That might even be underestimating my true feelings- I'm actually terrified.
Some people find their fears in heights, insects, or the dark. We might be afraid that we won't get the job we wanted, the perfect house with the white fence, or the fairytale ending. I'm afraid of some of those things, but there is one thing that terrifies me more than all of that.
You might think, "How can one word scare someone so much?"The word "GO."
I've realized that it's not just a word, but a journey.
I've spent the last few years of my life over analyzing it. Honestly I constantly obsessed over my future and my purpose. I have a feeling you might have spent a lot of time doing the same thing. It's in our nature to wonder. There is beauty in the wondering. But that beauty is tarnished when we try unveil every part of it.
That's exactly what I did. I tried to unveil every aspect of my future so that I didn't have to wonder. You could say that I had a blueprint to my life. But that's the humor in life; you never end up where you planned to go.
My world was absolutely rocked when I heard Matthew 28:19-20 for the very first time.
."Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you. Be sure of this, I am with you always until the end of the age."
I read this over and over and over again. I was floored. Jesus gave plenty of commandments in the Bible, but this one weighed on me heavier than I ever anticipated. I had found my purpose in one simple word. "GO." Panic creeped in- no, actually it barged in. I am supposed to go. God was asking me to go, to step outside of myself, away from all comfort and seek Him with all that I am. The panic I experienced kept me from truly discovering what Christ desired for me for a very long time. Anytime anyone brought up a life of ministry I shied away and thought "Well, that is very noble, but Christ doesn't need me for that. Someone else will do it." I thought that for an entire year before God shook me one day and said "No. I want you."
I was reading in my Bible one day in Exodus. I wasn't even half way into the book of Exodus before God had completely changed my heart.
In Exodus 3 and 4, God revealed himself to Moses using a burning bush. I almost skipped over this part because I thought I already knew the story from being a kid- but am I glad I kept my place in reading. In chapter 4 God tells Moses that He has heard the cries of His people, the Israelites, and that He was going to save them, but that He was going to use Moses to do it. The response of Moses is where I immediately found my identity.
Instead of immediate obedience, Moses scrambled for every excuse that he could invent.
"Then Moses answered, “But behold, they will not believe me or listen to my voice, for they will say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you.’” The Lord said to him, “What is that in your hand?” He said, “A staff.” And he said, “Throw it on the ground.” So he threw it on the ground, and it became a serpent, and Moses ran from it.But the Lord said to Moses, “Put out your hand and catch it by the tail”—so he put out his hand and caught it, and it became a staff in his hand—“that they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.” Again, the Lord said to him, “Put your hand inside your cloak.” And he put his hand inside his cloak, and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous like snow. Then God said, “Put your hand back inside your cloak.” So he put his hand back inside his cloak, and when he took it out, behold, it was restored like the rest of his flesh. “If they will not believe you,” God said, “or listen to the first sign, they may believe the latter sign. If they will not believe even these two signs or listen to your voice, you shall take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground, and the water that you shall take from the Nile will become blood on the dry ground.”
But Moses said to the Lord, “Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue.” Then the Lord said to him, “Who has made man's mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak.”
But he said, “Oh, my Lord, please send someone else.”
I quickly realized that I am just like Moses- cowardly. How often does God ask us to do something and we respond with excuses? Reading this changed my entire outlook. It was time to stop making excuses and waiting until something else presents itself. God wants me now. Time will always run out, but Jesus won't. Someone else might do the job, but what is my purpose if I am not relentlessly pursuing Christ and His Kingdom? How is the world going to know of a Grace that never fails, a Love that never dies, and a Freedom that will forever ring?
Suddenly my outlook on life completely changed. I spend a lot less time worrying about exactly where I'll be- and more time worrying about who I'll be. What I have come to understand is that I might be broken and weary but I am created to further the Kingdom. I don't know about you, but to me that is the greatest honor to receive. God chose us to further the Kingdom! He didn't pick us because He had nothing better or because someone else was busy. He designed us in His image to glorify Him.
This gives me a hope for the future that I would never be able to find even if I spent the rest of my life trying to create it. My hope resides in the one who knew me and predestined my future long before I walked on solid ground.
So it's not where you'll go, how you'll get there, or who will be alongside you when you arrive. It's about faith to take the next step of obedience. God doesn't want someone else.
He wants you.
