Call to service

A year and a half ago, I began to feel God calling me to missions. More specifically, to Bible translation. I took an introductory class to linguistics at Biola, and learned that there are a few projects available through Wycliffe in which the Bible is being translated into Sign Language for the Deaf. Something clicked in my head when I learned this. Everything that I had reservations about in regards to ASL, and interpreting immediately dissolved, because God’s call in my life to work with the Deaf finally made sense. However, since I had only 2 and half semesters left until graduation, I was unable to change my major, thus resulting in the current situation of waiting until God makes it possible for me to pursue this goal.

Now, a year and a half later, I feel like it’s something that is so far down the road the road, it may never happen. While this feeling is very real, I also know that my life is far from being near its end, and who knows what the future holds? I do know, though, that God has decided to work on me.

I moved to Texas, originally because I wanted to try something new. I was tired of living in California. I wanted an adventure. So when I got the job that enabled me to move, I took it. Now, a month later, I could not be happier that I made this decision. It hasn’t been easy, but I know that I am in a place where I am able to really listen to God. He has provided for me in such a way that I am so utterly burnt out from all of the work I am doing, and I am still paying things off. It has given me the freedom to really pursue a relationship with Him, and you know what? He’s done nothing but whack me over the head since I got here :P.

I think I am finally beginning to understand the bigger picture, as well. At least in part anyway. My job has not been easy. I am doing something that I have done for the past several years, but am being asked to do it in a way that is different, and often times frustrating. I find myself thinking quite often “What is wrong with you? If you don’t know how to run a pool, then don’t tell me how to do it!” But then I have to catch myself. It doesn’t matter what they ask me to do. Nothing has been dangerous, nothing has been outrageous. It hasn’t even been that far outside of my general job description. It doesn’t matter, because they’re my bosses, so I need to do what they ask of me.

As hard as it has been, it has been so very good for me. I think there are a lot of things God is teaching me right now, but one of them, I believe, is how to be a servant. I can’t minister to people if I think I know everything and am unwilling to listen to the suggestions of others. I can’t go through life, even, as a Christian, with that kind of thinking. Christ says that if you want to be the greatest, you must be the least. While I’m still in a leadership position, they are essentially asking me to be the least; to do the work that someone getting paid minimum wage should be doing. The brainless stuff. But that’s okay, because if I can’t learn to serve, then I shouldn’t be working towards a leadership role, and certainly not one that involves ministering to other people.

All of this also ties in with my previous post, I think, too. While I do feel at home here, and I don’t want to leave, this also feels like a vacation. Not in the sense that I am doing nothing but relaxing, but in the sense that I have removed myself from the circumstances that made hearing God difficult. Now that I am beginning to listen again, however, I need to learn to serve Him, even more than I serve man. While leaving will be hard, God has called me to serve Him, and if the best way I can do that is to leave, then I will leave. But I won’t leave behind all of the things that I am learning along the way. Instead, I will take this adventure, and use it to learn how to live in everyday life. Like in my post on Eragon, This adventure should not be used as a reason to remove myself from everything that I find to be hard in life. Instead, I want it to help me to grow, so that I can live in the fullest extent of the meaning, the life God has called me to live, whether that be in Texas, California, or anywhere He might choose to lead me.