So there’s two things I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. I’m not sure if they fit together but I’m going to put them in the same blog post because I’m lazy so I will try to fake my way into making them sound like they’re related. If you can figure out where the two thoughts come together you win a special prize! Marshall’s losing his teeth now and I can’t keep them all, so….
The North American was a few weeks ago (and was amazing, by the way!) and I spent most of my time at the Team Expansion Unleashed for the Unreached booth. For those of you who weren’t there, it was a really cool, humongous booth set up for people at the convention to research and hopefully adopt an unreached people group. Once they chose a people group they placed a pin on the big map where their people group was located. It was really amazing, we had around 200 people choose people groups and the map filled up really quickly. So that was really cool and very exciting because it will be my job (when I finally get down there!) to follow up with these people and hopefully work with them on a long term basis.
So anyways—here I am, seeing all these people researching these different people groups and putting their pins all over this map and it kind of occurred to me, I could’ve been born in any of these places. I could’ve been born in India or Afghanistan or North Korea. I could’ve been raised in a Muslim family or I could’ve been born to Atheists or I could’ve been born to Fred Phelps (God Forbid!). The point is, I was born to 1 family out of billions. I happened to be born to a Christian family that took me to church all my life and showed me Christ and his grace and what it means to be a Christian. Would I still be so dedicated to the cause of Christ if I had been born in one of those other places? Maybe. Maybe not. There’s no way to know.
But then last week (due to the fact that I was home alone and really bored and entertaining myself by watching lots of historically set movies) I started thinking—I could’ve been born not just anywhere in the world, but at any time during history. I could’ve grown up during the time of Constantine or in the Middle Ages or in the 1920s. There are literally infinite possibilities of time/place combinations for me to exist. Europe in the 1500s, South America in 2000 BC, or Ohio in 1987. It’s not that I just feel blessed to be who I am and where I am at the time I’m in. I definitely do. But it’s more than that. Why? Out of these billions of places and times I could’ve been born, why now? I have a hard time believing that it’s just chance that we’re each born exactly where we were during the exact time period we’re in. I know there’s more to it than that. I think God specifically brought you (and me) into existence at this exact time and place because this is when He knew we’d be most effective for Him. It’s no accident that I was born when and where I was out of these infinite number of options.
So the trick now, I suppose, is figuring out what it is God wants me for here and now. I probably won’t ever know exactly what it is God wants me for or why I exist now and not 1000 years ago. But at least I know there is a reason and that it was not an accident (even if I was an accident KYLA!).
So that’s kind of comforting. A lot of the time (especially right now while I’m in limbo between slight unemployment and an actual job while I’m fundraising) I feel kind of useless. And a little lost, to be honest. I’m fundraising, yes, but it’s a slow, somewhat frustrating process at times where you have to put your entire self-worth on the line for people to judge. That may seem a little dramatic, but it does feel like that sometimes. Here I am telling people about my dreams and goals and passions and heart, telling them that I found my true calling in life and they get to listen to me, judge me, and decide whether or not I am worthy of their time or prayers or money. **Now, to be clear, I don’t feel that way with most people. Almost everyone I talk to is very excited for me and they’re so happy for me and they’re almost always willing to pray for me even if they can’t help me in other ways, which I totally understand and appreciate. But it’s still hard to put your entire being out there for examination and judgment and approval so you can do your dream job. It’s very humbling, which is not a bad thing. And I’ve learned so much so far and met some really incredible, generous, sacrificial people. **
Sorry, I got a bit sidetracked. The point I was trying to make was that I’m in this super weird in between stage of my life where I have a job waiting for me, but I just can’t get there yet. So I can’t really get another job because I’m working full time trying to get to the job I have waiting. Most of my friends have real jobs or are going back to school this month or are married or live far away. They’re all moving forward and I feel like I’m still stuck in this awkward stage where I don’t really know what I’m doing or when I’ll get my chance to move forward.
This was really bothering me for awhile. I got so frustrated because all I wanted was to move to Louisville and start working but it just wasn’t happening yet. Someone said to me a few weeks ago “I had no idea it was this hard and took this long to become a missionary!” And I had to agree with them. During training they told us it would take awhile, sometimes years, to get your funding to go and that it’ll all happen in God’s time when He’s ready for it to happen. But I just kept thinking –Why?? It’s not like I’m doing anything helpful to You right now. I could be with Team Expansion, reaching these unreached people, but instead I’m sitting at home watching another Cake Boss marathon, waiting for it to be my turn to go. (Just to be clear again—I do lots of fundraising things during the day most days. But I also watch a lot of Cake Boss while doing so…I mean, you can only make so many phone calls in a day you know?)
This really bothered me for awhile. And still does a bit. But not that long ago I started reading Oswald Chamber’s My Utmost for His Highest and, on a particularly difficult day, came upon this:
Put God’s Will First. “Behold, I have come to do Your will, O God” (Hebrews 10:9).
A person’s obedience is to what he sees to be a need— our Lord’s obedience was to the will of His Father. The rallying cry today is, “We must get to work! The heathen are dying without God. We must go and tell them about Him.” But we must first make sure that God’s “needs” and His will in us personally are being met. Jesus said, “. . . tarry . . . until you are endued with power from on high” (Luke 24:49). The purpose of our Christian training is to get us into the right relationship to the “needs” of God and His will. Once God’s “needs” in us have been met, He will open the way for us to accomplish His will, meeting His “needs” elsewhere.
It kind of blew my mind that, first of all, I read this on the day I was thinking about all of this stuff so much and was really upset about it. That was cool. But it also made me feel like such an idiot. Maybe God’s “needs” in me aren’t met yet. I have to obey his will for ME and meet his needs in ME before I can meet His needs in other people. I was being so selfish and so impatient. I wanted to go and start my work because I didn’t like where I was in my life. I didn’t like being in between. But maybe this is exactly where God needs me right now. Maybe if I started working with these unreached people now, as I am today, I’d ruin their chance of loving Christ forever. I hope I wouldn’t be that terrible haha But I guess you never really know. For whatever reason, I’m not who I need to be yet. I’m not sure how to become that person that God thinks is ready to serve Him in Louisville but now I have another goal, besides getting the funds I need to move—becoming that person that God knows will serve His people in the best way possible. That and finishing my Cake Boss marathon.
