TheBoy and I were discussing The Announcement made yesterday at church. (PAUSE: If you attend The Pursuit and don’t know what I’m talking about, go here. It’s ok. I’ll wait.) He asked if these leaders felt God was leading them to makes this change, why did they not wait until they had all the details fleshed out and THEN go? (Vague, I know. Details are irrelevant. And I’m para-phrasing) I said it was like that saying “you don’t need to see the whole staircase, just the next step”. God doesn’t hand you a 5 year plan. He just says “here’s the next step”.
That’s an attitude I’m working on myself. As someone that thrives on calendars and lists and plans, that has been a difficult concept for me to wrap my mind around. It boils down to this – do I trust God? Or my plans?
Almost three years exactly from when I started in the kids’ ministry at our church, I will be leaving it. I’ve slowly been telling people over the past week. It’s certainly not a major announcement for anyone else, nor will it be a massive change within the program. But it does mean a pretty major shake up in my life. It’s a great team. I love them dearly and I’ve worked with quite a few of them the majority of those years, if not all. For all the tweaks and changes made to the program, it was still familiar and comfortable. I knew my roles, I knew where I fit.
Now? I have no idea. I know where my passion is but I don’t know how that is going to look. God has introduced me to many people lately that are making fascinating moves within the hungry/homeless ministries, people with ideas and plans and passion, people that I am excited to talk with and would love to work with. Will I work directly with everyone? No. Of course not. I feel like a network is being developed but I still have NO idea what my role is going to be within that network. I have no idea what the next step looks like. I look to the future and my schedule is unwritten.
It’s a little scary.
Oh I know. We’re not talking major life changes in the same vein of Josh & Bren and families. God’s not asking me to risk…anything. He’s asking me to exchange faith in my calendar with faith in Him. And if I can’t do that with something as minor as volunteer details, how can He trust me to do that with anything else in my life? I’m letting go of the usual desire to jump headfirst into the next endeavor, to immerse myself, to fill up every empty space on the calendar. I’m repeating to myself (and others) “I don’t know what it’s going to look like yet.”
I’m just…resting in the unknown. And my head hasn’t exploded yet. God really does change people.
I Shall Not Live In Vain 