Go For It

     We have friends who are serving in a Mexican orphanage, Ira and Bobbi, who were just home for three weeks. We were so glad to be able to spend some time with them and go out for lunch. And just like it is with old friends, when you are together it feels like you've never been apart. You just pick up where you have left off as if you just saw each other yesterday.
     Ira and Bobbi listened to God and left their lives here to go after what God wanted them to do. I guess having to say good bye to them this week has got me thinking. What is it that God is asking you to do? Maybe you're waiting for an audible voice. Maybe you think that it's too crazy an idea, that people will laugh at you. Just imagine how Noah felt. It had never rained before on the earth and yet God asked him to build an ark, a gigantic boat, because it was going to rain so hard that the earth would be destroyed. Noah was mocked but he kept building.
     I have heard people say that they will do this or that when such and such happens. What are you waiting for? Sometimes God will put that desire in your heart to do something 'out there' because you are the one for the job. We don't know if we have tomorrow so why not do something for Him today?
     When God called Brad and me to go into full time ministry, at first we balked. We thought it must not be God's prompting because we just bought a house. But the feeling was there and it kept getting stronger. So we got really involved in church, thinking that our work would please the Lord and I guess satisfy Him. But that is not what He wanted us to do. After we had Benjamin, we thought the Lord wouldn't call us to go to Bible college now, after all we have a child. But the feeling wouldn't go away that we were not in God's perfect will because we were not doing what He wanted us to do.
     Sixteen months after Benjamin was born, we had Matthew and we were more involved in the activities of the church than ever before. Surely the call to full time ministry was just a dream we had and now the Lord would lead us in a different direction. But He didn't. God knew what He wanted us to do and it wasn't until we had Alannah that we gave in and decided not be rebellious anymore. Because you see that is what we were. We KNEW what God wanted us to do but we chose to ignore it and just work harder for Him.
     Finally, after six years of running from our calling, we sold our house and just about everything in it, packed the kids in the car and left for Tennessee so Brad could attend Lee University. Once we made the decision to finally listen to God, the anxiety was gone, the frantic pace of trying to find something to please Him was gone. All God wants is our love and obedience and for us to trust Him. Once we figured that out, oh yes you know that in your head but knowing it in your very being is something different, we were on our way to a grand adventure.
     People thought we were crazy. Many people in and out of the church thought we had lost it: selling your house and taking three babies 1600 miles away from home to a place you've never been before! Crazy! No, what was crazy was not listening to God in the first place. We wasted six years doing our own thing. It made it unnecessarily harder on us that it would have been if we had gone when the Lord asked us to. But the Lord blessed us because we did eventually listen to Him.
     What is it you have always dreamed of doing? What are you waiting for? Go for it!! Don't come to the end of your life with regrets that you didn't do the thing you know the Lord wanted you to do. Don't let anything or anyone hold you back. If you take that first step of faith, I promise you that the Lord will be there to guide you all the way. We have never regretted finally listening to Him. The only regret that we have is that we didn't listen to Him sooner.