Two years ago God laid missions on my heart. He’d carved a path in my life that would have allowed me to graduate that fall and attend seminary in the spring to study Missiology. At first I was excited. I finally felt like I had purpose. I felt like I really knew what I was supposed to do with my life. Then it came down to making the choice. I realized choosing His path meant leaving behind family and friends. It meant not being able to keep my horse, J.R., whom I had, then, for 8 years. It meant not being able to bring my dog and not being able to see my beloved godson as much as I was used to. It meant moving to a city I had little desire to be in, although I’d at least live close to my sister. It meant sacrifice.
Two years ago I said “No.”
Almost as soon as I’d made the choice, my heart was light. It had been relieved from the weight of His call. I no longer felt the urgency to go. I didn’t feel the longing to serve. I just wanted my life. I wanted my things and my way. I wanted to go to school, get a job, buy a house, “live the life”.
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?
Matthew 16:24-26 (NIV)
I wasn’t willing to deny myself. I didn’t want to follow Him if that meant I couldn’t have things my way. There is a saying that you are always either moving towards God or away from Him. You are never staying in the same place. At that moment I’d begun moving away from Him quickly.
I was idle for at least a year. Idle in my faith. Idle in my spirituality. I just busied myself with school and work. I would only go to church when we would visit my sister and her now-husband in New Orleans. We would go to this little church called Westwego Baptist. I LOVED it there. I still remember the first time I went. I hadn’t known that a church could be so friendly and loving. My only past experience with church had been incredibly negative and hypocritical.
Anyway, that fall my sister came to visit and she got me to go to Friendship Baptist. I fell in love. Fast forward to August and I was baptized. Fast-forward to January.
I heard this song on K-Love. I believe God speaks to us through all sorts of mediums and experiences and it was as if he was speaking directly to me. He began working in my heart again, and this time I was open to it. I wanted more of Him in my life. I wanted all of Him in my life, and honestly, since I made that choice my life is full of joy. He worked in my heart for three long months, encouraging me to get more involved. In the church, in ministry. At that point in time I went to church once a week on Sundays. I was happy with that arrangement. I was complacent, but complacency is dangerous. It’s like a trap that tricks you into believing you are just fine where you are. “There is no need to expand. There is no need to grow. You are fine just as you are, where you are.”
In April I felt such a strong call to Missions that I immediately began looking into different options abroad. Now, I have heard probably a thousand times when I mention mission work… “Well that’s great but we could really use that mission work here.” I agree. We could. And there are people working right here in the U.S. People who are called to work in the country. My own sister does mission-work in New Orleans, a city in grave need of the light of the Lord. She is called do in-country mission work.
I feel called to missions abroad and the Lord laid that on my heart with such urgency that I was attempting to figure out how I could get on the field by the summer. Then my lovely sister, Kait, the one in New Orleans, mentioned the World Race. I looked it up that day; within three hours I had applied. Applying was like a trigger for me…I realized how could I do anything on the World Race (minister, talk to people, love strangers, etc) if I couldn’t do that here? It was the push I needed to dive into the church. I started going to Sunday School, Sunday Sermon, Sunday Lifegroup, and Wednesday night church. The second Sunday School I went to I got the opportunity to share my testimony and I did without hesitation. And if you know me, you know public speaking isn’t my forte. Or telling strangers about my life.
The moment I found out my church was going on a mission trip in June I signed up. I paid. I didn’t want to at first because I didn’t know anyone (also my excuse for never going to Sunday school or Wednesday church) but then I heard this in my head: “You don’t go because you don’t know anyone…how can you know anyone if you don’t go?”
Touche.
So yeah…that’s how I got into the mission field. I’m saying “Yes!” to every opportunity here, because I know God will use it to teach me something for while I’m abroad. If it makes me anxious, I pray and that anxiety is lifted. And that’s amazing.
Thanks for reading!
Love <3
Savannah
