Certain of... God

"God speaks in the language you know best— not through your ears, but through your circumstances. God has to destroy our determined confidence in our own convictions. We say, “I know that this is what I should do” — and suddenly the voice of God speaks in a way that overwhelms us by revealing the depths of our ignorance." 

These words by Oswald Chambers hit me right in the feelers this morning. In that gently convicting way that He has, God had already been peeling back layers of my heart to reveal that I do this All. The. Time. And if I am going to get wise I need to Stop. Doing. That.

Here I stand, just over the surprise that there is a switchback in our road that we had not foreseen. Here I stand, having learned enough by this time to gather my bearings relatively quickly (comparatively speaking), lean into the curve and look ahead with expectation to what lies around the bend.  Here I stand, not quite wise enough to stop myself from trying to mentally map out where this is all going and establish a detailed itinerary and ETA for final destination.

Decent pass on the first part of the assignment, miserable fail on the second. I love details, I love planning, dreaming, executing, checking off neat little boxes. Unfortunately those qualities aren't in the least bit compatible with a life of "trust and obey". 

I pray this time I will learn the important difference between expectancy and certainty. I pray this time I will keep my feet moving, but my mind at rest; abandoned to God, engaged in the next step, certain only in He who leads and the knowledge that the journey will be worth every step.

Detours and Rabbit Trails

"If we (man) can envision how something can work out, then the vision isn't God's or the vision isn't big enough.  The impossible belongs to God."  Coen Scholtz (I'm not sure if he was quoting this from another source.)

I sort of feel like the joke's on me, and while I would really *like* to chuckle, the lump in my throat is too big right now for that to be possible.  Excited people tend to excite you.  Or exhaust you.  Or maybe first one and then the other LOL.  Coen's inspiring thought above and Mike's enthusiasm and gung-ho "rock'n'roll baby" anecdotes can be the impetus to lift anchor and throw it in the boat and give you the push off from shore.  But once you receive the push off, you're left scratching your head, looking around wondering where the sailing manual is.  :)

Coen and Mike are wonderful.  They open creaky old doors to shine light on long sealed old chambers of the soul and stir up the dust  so that you discover old treasure maps leading to adventure.  But then you are left to equip yourself with the tools to embark on that adventure.  I feel like we received a few rushed words of "don't worry, x marks the spot, easy breezy, we'll keep this simple."  and then they were gone.  But there is no keeping it simple when you are moving a family of 8 from an established farm, to the middle of Zambia for six months and then a relocation to Italy.  And especially not if you are trying to do it in three months. 

It seemed like we were the only ones saying three months was impossible. Everyone else was saying, "Not at all! With God anything is possible!"   We didn't like to be the ones of little faith.  So we agreed to hoist sail, and give God the opportunity to "do His thing" by filling the sails and getting us there by February if He wanted to.  I realize now that in my head I only agreed to this because Mike and Coen had said "We'll keep it really simple" when it came to the application process.  

So yesterday I am sitting there with my head in my hands looking at a spreadsheet of 53 various "things" that need to be done when it comes to administrative steps alone to get us from here to there, some with multiple steps. And I start to feel like I am sinking.  Meanwhile the "let's keep this application process simple" has rather gone out the window as I am not able to get through to anyone in OM Africa that can even give us particulars about applying, and really, we are not even sure what Coen had in mind when he said "Come to Zambia." Discipleship Training School?  Missionary Training School?  First one and then the other?  Something else entirely?  And meanwhile Coen has gone radio silent. I send up an SOS prayer, and before I even said Amen, I received an email notification.  A message from the personnel guy at OM Canada offering to connect by phone.  

We have been discussing not applying through OM Canada at all, since we are Italian and know the leaders of OM Italy, to just apply directly through the OM Italy office.  Mike and Coen were both all gung ho to recruit us directly through OM Africa.  This all seemed like it would be easy breezy and pretty painless, but in the end, neither Mike and Coen are even IN South Africa right now, and the people over there don't know us any better than the people over here.

After setting up a phone appointment for today I specifically asked for prayer that I would hear back from OM Africa prior to this call, and that we would have something "more" to go on.  Well, wouldn't you know, first thing this morning I had an email in my inbox from OM Africa basically saying we HAD to apply through OM Canada or OM Italy, but could not apply directly through them. One option off the table... two left.

