Why do you still want to be a mission volunteer? When I read that question I was taken aback. I thought the answer was obvious:
I don’t know the answer to the question I have been discerning about for the past ten months.
Is God calling me to be a full-time pastoral worker?
My wants for the past seven years was to be a full-time worker. It would be so much easier to say yes. To fulfill my plans and dreams. To think only of myself. I could be in the Philippines now, joyfully partaking in the training with three of my friends. But what I know is that what I want is nothing. What I want, if it is not what God wants, will never make me fully happy.
I get so overwhelmed when I talk about the mission volunteer program. I can feel it now, welling inside my chest, getting stuck in my throat – there are so many words. Every time I have thought about how to best describe this program, tears form in my eyes. And it’s not sadness or fear or anger, or even happiness that drives those tears. It is something greater. I can feel the Holy Spirit filling me, spilling out of me. He cannot simply rest in me alone, He longs to be shared through me to others. I can feel Him.
And that gives me so much faith. The overarching message for this year is “Do whatever He tells you”. And He has not told me if it is His will for me to be a full-time pastoral worker. But our God is mighty and powerful, all-knowing and all-loving. He will never fail me.
So like Elijah, I will search for Him in all places and in all things, but I will wait for His call. And I will be still through the mighty wind, the treacherous earthquakes, and the roaring fires – through the pressures of others, the struggles of my service, and the victories that drive me on – and I will wait for the still small voice of my God. And He will let me know His plan for me in His time. And until then I want to stay in this program, doing His work to the best of my ability. Until He tells me. I will wait.
And he said, “Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord.” And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice” – 1 Kings 19:11-12