Asking God geography questions.
Aug 19th by JonI got kicked off the New Jersey turnpike once for being too fat.
Let me rephrase that:
My father in law and I got kicked off the New Jersey turnpike for having a moving van that was slightly over the legal weight limit of what the road could structurally support.
What’s slightly overweight mean?
In this case, 4,000 pounds.
There was two tons worth of stuff too much in our 24 foot Penske moving truck. I thought briefly about whether we could jettison some of our heavier items like they do in the movies. I imagine myself opening the back of the truck while barreling down the highway at 70MPH and yelling at my father-in law:
“We’re too heavy; we’re not going to clear the New Jersey border. We’ve got to lose some weight. The china has to go. There are 12 place settings. We ate lunch at Costco last weekend; we’re not fancy enough to have that much china. And fiesta ware? That stuff is made of lead. You could kill a man with a fiesta ware plate. So heavy. Throw that out the back too.”
But because I love my wife and promised her I’d never throw her china out of the back of a rented vehicle on a federal interstate, I wasn’t able to lighten our load. So instead, we were forced to get off the turnpike. The weird thing is that the NJ turnpike goes through backyards and small little neighborhoods. As soon as we got off we were completely lost. Since this was before GPS devices, way back in 2004, I had to take the support vehicle back to a rest stop and buy a map while my father-in law waited awkwardly in some neighborhood cul-de-sac with our panting yellow beast of a moving truck.
All in all, that day turned out to be a geography lesson I would have preferred to miss but for some reason that’s a subject I can’t seem to escape right now.
Getting lost, not knowing where you’re supposed to be, fumbling with maps both physical and metaphorical, these are all things I find myself constantly doing right now.
The idea of “place” has been something I’ve been wrestling with a lot lately. I’ve got this overwhelming feeling that God wants me somewhere else. Whether that’s a product of immaturity or selfishness, there’s a part of me that loves to focus on there instead of here. I want to pray for chances to witness to far off people in far off places. It’s always sexier to think your mission in life is going to involve some sort of adventure with a rope ladder over a ranging river full of piranha as you carry a vaccine and the hope of the gospel to a lost tribe of people that will eventually give you a wicked cool village nickname (mine would be Rik-Rok) and perhaps your own machete. It’s a lot less fun to think that maybe you’re already in a mission field and the annoying guy who you pass TPS reports to, the guy who sits near you in a sea of cubicles, the sniffler, yeah that guy, he needs to know about the love of God.
I get caught up in that attitude and when I do, I eventually start peppering God with geography questions. Have you ever done that? Have you ever said to God:
Where do you want me?
This doesn’t feel like where I’m supposed to be God, can you please give me a sign?
Can you tell me where you want me to go?
Is this job, is this relationship, is this church, is this city where you want me to be?
Do you want me to move cities? States? Countries? Continents?
I fire off thousands of questions that center around the longitude and latitude of my life at God. And do you know how God answers me when I ask Him those kinds of questions? Do you know how I promise He will answer you if you ask Him those kinds of questions? Do you know the first answer God always gives when we say, “God where do you want me to go?”
“In my presence.”
We won’t get a city name first or a country or a street address. God isn’t Google Maps. Punch in as many prayers as you want, but more than anything else, God is going to say the same thing to you as He says to me,
“In my presence, that is where I want you to go. Better is one day in my courts than a thousand elsewhere. I’ve got other destinations planned for you, far off places and close to home addresses that you can’t even imagine, but every destination, every adventure begins with the same starting location, in my presence.”
Stop trying to force a map on God. He might give you laser specific directions for your life and your journey and your next steps. But first, long before He does that, even after He does that, He’s going to remind you of the one place He wants you to go most of all,
“In my presence.”
Comments
I have been asking this very question lately. The overwhelming feeling that i should be somewhere else was becoming, well, overwhelming. I should try harder to be in His presence. I should focus on the now. Not the where i want to be. Which, ironically should always be in His presence.
I've noticed a distinct pattern among us singles being "called" to the mission field.
All the women feel called to the "spiritually dark" places of Europe which also happen to make for great romantic vacation spots, or to wherever there are lots of cute starving babies, like Ethiopia.
Meanwhile us guys want to be Rik-Rok star missionaries caught up in Indiana Jones type adventures in jungle locations, fighting off slave traders and wild beasts, wondering if a cape and mask is proper jungle apparel.
Then they get married, babies come along, they notice neighbors in peril in their suburban jungle and bam! they're in the middle of a ministry.
I love my
fiestaware! It is heavy, though
Yep…in His presence is the only place to be.
When I read this I realized how often I take for granted that I get to be the guy that survives a bus sinking in a river delivering vaccines and maybe a little gospel to a jungle tribe (true story). I don't often enough thank God for the fact that my life is more like a movie than that of most of my friends. It has cost me relationships with people, but strengthened my relationship with Jesus.
You can't trade that.
Word of advice though if you think that you want to go…set your default to "GO." Do the most radical thing you can think that God might have you do and pray for a no, rather than waiting around for Him to send you somewhere wild. Life won't be boring.
ACK! tears, literally. I have been wrestling with the "why is it you can witness to someone in Vanuatu but not your next door neighbour? " question- I feel the 'call' to mission- and yet my neighbour has yet to hear mention of His Name??? I've felt heavily needing to witness to my neighbour (canadian spelling, sorry) and after reading this, no joke, I walked over there, and after MONTHS – a year? – of procrastination, fear, and internal struggle, DID IT. JUST NOW. First time.
Thank You, God, and BLESS JON!!!!
And Lord, water that seed, and someday may someone harvest it!!!!
p.s. great post. It may invite dispute as Paul's law-giving-rise-to-sin comment, but it's true! Do we continue in sin so that grace may abound? Do we stay in our house and never preach the Gospel if we are in God's presence? May it never be!
If we are in his presence, it will aburn in our bones until we get the Word out! ANd I'm pretty sure His presence is all over the world anyway. so wherever you go, stay in it!
Aww good J-Dawg.
How do you do it? How do you know exactly what to write at the time I need to read it?
I never comment on these new-fangled, blog post thingys, but this was so timely, so necessary, I thought it warranted my kudos!
I just spent the last 2 hrs on craiglist searching for a place to live, and then an additional 30mins to an hour looking for a new job on idealist.org, (this was just after I created a Linkedin profile and scoured my former college's employment page!)
I even resorted to the facebook status update (DREADFUL, I know.) And after all that, exhausted from the frustration of finding nothing, regretting how I should have applied THERE last month, and moved THIS month…yadda yadda yadda…I find this GEM of a post on SCL. So thanks.
In fact, I think I will sign-off now and spend some time in the only "Place" that makes right now.