God Had Something Else In Mind

I’m turning 27 later this week (which, by the way, is really weird to write because 27 is definitely “adult” and I’m not sure I’m a real adult – another thought for another day). I’ve been doing quite a bit of examining and thinking about my life lately. I’ve been trying to define my purpose, not just in life in general, but specifically in this stage, and asking God how that plays out in my career, relationships, and even geographic location.

As I’ve been kind of examining what my life looks like now, it made me think back to what I imagined it would look like years ago, when I thought about the future. If you had asked me 10 years ago what my life would look like in 10 years, I would not have described my current life. If you had asked me 5 years ago what my life would look like in 5 years, I would not have described my current life. I’m not sure if, 10 years ago, I would have even gotten close. I would have done a little better 5 years ago, but not much.

And here’s the thing – I could look at this as failure. I mean, there are so many goals I had as a 17 year old and as a 22 year old that I didn’t meet, and some of them I will never meet. Honestly, there are people who were a part of my life at 17 and 22 who do view those unmet goals as failure. And that they see failure in my life can really start to bother me if I let it because I care way too much about what people think of me.

But here’s the truth – God had something else in mind.

I heard Matt Williams speak those words a few weeks ago when he was speaking to Grace Church – Downtown. He was sharing about the journey that led to starting Grace, expanding campuses, and eventually starting the Downtown campus. He shared how the original vision for Grace Church was actually Downtown Greenville, but that God opened doors in other locations around Greenville first. God had something else in mind. I’m so thankful He did because I love what Grace Church is now and where we’re headed, and I know that the journey had much to do with that.

My life is a lot like Grace Church. I feel like God began giving me a vision for my life years ago, but then the doors He opened, and especially the doors He shut, did not always seem to correspond to that vision…at least not in the moment. A lot of the time, it felt as if I was actually moving away from the vision God gave me.

For example, one thing God showed me in college was how He has gifted me and given me a passion for discipleship. Then, He sent me to China. The first few months there, I spent a lot of time feeling like an evangelistic failure (especially compared to the gifted evangelists on my team). But what God was doing was elevating my view of the Gospel and its power, and teaching me how to communicate it effectively, both of which are integral parts of discipleship. After being in China for about a year, He opened the door for me to enter into some very rich discipleship relationships. God had something else in mind.

Since about my freshman year of college, God has been teaching me about Biblical womanhood and the high calling of being a wife and mother, something that, as I’ve shared before, was a major change in perspective for me. So, naturally, I assumed these lessons were preparing me to be married…which I am not. Over the past several years, this has frustrated me because I didn’t know why God would change my heart to desire to be a wife and mother if I wasn’t going to be married anytime soon. I thought it would have been much easier to keep my career-oriented perspective. What I am learning now (in large part thanks to the Ezer teaching at Grace Church) is that what God was really revealing in my heart was a desire to be an essential counterpart; to invite, nurture, and partner. One day, that may be in the context of marriage and family, but He desires for me to live out that calling in my current stage of life and in the relationships I have now. God had something else in mind.

So where will I be 5 years from now? Ten years? I have no idea. But that doesn’t mean I am without vision for my life. I believe that God has given me a purpose and a calling. That purpose and calling will look different as I enter into different stages in life and play different roles, but that doesn’t mean it will change. I’m still working on the wording of my purpose/vision, but I believe I have essentially been called to facilitate life-change through the Gospel and equip others to do the same.

So there you go. I haven’t heard of too many people who call “27” a milestone birthday, or even an important one. But I think it is for me. I’m looking forward to another year of unexpected challenges and blessings as I grow with my Father.

Live Your Snapshot

Last month, I had the privilege of going to the island Eleuthera, in the Bahamas to serve alongside about 35 high schoolers and adults from Grace Church. The trip was amazing. We got to spend time with a family from our church, The Fastzkies, who are living and serving in Eleuthera. We got contribute to a couple construction projects, putting roofs on a water cistern and medical clinic. We also got to put on a Bible School for the kids on the island.

