Decisions

Decision, decisions. Why are they so hard to make?

Today I was blessed with another phone call from a dear friend helping me to think through the big decision that lays before me. I confessed to her just how much fear I feel in completely relinquishing the direction of my life to God. I am just so afraid that what He has for me will not be enough.

How awful does that sound? I am holding onto my life because I mistakenly assume it will safer in my own hands, than in His. Of course, the truth that God's way is perfect is a lot easier to acknowledge when it's on the pages of Scripture, than when it comes bursting into my personal life, demanding it's rights, demanding that I bow to it's truth.

But God does have rights over me. I have been bought with a price; I am not my own. I could sing of Your love forever...until it asks me to count the cost. Yesterday as I was talking with Joanna, we had almost decided that I could do whatever I wanted, until I remembered and quoted the verse: "If you love mother or father more than Me, you are not worthy of Me." All Joanna could say was "dang it!" Dang it, indeed.

I came across this quotation in a book by Amy Carmichael while thinking and praying over this decision. For me I think it pretty much comes down to this:

"If we refuse to be corns of wheat falling into the ground and dying; if we will neither sacrifice prospects, nor risk character, and property and health, nor, when we are called, relinquish home and break family ties, for Christ's sake and His gospel, then we shall abide alone...of all the plans for securing success the most certain is Christ's own, becoming a corn of wheat, falling into the ground and dying." - Thomas Gejaten Ragland

This quote hits me so hard because I am dazzled by success. It is definitely an idol in my life. I want to be successful, but more importantly, I want to be thought successful. This present course than I am on, as far as I can see, affords me none of the success that I so ardently crave. But why do I crave this worldly success? Is it an attempt to earn acceptance? I think so. And I am dismayed by this truth. If only it were easier to grasp the fact that I am accepted in Christ, and His acceptance is all that truly matters.

Honestly, I don't know why I'm sharing all of this. Hopefully, it will help someone else think about counting the cost of obedience. Or give them hope that they aren't the only ones who struggle with surrender. Because, quite frankly, I'm reading through missionary biographies, and they all seem to be running toward the field. But what if you're sort of plodding toward the field, hoping God may change His mind? Is that okay, too? I don't know, but I don't want to be a Jonah. I think I sort of wrestled with this when the call first came to come to Arkansas, only then, it was for a year, whereas now, who knows? This is a much bigger reality to me. A year of my life? Okay. The rest of my life? Can I get back to you on that?

But it's not, of course, only a matter of the mission field. It's a matter of my whole life. Am I willing to surrender my whole life my whole lifelong to God's plans for me? Scary. Very, very scary.

I don't know what God is teaching me through all this, but I do know that He has shown me some places in my life where I need to repent of my pride and bad attitudes and come to a renewed trust in His sovereignty AND a humility which trustingly accepts that His ways are better than mine. Perhaps through all of this, He will work in my heart a renewed vigor for the mission field that used to be there when I was nine (also, I sort of want to go back in time to the nine year old me and say "hey, knock it off, kid!") and eighteen (again, I would say "stop. Stop being so starry-eyed!) but I sort of feel that, just as in salvation, some calls are irrevocable...and I just need to come to terms with it.

Oh, dear. If only there was some sort of formula for decision-making, but there's not. I'm trusting God to show me the way. I appreciate your prayers and your comments. And also those people who I can dump all of my hardest questions on and say "well, what do you make of that?". It's amazing to experience God's faithfulness and love through the love and faithfulness of others.

Decisions!