Priscilla and Aquila Never Felt Like This...

I’ve often wished that God had called me to be a missionary, or at least to full time Christian service. Why? Because then it seems, at least to my limited scope of knowledge, that I would know that I was serving God every day. I mean, think about it; on the mission field, you get up, you go to work—which is some form of spreading the gospel. Me? I get up, go to work, cook food for people all day, go to the gym, clean the house, write blog posts that may or may not ever get read, walk the neighbor’s dachshunds. And, unless it’s Sunday or Wednesday (when I work in AWANA), I may go to bed and not have “done” anything to “serve God.” At least, that’s what it feels like.

So, on days when I have too much time for thinking, I sit and wonder, “Am I really serving God?” I mean, shouldn’t my days be filled with witnessing or discipling or… etcetera etc. Because this feels too easy.

Even my mom, a pastor’s wife, has admitted to the spiritual certainty that comes with full-time ministry. That there is a certain peace in knowing that the “serving God” slot on the daily to-do is always filled. And me? I feel like half the time that slot doesn’t even show up on my list.

Are you seeing the problem here? I feel… I feel…. I feel… Where do feelings come from? The heart. And what Bible verse is one of the first I teach my kids in AWANA (and chuckle to myself at their attempts at pronouniation)? “The heart is DECEITFUL above all things, and desperately wicked…” Jeremiah 17:9. And that right there is my biggest problem—the way I feel.

Now, here’s what I know. I know that the job I have is where I’m supposed to be. I know that the church I’m in is the one that God wants me in.  I even know that I’m living where I should right now (even though, yes, it’s with my parents). Those are the facts—and they don’t change. Feelings do.

How do I know these things? Because I do know what God’s direction looks like, and He hasn’t directed me anywhere else. I’ll be the first to admit that my Christian walk is not as good as it should be, but I do think that it’s good enough for me to hear God when He tells me to do something.  So, by process of elimination, if God is not directing me elsewhere, then here must be where He wants me.

Y’know, we never think about all the peripheral Christians in the Bible—Priscilla and Aquila, Timothy’s mother and grandmother, Rhoda the servant girl who forgot to let Peter in—that they were just like us. They had normal lives. So far as we know, they had secular careers. But we only look at Paul, the apostles, Timothy, the ones who were so dedicated to full-time service.  We never remember that they were the exception, rather than the rule. And I forget that it’s ok to live a normal life. I look at my friends on the mission field who have sacrificed so much, and I feel guilty that God hasn’t called me to make those sacrifices. 

Stop a second, reread that last sentence. I FEEL GUILTY THAT GOD HASN’T CALLED ME… even as I look at that I feel about a half an inch tall and dumber than a tadpole. How can I possibly feel guilty about a decision made by the One who knows everything—about my past, my future, the entire universe??? If I know God has put me here, then I certainly ought to know that this is exactly the place that I’m supposed to be, even if I don’t know why or see how it works in His plan.

Now, I’m not saying all this to justify stagnating as a Christian. I don’t think I am, and I think there’s plenty of people sitting in the pew who are not, yet who live lives that look an awful lot like mine… maybe even an awful lot like that of Priscilla and Aquila. And I wonder how much mental energy I waste worrying about what God hasn’t called me to do, instead of working on what I do have to do.