I started to immediately question why we had gone down the "rabbit trail" of direct application through OM Africa.   How come sometimes I am so attuned to The GPS and sometimes I go meandering off on a side trail only to eventually break back through to the original trail again? I said this to God.  What was with the rabbit trail God?  And it was the clearest of clear trail of thoughts in my head.

"That wasn't a rabbit trail."  

"Well, what was it, then?"  

"It was a detour."  

"What's the difference?"

"A rabbit trail is you wandering off distracted, a detour is me getting you around some obstacles to get where you need to be."

"Okay, that makes sense.  But I'm not getting the obstacle?"

"You were the obstacle."  

"?"

"When the water threatens to get rough, you tend to plop yourself down on the shoreline and sigh. If you would have been immobilized by the breadth of the expanse in getting from here to there you would never have hoisted sail so easily and invited me to "do my thing."  

Lightbulb.

So true.  

We really wouldn't have.

But here we are, anchor in, sail up and drifting... and only He can get the boat from here to there.

GPS and Signposts

" And your ears will hear a word behind you, saying, This is the way; walk in it, when you turn to the right hand and when you turn to the left."  Isaiah 30:21

This morning I get to share "our story" with the JY Sunday school class.  As I geared up for this, something struck me that gave me goosebumps.  That tends to happen to me a lot these days.

I was thinking back to this summer, as fall approached and I was sorting through details for life as we know it, with commitments and activities and priorities.  All of a sudden it seemed like everything was turned upside down and I didn't know why, how or wherefore.

It was like all the signposts were pointing AWAY from the familiar.  It's like one day we found ourselves at a crossroads and we had to stand there for a moment contemplating which way to turn, and then when we finally had the clarity to step out in faith in a certain direction it led to an unexpected maze of twists and turns that didn't make any sense to us, much less others watching us venture off into new territory.

When you choose one path, you inevitably reject all of the other paths.  When you know what's around the corner of the path you have chosen, it is easier to step out.  When you don't, it's a matter of trusting the GPS and the signposts.  Thankfully for us, God has been revealing Himself in truly marvelous ways as The Great Guide when it comes to speaking clearly, if we will only shut up and listen, telling us "this is the way; walk in it."  We have also become finely attuned to His "no thru road" and "do not enter" signs and He is gracing us with the faith to trust and obey.

As I think back to this summer I can see us standing at a junction with question marks above our heads; questioning everything as a whole slew of "do not enter" signs loomed in our peripheral, we were very confused.  Why on earth would I all of a sudden have a "no thru road" sign on something that I was as passionate about as teaching at kids club?  I mean, I LOVE that job and noone else is ever chomping at the bit to do it. Not to mention last year I had started to write a three year curriculum that I was absolutely psyched about.  One year in, with all the energy and gumption to keep trekking for two more years I come to a dead end.

 In the spring I had also started dreaming about teaching JY Sunday School.  I was excited about it.  I would have loved to do it.  But all of sudden there was a huge stop sign there saying "Do not enter."   I talked to my bible study ladies about it, how God was saying "no" to all of the things that we had been doing up until now, that for this fall God was saying, "nope.  no go."  In my mind I couldn't understand how we could not do ANYTHING.  I mean it was no to EVERYTHING. 

But the voice of the GPS was like a broken record.  There was no denying its message, and so we made our announcements to all parties that there was a turn in our path and we would not be pursuing those directions.  We got alot of questions and concerns, from people who couldn't understand how or why.  And we didn't have answers.  I guess that is what faith boils down to.  Stepping forward when you can't see around the bend.  Now that I "can" see around the bend, I know why all those signposts were up.  God knew I wouldn't be here to see those jobs through. And I wouldn't have had the chance to grow in faith and obedience.

Today I am excited to share with the JY Sunday school class about God having a step by step plan for their life and futures, a plan that spans the years and is woven together over time and with many circumstances both painful and lovely, difficult and exhilarating.  I pray that they will have eyes to catch the vision of a life lived by faith, and to see trust and obedience as beautiful things that lead to amazing stories written by the Divine Author of Life.