Have you ever taken the time to observe the way that people communicate, particularly over the phone? Today I was watching my little sister play basketball and I watched multiple people around me answer their phone. Watching these different people answer their phones I noticed that there were around four different ways people could answer. One answered with a smile and an upbeat attitude, likely there was good news on the other end. The second answered as if it was commanded, the conversation was short but not doubt efficient. The third answered with rolled eyes, honestly it was probably a parent asking their child to do something they no doubt, didn’t want to do. Then there was the fourth. The fourth person looked at the phone and turned off the sound, signaling the conversation was over before it even began.
And I started to think. How many times have I seen God calling me and turned off the sound? How many times have I seen the call, a universal sign for “I need to communicate with you” and I just shut Him off? So many times I have shut off the sound and said, “God I’ll call you back, right now I’m busy.”
My second semester of my freshman year I found the World Race through a simple Google search, “overseas mission trips.” I started to dive into what it would mean to be a racer, the funding required, the people I would see, the way that God would be using me as a tool. However, I also realized how much I was going to need to rely on him. I realized how this would effect my plans for graduate school, how it would uproot my life for a year, how I wouldn’t be able to be around the people I had become comfortable with, the people I knew loved me. Then my conversation with the Lord started.
At first the conversation looked along the lines of person 1 gladly greeting the Lord to make a change in my heart, then person two. My conversation about the World Race was still occurring but my attitude and demeanor was making it clear that I was not interested. Then conversations became that of person 3. I would see the Lord’s call to action and his commandment, but I was rolling my eyes the whole time, question everything that was put in front of me. Why did he need me, there had to be someone more qualified, someone better for the task at hand. Soon, as I am sad to say I turned into caller 4, and the communication ceased, not because the Lord changed his mind and my course, but because I decided this conversation was over.
Daily I ask the Lord to transform my heart. To push my heart, mind, and spirit in the direction he desires for me, not the one I desire for my own. I continually repeat Jeremiah 29:11 and know that the Lord has planned my course and my steps. I know and find immense comfort in the knowledge that His plans are more perfect and beautiful than anything I could have ever imagined in my mind. I applied to the World Race and now I’m receiving the opportunity to radically live for the Lord out of a backpack, running daily towards the cross and loving each and ever person that I come into contact with. I cannot imagine the change I will see on the race, no doubt the most in me. It took time but I soon became caller one again. There will always be times and moments where it is incredibly difficult, overwhelming, demanding, and challenging to follow my Father, but the reality is that I am not here to walk the course I have planned. I am here to serve as a tool in the hands of the ultimate craftsman, and I cannot wait to see what he creates.
‘Blessed are those who hear the world of God and obey it” –Luke 11:28
