About that Calling...



I was reading over some of the files on my laptop of things I wrote when I was younger and found this post. Because I was 15 and didn’t really know what I was doing (and I totally know what I’m doing now…) I thought it would be fun to edit and make relevant a post that I made close to a year ago!


When I was younger, I felt I had been called to be a missionary to India.  


My goal in life was to be a missionary and to teach children and to set people free from the bondage of the sin that enslaves them. I was going to run an orphanage and hug every motherless child, put band-aids on every bleeding knee and tell every one of those eager ears about Jesus.


About a year ago, my calling changed. It changed from, “India” to “Go.”
If you want to imagine how I felt the night my calling changed, imagine a little bell with a long string on it.


The bell is next to God, and the string is in my hand.
“Hey Rach!” God yells down from heaven, “New calling, your calling is now, “Go””


When I hear that, I look up with a grim frown. “What!?!?” I yell and began yanking on the string. “Hey!!! Don’t leave me hanging here! What do you mean!!?!”


God totally hears the bell, but he sort of just shrugs it off by saying, “Don’t worry, I’ve been God for- quite literally- ever. I think I’ve got this figured out.”


I just keep ringing my little bell and wondering why He did that.


I liked the thought of going through college and getting a degree in foreign missions.


Then, one day, I would get some plane tickets, and pack. My mom would plan a party (or something) and everyone that I knew would come over and we would laugh and eat chips and dip. It was going to be awesome.


Then, one day, we would ship all my stuff to India and then I would live there. Sounds like a brilliant plan.


I just love how well that works. It’s clean. It’s neat. And apparently saved a lot of tissues because we wouldn’t be crying.


I’m not sure if I should be rolling my eyes at how naive  I was, or laughing at how big that one, two letter word can be.

I had imagined the day I left to 'go' a little differently too...


“I can see myself waking up one morning, getting ready to start my day and then realizing that God was telling me to go somewhere. I would (wait until a semi-decent hour and then) call my friends. We would meet in my messy apartment and pray together over a cup (or two) of coffee.


I would weep into their shoulders, then one of my friends would say, “Well Rachel. Looks like you’re going to the airport.” Then I would leave and fly to wherever I was called to go.”


Where is the months of packing and the heartache of leaving? That is so sudden! It’s so… The way I wish God moved sometimes. Quick and in my timing.


You see, in my head, that worked perfectly.


In my original post, I then proceeded to rant about how I wanted some control and about how I wanted to have my own plans for me and how I wanted to research what I needed to do and… how it would all work.


Little did I know that less than a year later I would be moving (going) to a place that at times feels so much  further away than India.


Just like a year ago, I still want my own way.


I still want to have things all organized with plans that go according to the way I think they should (and I still want chips and dip.) (And coffee.) (Mainly coffee.) I still don’t like when God calls me to do stuff, and it still drives me crazy when things don’t run together as smoothly as I wish they would.


But as I closed this blog post close to a year ago, when you pray “Lord, here I am, send me” you have to trust that where he’s sending you is the best plan.


“The truth is that God has a much better view of all this crazy. He knows the plans that he has for me and he loves me! He has a plan for my life that is much bigger than all the thoughts and plans I have for me.
Something that I have to remind myself of is that God’s got this. He has a plan-even if I don’t see it.


We have to hope and believe that God has a forever sovereign plan through all of this and that his plans are better than anything we have ever seen before. God’s got this!


“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
~Isaiah 55:8-9

~Rachel Joy

Popular Posts