#10. One Step at a Time



“Imagine yourself as a living house.  God comes in to rebuild that house.  At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing.  He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised.  But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense.  What on earth is He up to?  The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of—throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards.  You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage:  but He is building a palace.  He intends to come and live in it Himself.”

― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

 

Today is my birthday. 

I think birthdays always make us a little introspective.  Today, I can’t help but think about what a different place I’m in this year than I was last year—literally and figuratively.

This week I’m in Colorado at Greater Europe Mission’s headquarters for Candidate Orientation.  I had been anticipating this for months…then getting excited as the date got closer and closer…and then last week I panicked. 

Am I really supposed to be here?  Can I do this?  Is God really calling me to France, or am I doing this just because I want to?

I am definitely a thinker, and over the past few months, the thoughts have been coming and going faster than I can make sense of them.  I feel like I’ve been trying to take all these scraps and post-its of thoughts and to put them together, so that I can organize them into little files to store away in my mind and heart.  Journaling and blogging has helped, but there are still some nagging, half-processed thoughts that don’t seem to fit into any file.

Yesterday during our morning worship, we talked a bit about what it means for God to break us in order to reshape us and use us.  I’ve definitely experienced this over the past year.  One of these areas that I keep coming back to time and time again is my desire to know God’s whole plan, when all He is showing me is one step at a time.  I struggle to find the balance between wanting to be in control (which I’m not) and simply wanting to give God my best, which I think includes being as prepared as I can be. 

For example, right now God has called me to be a teacher.  I can’t serve Him to the best of my ability without taking time to plan and prepare for my students.  The unexpected can (and does) still occur, but I’m a more effective teacher if I take the time to study, prepare, and practice what I’m doing.

Yet, for some reason, when it comes to this journey of missions that God has me on, overthinking seems to be my biggest enemy.  I know it’s normal to have doubts and hesitations when starting something new, but the more I try to sort through them and process them, the more confused I get.  So last night I took a little walk under the beautiful Colorado stars, and I boiled it all down to these three options:

1. I can go back to where I was last year at this time, and forget everything that God has done in me since then.
2. I can stay exactly where He has me right now.
3. I can keep moving forward, one step at a time.

Those really are the only options. 
 
#1 is ridiculous; we can’t move back in time, and even if I tried, I can’t change the circumstances that have brought me to where I am; I can’t bring back people or opportunities that are gone; and most importantly, I can’t forget the lessons God has taught me since then.

#2 is equally absurd.   Even though change is scary, it’s a part of life.  Things can’t stay the same forever; if they did, we would never grow.

So #3 it is…keep moving forward, trusting that as God has guided me so far, He will continue to do so—in His timing, not mine. 

I’m so grateful for Bible Study Fellowship and the difference it has made in my life.  I remember hearing early on that it is “a season of preparation for a lifetime of service.”  To be honest, when I heard that, I didn’t ever want the season of preparation to end!  A lifetime of service seems scary and hard.  But it’s not really preparation if you’re not actually preparing for anything.

I’ve been able to use so much of what I’ve learned in BSF and apply it where I am.  Now God is teaching me new things, and it seems, calling me to a new place. 

I don’t know if I’ll end up in France.  If I go, I don’t know if I’ll be successful there.  If I am, I don’t know if I’ll stay or come back.  If I come back, I don’t know what I’ll do when I get here.  I can’t know any of that, and I could make myself crazy trying to figure it out.  All I know is I have to keep moving forward, one step at a time.

I appreciate C.S. Lewis’s quote above.  It is really painful when God starts demolishing walls that I thought looked fine right where they were.  But He is the architect, and He alone knows the blueprint.  I don’t need to see it to know that His house will be infinitely better than the one I would have built on my own.

 

For we are God’s masterpiece.  He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. 

–Ephesians 2:10