A spark ignited in me during Ingleside’s Acts 1:8 Weekend this past fall. I, along with our staff, had been praying earnestly for God to call out people from our church to serve overseas. We were asking the Lord for people to go on all sorts of endeavors, but more specifically for some to be willing to go for more than a short term trip. It’s been my great joy to see some people already take those steps. It’s also been a huge surprise to feel my own heart strings tugged in that direction.
John Piper said something recently that really struck me. He said: "What's at the bottom of your joy? Do you feel more loved by--or happy with--God when he makes much of you, or when he enables you to make much of him?" That makes you stop and reevaluate everything you've ever done, doesn't it? These "things God has prepared for those who love Him" (1Cor2:9) are not about making us great or making our name famous. They are about bringing the world to Him. To experience His joy. Full joy. Not the joy brought about by our own accomplishments. This is the light that God has shown on my life recently. There is a shift in thinking. My life is not about me. My career is not about me. It belongs to God.
So armed with this knowledge, and in response to that “tugging” I had already felt toward international missions, I began an application for a two-year program with a large sending organization. As I continued to walk in obedience through the doors God was opening for me, I realized this was His plan for me to pursue. So, I kept responding to the next email, and the next form, and taking the next step, and attending the next event, etc. God never shut any doors, and all the while my heart was nothing but excited about the possibility of serving overseas...not a feeling I ever thought I would have for a two-year endeavor! But God has bigger things in mind than our tiny plans.
A few big words that I could not get enough of were: "faith," "trust," "strings," and "desires." Faith and trust, because clicking the submit button on the first application was an act of faith that followed a clear prompting of the Holy Spirit to trust without relying on human wisdom. "Submit" meant two things. I often say no to God because I filter what he asks of me through my own self-faith. That's not trusting in God. I am growing here really fast. I say "strings and desires" because of the challenge to cut worldly strings that tie me to a place where God will not fully use me. God has recently changed a lot of my desires, which has given me a better vision for how he wants to use my life. I am so excited about this, and greatly encouraged by the passage at the bottom of this post.
After a considerable evaluation process, I am excited to share that I will be accepting a two-year position working with the people of East Asia! I could not be more full of faith and happy that I am living a no-regrets life for the One who gave it all away for me. My last day of work will be June 30, 2011, after which I will attend eight weeks of training to prepare for my assignment overseas.
I recently went to a Hillsong United concert with some friends, and the first song that they played was this:
How perfect. I am excited to be "giving it all away today" to go God's way, yet I am solemn about what I am leaving behind. Family, friends, house, dog, home church, many ministry teams. I am asking for the exceptional grace of God to cover me as I go and prepare His way before me as I walk forward.
May we all continue to live in the wisdom of the Spirit!
In celebration,
Michael
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1 Corinthians 1:25-2:16 (NIV)
For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. 26 Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him. 30 It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. 31 Therefore, as it is written: "Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord."
2:1 And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God's power. 6 We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 7 No, we declare God's wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 However, as it is written:
"What no eye has seen,10 these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11 For who knows a person's thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words. 14 The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. 15 The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, 16 for,
what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived"—
the things God has prepared for those who love him—
"Who has known the mind of the Lord
so as to instruct him?"
But we have the mind of Christ.
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