Indian Giver

I'm starting my last week of work here in Nairobi..which is crazy! But one thing I've been thinking about a lot since I've been in Kenya is what I'm going to do with the rest of my life. I graduated from college 2 months ago and I still have no clue what kind of career path I'm on...I realize that's something I probably should've figured out before graduation, but oh well! The point is, I have no idea what I want to do with my life. But I do know what I don't want to do with it...and that is live it completely for myself. I am honestly terrified of having a real grown up job (anyone who knows me knows that!) but I realize at some point it might be necessary. What scares me about it though, is the awful cycle of selfishness that grown up jobs come with. You work to get money to live but most of your life is spent at work....for what? So I can have a nice house and a car and cable and weekly trips to Taco Bell? It just seems like a crazy cycle to me. You're working just to sustain your lifestyle, your own standard of living. But why?? What good is it doing me or anyone to just have this mediochre life filled with work and spending money and more work and then spending more money? It just all seems crazy to me. Isn't the definition of insane doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results? (Mind you, I didn't actually look that up, I heard it somewhere and am for some reason too lazy right now to type in "Definition of insane" into the little search box at the top of my browser...I guess Africa hasn't changed me that much after all haha) My point is...working just to get money to live, and then living just to work, seems like the actions of a crazy person.

I don't want to live like that. I don't want my life to be lived out for my own personal enjoyment. That's not why I'm here. I don't know what I want to do, but I know that I can't survive in a 9 to 5 job, just working for the money. I need more than that. I need to live for something or someone other than myself. I don't want to look back in 30 years and realize I have absolutely nothing to show for it but stuff.

I was thinking about that at church this weekend. We went to a pretty cool church service at the place we're staying, it was kind of American-ized but it was run all by Kenyans and seemed geared toward younger people. It was a good time. They played a number of songs I'd never heard of before and one of them went like this: "Yes, I surrender all. Yes, I turn it all over. Yes, it all belongs to you." While we were singing this I realized something....my life isn't my own anyways. It belongs to God. Living it for Christ isn't something I can do if and when I feel like it. It's who I am. I gave up my life a long time ago when I accepted Christ's gift of salvation and forgiveness and grace. It's not mine anymore, it's not up to me to live-- it's Christ's life. I am literally just a body for Him to use. It's ridiculous at this point for me to think about what I want to do or where I want to go or what I want to use this life for because it's not up to me.

This life isn't mine anymore, but for some reason I keep trying to use it like it is. I accepted Christ's gift and gave him my life, but for some reason I'm still trying to use it like it's my own. It's like giving someone a pair of socks for their birthday and then wearing the socks everyday for the next 10 years, but always referring to them as someone else's socks. That's just silly. You wear them, you wash them (hopefully), they're in your drawer at home. Just claiming they're someone else's socks doesn't make it true. You're treating them like your own. And that's what I've been doing with my life. I claim it's Christ's but I use it as my own. Basically, I'm an indian giver (please forgive the distasteful stereotype of Indians...I didn't coin the term, I just use it. I'm sure any time you get a gift from a real live Indian you get to keep it).

I gave up my life. I gave it to Christ. So it's kind of silly for me to be using it like it's my own to do what I want with. My life is Christ's so if he sees fit to give me a job or make me homeless or have me date someone or break up with them or be super healthy or get an awful disease....it's ok, because it's His life to do what He wants with. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I have no control over my own life or all my decisions are made for me. That's the whole point of free will, God trusts us enough to be stewards of the lives He has so graciously given us. And I'm also not saying that God is going to tell me specifically where to live or what to do or who to be with. I don't believe God has a super duper specific will for our lives, His will in general is for us to tell people about Him and His love. But God's will is a topic for a whole other discussion. My point is that they're God's socks, He's just letting me borrow them for now. So I need to act like it.

What I'm trying to say is that it's not my life to be lived for my own selfish desires. The purpose of my life isn't to be happy or to have money or to even have a family or a job. The purpose of my life is to spread the love of Christ. So no matter what I do or where I go or what happens to me in the next 10 years I know I need to keep in mind that this life isn't mine. I gave it away. I need to use it the way God wants me to---telling people that He loves them more than they can fathom and that all He wants is for them to love Him back.

**I'd like to make a short disclaimer here and just say that I do not think people with real grown up jobs are terrible people that live only for themselves and are incredibly shallow and selfish. There are much better people than me working real jobs and being amazing witnesses of Christ to their coworkers and neighbors and friends and everyone they meet. Personally, I just really hate having a real job :) I just wanted to throw that out there.**