God hates straight lines.

"If you are truly seeking the will of God, there is no decision that you can make that will 'screw up' God's plan for your life."

Thoughts?

Maybe it's just because I'm at the point in life when many of my friends are graduating and trying to figure out what's next, but it seems that lately I've had about 4 or 5 conversations with good friends of mine about discerning what God's plan is for their lives. It's a hard subject, and one that I think all believers are faced with at some point in their lives. I was just there a few months ago. We are all familiar with crossroads. But I think that over the last few months I've been given an understanding of or perspective on the central question that I never had before.

So many believers honestly struggle and wrestle with what God wants them to do, afraid that they will make a wrong choice if they do not "discern" His will correctly. And let me just say that I think that it's good to wrestle with God; I think that true faith demands that we wrestle with God at certain points in our lives, and I think that God loves it when we do - but sometimes I wonder if Satan rejoices when God's people just keep wrestling and wrestling and wrestling and never actually get beyond that.

How often do our puny excuses get in the way of our action for the Kingdom? How often do we put things off "until God opens a door"? Don't we hear that so often as Christians? But doesn't it seem more true that the way of Jesus is most often through closed doors than open ones? What if the body of Christ were a people who were characterized by first moving into action until God closed a door instead of waiting for Him to open one? What would the world look like? What if we were a people who were characterized as fearing missing opportunities more than we do failure? And what if we were a people who truly believed that the Almighty God we serve cannot - will not - be derailed from achieving His original good and perfect plan because of a few of our human mistakes? Are we really that arrogant?

The way that I see it now, God has established His Kingdom on earth, and we, His church, have been given the task of working to expand that Kingdom. So have we not already each been called? He has already told us what He wants us to be about - loving God, loving our neighbors, preaching the Good News, and discipling our brothers and sisters.

But the rest He has left up to us!

Did Jesus tell His 72 disciples specifically where to go when He sent them out in Matthew 10? Did he tell them that they all had to serve in the same way when he sent the 12 out in Matthew 24? Look how much freedom He gave them! His intention was to open up the world to them so that they would go quickly so that they wouldn't have to spend time wrestling with figuring out the hows and whens and whats.

See, we've grown up being taught that the shortest distance from point A to point B is a straight line. And any slight deviation from that line demands recalculation, adjustment, and is therefore inefficient. Lost time. Wasted effort. But the problem with straight lines is that it always takes us a half an hour to find a ruler.

I think that so often we see point A (Me) and point B (Where God wants me tomorrow/next month/next fall), and it seems most obvious to us that God would want us to get there using a straight line.

But I don't think that God likes straight lines. God didn't lead Abraham in a straight line to reach the Promised Land. God didn't lead Jacob in a straight line to becoming a righteous man. God didn't lead the Israelites in a straight line to reach Canaan. Jesus didn't move in a straight line to the cross. And Paul didn't move in a straight line to preaching to the Gentiles.

It seems to me that God is all about the 180 degree turns. He's not interested in point B. He's interested in YOU. And he's interested in the 1 lost sheep.

Does God want you to serve overseas? Does God want you to marry that girl? Does He want you to go to that school? Write Christian music or wash dishes in an orphanage? Teach or be taught? Go or stay?

I think that God wants you to use your gifts to feed His sheep.

All that you have to worry about is finding hungry sheep....and feeding them.

We make things far too complicated.

Light at the end of the tunnel...

5 days left...I can't believe it.

It's been an amazing experience being here, and I'm SO excited that he has called me back next fall! It has been a true joy teaching at Oasis, even though it's been hard missing out on the last part of my senior year with friends. I know that this is what I have been called to for now, though, and that is such a satisfying feeling.

Even though I taught my last day on Friday, I have a MOUNTAIN of grading to do before mid-term grades are due on Monday, and I also have a huge final portfolio to put together for my graduation requirement. That's what I'll be slaving over for the next few days... Then I get back on Thursday night, up early for graduation rehearsal on Friday, pack up, graduate on Saturday, wrap things up in GR, head down south for my cousin's wedding, and then.....who knows? Ha. I'm still working out the details.. No job yet, but I need to raise some finances, attend pre-field orientation for 2 weeks, watch the World Cup, do a BUNCH of paperwork for visas and such, and then make it back to Turkey by early August.

The details can get stressful when I dwell on them, but I'm reminded again and again that THIS is why I'm here. This place where need and blindness and overwhelming odds and impossible obstacles meet humble bloody hands and feet......this is where deliverance happens. Why would I ever want to be anywhere else?