Page 24 - Winter 2016 Contact Issue 40

Reflections on a

calling to foreign

mission

I was recently thinking about the big picture of how
God brought me to have a heart desire to serve Him
in such a faraway country as Papua New Guinea and
about how much time I previously spent agonising in
trying to find a specific direction of God’s plan for my
life.

Here were some of my thoughts when I was a
twenty-something…
Our service to God tends to mirror this same idea.
You are standing in front of a massive world map. Many times we allow where we serve to determine in
Every country existing is represented in finer detail part who we are… the minister, the lay preacher, the
than you have ever seen before. God is standing beside Sunday School teacher etc. By claiming or assigning a
you holding a ‘you are here’ pin with your name on it. title, we can sometimes limit what we do or are open to
doing.
Questions tumble from your mouth as you ask Him,
The more I consider serving God, what it actually means
“Where do I belong?” “Where do I serve You?” “What is to me and how it affects my life, the more I believe that
your will for my life?” who I am in God will determine where I serve.
He nods silently. You catch your breath in awe and wait, Like most twenty-something year-olds, I have agonized
watching, afraid to blink. Finally, God is going to show about where God wants me to serve. There are endless
you where you belong! possibilities of where I can go and what I can do. How
am I supposed to choose?
Your brow furrows as He leans in and places the pin, not
on the map indicating where you will serve, but on your In reality, however, choosing the where is infinitely less
chest, near your heart… important than keeping my focus on being close to God
and knowing who I am in Christ.
Where one is seems to have a significant impact on who
one is. Instead of wracking our brains and expending all efforts
to find where we fit, I think God would rather we spend
As humans we are trained to have an almost automatic our energies on growing in a deeper relationship with
knowledge of physical location. The home address is Him. As we continue knowing Him deeply and trusting
one of the first things we learn as children. There are in Him, He will guide our steps. God is good and will
even social networks based around where users are do all things in His timing. I have to learn to be humble
located in relation to other users. Google Maps will enough to wait for His direction and trusting enough to
display a satellite picture of almost any world address move into unknown territories when He asks.
in less than 10 seconds. Assumptions are even made
about a person depending on what side of town he or Stephanie Beattie
she is from.