Lately I feel like a common topic keeps coming up. How do we
know what God wants us to do? How do we find our path? Today even, I
heard someone speaking on how we can discern whether something really is
of God. This can certainly be hard. And it seems everyone has an
answer. The world says if it feels good, it must be okay. Or find
happiness, that's what matters. Some claim that if you serve others,
even at the expense of yourself, you've done the right thing. Others
believe in nose to the grindstone, barely looking up long enough to
live. Many of us are somewhere in the middle of these philosophies. Then
we throw the phrase "God's will" into the pile and the result is pretty
messy.
But in the midst of this attempt at discernment,
there comes a time when you know for sure you are where you ought to be.
For me, these times become clear by the feeling that everything else
I've gone through has brought me to here. It's almost as if I didn't
have a choice. Oh, don't get me wrong. I made plenty of detours along
the way, but in the end I still got there.
Now that school is back in session, I have the great honor of spending
one evening a week with a truly special group of young ladies. They can't
drive (alone) yet, and they can't vote. They haven't been to college
and they haven't worked a nine to five job. They still live at home and
can't stay out too late at night. They are fifteen. Officially, I am
their leader. I have signed on to guide them along their faith journey
for the next few years. But week after week, I come away learning something new
from them.
And here comes that feeling. Everything else I've
done in life, every mountain and every valley, led me here. For this
brief moment in time, we are walking this walk together. I have the life
experience and they have the fresh perspective. The result allows the
Spirit to move and work in ways that humble me to my knees.
Today in church, my pastor used two of our international mission
destinations as examples in his sermon. I have been to both as a member.
I sat there, next to three of the girls who I took with me to Guatemala
this summer, and I knew I am where I'm meant to be. What I usually look
at as individual events in my life become threads woven into my
journey. Today the examples were physical places, which works perfectly
with my whole road metaphor above. For these physical journeys truly did
alter my life forever. But I also realized that amongst the big
moments, there have been so many small ones. My life experiences, the
gentle nudging of the spirit and a response of yes to God's voice, have
brought me to where I am. He so perfectly shapes the path for us that
when we look back we realize we were never really lost. We were never
wandering hopelessly. He was building a bridge, paving a road, filling
up our tank. He was patiently cheering us on.
My journey
isn't over. I know that down the road I'll look back and see how this
group of girls changed me. How it changed them. How it propelled us to
the next part of our individual journeys. For now, I'm just grateful
I've been given a glimpse of the work that God is doing with my life
thus far. He really does take my mess and use it to perfect the
masterpiece He calls humanity.