As I said, the trip was amazing because of the people and the opportunities God opened up for us there, but it was special to me for another reason. This was my first trip out of the country since coming back from China.

While I was in China, we had several short term teams come to serve with us, so I was used to being the “longer term” person organizing the teams, preparing, and following up. The trip to the Bahamas was the first time I had been on the “other side” in several years, and the perspective God granted me in China really changed the way I viewed the trip.

I think on short term trips, it’s easy to view yourself and your time there as unimportant, because you’re not there long enough to make a difference. I know many times, this has been my attitude. But the thing is, and this is what I learned in China, God places you in specific places at specific times with specific people to do a specific task. It is our obedience in these specific things that bring glory to His name. It’s so difficult for us to really believe this, though, because we can’t see the whole picture. We can only see our miniscule snapshot. God knows the whole movie, though, and places us in our snapshot for a reason.

One night in small group, I felt like God wanted me to share what short-term teams look like from the “other side” and how much God can (and does) use short-term teams to make a big impact. So I shared the following story…

After being in China for about 5 months, a teammate and I made a trip to a friend’s home village. This friend was a new believer and already growing astonishingly in the Lord. This village was one we hadn’t planned on visiting at all because foreigners were not received well at all and had even recently been kicked out. We certainly were not well received there during this visit. While in the village, though, we visited the elementary school, where we discovered they had no clean water to drink. They drank out of filthy cistern, using a communal hose that stayed on the ground next to the cistern.

We agreed this was not ok, and if there was any way to fix this, we would. We immediately began brainstorming ideas and trying to find people to ask for help, since neither my teammate nor I were water purification/piping experts. As I talked to my dad about this, he decided he wanted to help. He contacted a friend who was involved in water purification in Africa, and the 3 of us began discussing how their bio-sand filters might work for us.

Five months later, my dad and stepmom were on a plane to China. We assembled all sorts of parts for our cistern/filter prototype, and headed to the village. During this trip, we were received fairly well in the village, and our language was coming along, which allowed us to communicate more. After completing the plastic prototype with my dad, we began discussing a permanent solution.

The next teammate that joined our team just happened to be the agriculture guy we needed. He came just weeks before a small team (4 construction workers) from SC came out to work with us. We quickly put them to work building a cistern with a bio-sand filter at a spring toward the top of the mountain. While they were working, my other teammate and I got to go in every class in the elementary school, give out toothbrushes and worm medicine, and tell them about the Great Physician.

Over the next year, we had several teams come to work on 2 other cisterns and pipe water from the first cistern to the school. Each team stayed for less than 2 weeks, but their contribution lasted much longer.

The more time we spent in the village, the more we were welcomed back. As we showed Christ’s love by meeting physical needs, the more their hard hearts opened to hearing about our true need. In the year and a half I spent making trips to this village, I saw 2 people accept Christ, and many more become open to dialoguing about Him. We also saw our friend, who first took us there, be empowered by the Holy Spirit with a boldness to share Christ that I’ve rarely seen in mature followers. And one of the people who chose to follow Christ was a young boy; the first male believer that we know of in that village.

I bet, though, that if you asked any of those short term teams about the impact they made there, they would talk about the cistern or pipe, and wouldn’t be so sure about the eternal impact. In the same way, if you ask us what impact we had in Eleuthera, we’d probably talk about the shingles on the roof or playing games with kids, not so sure about the kingdom impact.

That’s because we can only see the snapshot, not the whole movie. And the thing is the story I just shared with you is only a very few snapshots, maybe a frame of the movie. God was working in that village before we got there and continues to work once we’re gone, just as He was in Eleuthera before we got there and will be there once we leave. He doesn’t need to use us, but He chooses to. He gives us opportunities everyday to glorify Him through obedience wherever He happens to place us. But He always gives us the choice.

Listen to Him. Obey Him. Live out your snapshot for Him, and be confident that He works before, after, and in the midst of our snapshot. Because the movie isn’t about us. It’s about Him. He just loves us enough to include us in a snapshot.

*Picture from http://fashion.elle.com/blog/