The Missionary's Predicament: Where are you called to?

I don't know about others out there that want to be missionaries, that want to follow the tug of God upon their hearts to go across the sea or across the driveway to share the love of God, but I know that,  for me, a predicament has always been "choosing" where I'd like to go. In mission terms it's labeled where you're "called to".

I don't necessarily have spectacular visions of an angel telling me to go to a certain country. Nor have I had a voice from Heaven tell me that I'm to go to a specific destination. I've come to realize it's not at all like that. Though those examples sound silly and childish, I think that there's actually a bit of a mindset that has yet to be shaken amongst missionaries that they need to have a country they're called to. And though it's totally a real thing to be called to a place, for the restless such as I, what I've been realizing recently is quite a relief. And what is that realization?

It's that, for once in my life, I'm not certain what will happen. I have a bunch of pieces of the puzzle that I believe could make a beautiful picture, but I am not sure if I'll put them in a place only to have them fall apart again. I have "callings", "ambitions", and "expectations" about how I want the future to look. As easily as smearing a paint brush across a canvas, I could paint what my future and what I want to be doing in it, even where I'd like to be doing it. I could say, "I want to go here and I want to do this..." but I've said that so many times before about many different things. Is it possible to be so certain about something and yet be so mistaken? I think so.

I was rifling through my old notebooks and found a half-finished letter written to my best friend, Brooke, after my return from the Dominican Republic. In it I confidently wrote that, "I found my place. I found my people." I spoke of how I felt called to go there and I said, "I had been so sure that the D.R. was not where I am called to go," and then I wrote something that makes me shake my head at my silly self...I said, "It's funny how we can be so sure of ourselves and all the while God is going, "I don't think so, my child, my ways are higher than yours after all."

And I laugh at myself because, if I had truly grasped what I had written, then I would have realized what God truly is calling me to. He's calling me to be His love--to show His love--to live His love. It is not God's will to simply save one people, one nation, one tribe and to be love for people of one place. It is His will to save all--and make them into His one people, one nation, and one tribe. Likewise, He wants us to be love for all people.

So no, I don't feel called to the Dominican Republic. Neither do I feel called to Honduras. Or India.

I feel called to love and give of myself wherever I am and that is all. 

Love doesn't fit into a box, it is not limited to one country or ethnicity, and it has absolutely no boundaries. It does crazy things and it does mundane things. Love is abiding in God and when you abide in God, you're always home. So while I adamantly said that the D.R. was my new home and while I was certain that Honduras was my home, I realize now that God is my home.

Holly told me recently that, "Home is wherever you all are," and I'm going to take that a step further and say that home is wherever God is and where He wants me to be. So in regards to the future, I don't know where I'll be. Yes, there are places that I'd love to go to, I am human after all, but in the end, it's all up to Him (of course). I just want to be loving people with the love that God has given me through Him. I'm setting my mind on Him. He is my aim, my goal, and my final prize.

In summary, I feel called to be wherever I am and wherever I am is where God is calling me to. That's not to say that God doesn't sometimes give us specific desires to be in certain places, but for my global heart, it's best just to rest in knowing that He will lead me.

He always does.