. But for those of us
who have trusted in Christ and surrendered our lives to Him, His will is NOT
comfort. In the past two years God has begun to open my eyes to the fact that
His will inevitably consist of discomfort. He has shown me that it isn’t
because He wants to punish me or harm me, but rather because this world is
fallen and following after God’s heart means constantly working against the
world, an uphill battle. He asks us to get our hands dirty, to literally loose
our lives for the Glory of His name, and to spread His word to the world
(Matthew 10:39 and Mark 16:15). God is showing me that His will for me is far
greater than any plan that I can come up with and He is showing me how much my
perspective needs to change from this world to eternity. And oh how He has
begun to change my plans and my perspective!

It has been
amazing to look back on the past two years (and even 25 years) and see how God
used all of it to lead me here. All the while I’ve been fighting it and
wondering where I was supposed to be and what my next career move was. As I was
getting frustrated and becoming irritated with God for not answering my prayer,
in reality He was answering it, He was working on the “His will” part while I
was wanting and working hard for the “comfort” part. But as a good friend of
mine told me, “God knows your heart far better than you do!”

I’m not going to
lie, there is a part of me that still wants a comfortable, American dream life,
but I am dying to that person and seeking God and the life He has for me which
I know is far better. It is scary to take this leap and hard to leave family,
friends, and the comforts of indoor plumbing. But I’m trading it all in for a
backpack and 70 strangers who, thanks to the wonders of social media, have
become good friends and will be beside me in taking Christ’s love to the
nations!

In all of it the
scripture Ecclesiastes 3:1, “There is a time for everything, and a season for
every activity under the heavens,” has truly come to life for me. There really
is a reason for everything and when we follow God, He leads us right into His
will and perfect plan. In order to really see how God has ordained and guided
me to this point in His sovereignty, I have to go back a few years. (I would go
back all 25 but this is already a lengthy blog!) (Please excuse my free hand
style of writing for this next long paragraph. I hope you can interpret the
rambling.)

Deep breath, and:
I graduated from Berry College in 2008 and immediately began a job that I quit
two months later because I could not work in an environment that I felt was
unethical. At the time I was living with my parents (which was unplanned) and
could afford to take a little time to find a job. About a month later I got a
part time job and a family from church offered to let me move in with them.
Such hospitality and a huge blessing! The part time job turned into a full time
job and needless to say it was not my “dream job.” If it had been, I don’t think
I would be in a place that I would consider leaving for 11 months, or at least
it would have been a much harder decision. After about a year in this job I
began looking into other job opportunities that were more closely associated
with my passion, coaching. But everything I went after fell through. Now I see
that if any of these opportunities had worked out I might not be where I am
now. There were several good things that came from this job though, I made some
wonderful friends and I was able to pay off ALL of my debt! Praise GOD! I am no
longer a ‘slave to my debtors’ (Proverbs 22:7). Again, if I was, I don’t know that I would be in a position
to leave. I’ll zoom through the next 9 months… My cousin, found out she was
pregnant and she didn’t know where she and her child would live. God began
pressing on my heart that this is where He wanted me. So we found a place to
rent together, a miracle and story in itself, and we moved in 3 days before her
beautiful daughter was born. After a few months she returned to the Bible study
she had been going to before the baby was born. I went with her a few times and
the group was going through the Gospels. One particular night were discussing
the passage “go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have
treasure in heaven; and come, follow me” (Matthew 19:21) and “Follow me, and
let the dead bury their own dead” (Matthew 8:22). For whatever reason, I
account it to the Holy Spirit, I had a lot to say about this passage. From that
night forward, for a little over a year, the Lord continued to bring that
passage to mind and I started wondering if God was trying to tell me something.
The only answer I ever got was, just be ready and willing. If I never moved in
with her, I doubt I would have ever gone to that Bible study. Zoom forward
another 9 months and my sister asked me to go on a weekend backpacking trip
with her before she went off to college. We went to Cumberland Island and it
was MISERABLE! …At least the nights (another long story). (I think God was
preparing me for Africa and Cambodia???) That weekend my sister made a comment
about something she thought I would love, I think her words were something to
the affect of, “it’s like an 11 month mission trip to 11 countries or
something… I’m not sure what it is called though.” That was pretty much the
beginning and end of that conversation and we didn’t talk or think about it the
rest of the weekend. But when I got home, for about two weeks God continued to
remind me of this elusive mission trip. So, I finally obeyed and like any
generation Y’er, I googled it. My first though was “WOW, I would LOVE to do
something like this.” And my second was, “I have to stop looking at this.” So I
closed the computer and prayed that if this was God’s will that He continue to
press it on my heart, but that I was NOT going to actively think on it but
rather pray and surrender it to God any time it came to mind. I was worried
that if I looked to deeply into it I would get excited and it would become
about me and I didn’t want to do it for the wrong reasons. For another two
weeks God continued to bring it to mind so I looked into it a little more and
then talked to my mentor about it. She encouraged me to walk through the doors
God opened and pray that He would close them if it was not His will. That is
what I did. I applied, interviewed, and was accepted in September.

There are even
more events and circumstances that I didn’t mention that all led me to this
point. Even though I questioned everything about my life during that time and
had no clue what God was doing, He has opened my eyes to show me that He did
and does have a plan, even if I can’t see it. “In his heart a man plans his
course, but the LORD determines his steps” (Proverbs 16:9).

I hope that if
you are in a place in life where you don’t see what God is doing, or why stuff
isn’t working out, or if you are just unsure of what to do next, that you are
encouraged. God sees the big picture, and this is part of it, and this will
pass!

Today, the
prayers of my heart look more like this: Oh Lord, Break my heart for what
breaks Yours!