Those words have been my cry for the past couple of months. Especially with my internship ending in just a couple of weeks and being a graduate of a highly-esteemed university in less time than that. Then what? That’s the burning question that everyone wants to know. It’s my human nature to want to know too, but for some reason, every time I go to search for jobs I always feel a tug at my heart that tells me not to. It’s not lack of motivation. Or laziness. Or anything else of the sort. It’s more like a peace. A peace that constantly reminds me that my life isn’t my own and God is taking care of everything.
I learned very quickly in life that the plans I make for myself are never up to his standards. I always sell myself short when I’m stubborn and insist to do things my way. And I know that God just chuckles and shakes his head thinking to himself, “Maybe one day that crazy girl will learn.” So for the past couple of years, I’ve been doing just that: learning. Learning to trust in his timing. Learning to trust in his faithfulness. Learning to trust in his unfailing love.
And here I am again. Still learning. Only this time I’m more in love with my Creator than I ever have been, making it much more difficult to resist his plan. You know that feeling you get when you know are supposed to do something but you’re scared of how everyone will take your big news? Fear. That’s all it is. But when you’ve got to choose between fear and faithfulness, there’s really no competition. Still, so many times we let fear overcome our desire to be faithful and we just stay where we are. In the place we’re tricked into believing is “safe.” The only thing wrong with that is this: we’re not called to be safe. We are called to be RADICAL. To break the mold. To CHANGE the WORLD. How? By going out into it and loving it.
When I was 16 years old, I was asked to be a counselor on one of the trips with my youth group. On the second to last night of the trip during our last session of the day, Dustin Willis spoke about our duty to be missionaries in our daily lives, no matter where we are. I’ll never forget that night as long as I live because that was the first time my heart truly broke for the people who don’t know my Jesus. I didn’t mention it to anyone, but Chris Barrineau (love that man!) immediately walked up to me, gave me a sly little grin, and confidently said, “You were called to be a missionary tonight, weren’t you?” Busted. I don’t know if he remembers those words he spoke to me that night, but he’s a big part of the reason that my heart changed on that late night in June. Jesus had spoken the same words that he had spoken to me to someone who knew me better than most people did, making it quite obvious that he wasn’t messing around. There was no doubting that fire in the belly at this point. Just like there’s still no doubting it five years later.
Everything that has happened to me in my life up to this point has been carefully crafted to prepare me for my future. Independence. Times of feast. Times of famine. A free-spirit. An undeniable obsession with creation. Determination. Discipline. A hunger for more. The ability to overcome. An unbearable yearning to serve people. The refusal to acknowledge anything bad in anyone I meet. Leaving my heart wide open in all circumstances. God gave me those characteristics for a reason. And I don’t believe it was so I would settle for mediocrity or self-absorption or being lukewarm in my chase after him.
I don’t know what that future is that he’s still preparing me for, but I know it’s big. When I’m ready for whatever it is, I know he’ll swing the door wide open for me. How cool is it that the creator of the UNIVERSE takes time to invest in me and equip me for something that he could easily do with one glance? Holy smokes. What a shame it would be to ignore the weight in my response to that.
“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.” –Think Different, The Motivation to Change the World
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