a mission field

I thought I did what's right

I thought I had the answers
I thought I chose the surest road
But that road brought me here
So I put up a fight
And told You how to help me
Now just when I have given up
The truth is coming clear

You know better than I
You know the way
I've let go the need to know why
For you know better than I

If this has been a test
I cannot see the reason
But maybe knowing
I don't know is part of getting through
I tried to do what's best
But faith has made it easy
To see the best thing I can do
Is to put my trust in You
--"You know better than I" from Joseph and the King of Dreams

I've been listening to that song all day. I'm trying to get it through my head that God knows best.

I have questioned my major since I first came to Berry as a freshman. Shouldn't my future field make me excited? Shouldn't it make me happy? Aren't I supposed to enjoy it? Isn't it supposed to be what I want to do for the rest of my life? Sure, people tell me I'll make a good teacher. My professors all (at least act like they) have confidence in me. And I was recently invited to join the honors society for educators. Yet, I want to look these people in the eye and ask them if they have been taking crazy pills!? Please understand me, I have respect for you teachers out there, but I just don't want to be one of you.

I want to be missionary. I want the hard life of a servant to the poorest poor in the world. I want to love orphaned children. I want to reach the unreachable. I woke up thinking about all of this today. And I realized that there are a lot of "I wants" in my life. I remembered something I had not thought of in a long time, marine biology.

If you knew me in my past life before college, you know how passionate I was about the ocean. It was my love and my desire. I loved everything about it. I have never been someone to sway back and forth about what I like or don't like. I am an extremist, and when I love something I love it to the fullest extent of my being. I loved how marine biology made me feel so close to God. I saw Him in all of it, and it literally made me overflow with joy. I was one of those nerds on my high school trip to Dauphin Island that got excited about the seaweed...yeah, that was me.

But this morning I remembered sitting in my room alone on a hot night in early August before coming to Berry. I had all my marine biology text books out on my bed. And I cried over them. I cried because God was asking me to give my passion to Him. I wanted to only pretend to give it to Him, but He wanted the real thing. He wanted me to really lay it down. I cried because He did not promise to give it back. He did not promise me a future in the ocean. I remember crying out to Him "Why!? Why would you give me this passion if You're just going to take it away!?" He told me my life was not my own. It is His. And He knows what is best for it. So after more arguing and complaining, I gave in. I let it go.

Since that night He has ignited within me a passion for orphans. It is the same scenario as before, but instead of marine animals it is the world's children who are deemed unlovable. But I lost my focus. I was focused on the work instead of the Worker. I got lost in what my life could be if I left Berry, if I didn't become a teacher. If I went to a place like Russia or Uganda and was the hands of Jesus. I want bigger things than teaching in rural America. But how can God give me the bigger things if I refuse to trust Him with the small ones (like my major in college)? He is helping me see that I need to "bloom where I am planted" as a dear friend told me last night. I am where I am, so I might as well be content. He still knows what is best. He still knows what He is doing, even though I may not like it.

God showed me at work this week that those babies are my mission right now. Those kids at a privileged, private, child development center on a well-respected college campus need to be loved. They need hands to hold at nap time. They need a chaser to chase them. They need a swing-pusher. They need someone to take out their garbage after lunch and to wash their dishes. They need love, just like the kids on the other side of the globe. They are my mission field.

If you have read this far, I wonder if you are in the same place. If you feel your work is in vain? If you feel you are a failure because of where you are? Do not think God so small that He can't use you where you are. You are where He has you, and that is your mission field.

Like marine biology, I must lay down Africa at the feet of Jesus. I have to let it go. I have to live where I am. I don't want to live in the past or the future. I want to live for today. I may never go to Africa and I may someday take a teaching job, but that's okay. Because it is about God and His work, not me and what I want from life. After all, I have given Him my life; who am I to think I can choose its direction? It is His to steer. His to determine where it should go and who it should affect.

Praise Him, that we should be a tool in the hand of the Almighty One.


"In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps." -Proverbs 16:9

"No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him" -1 Corinthians 2:9