keep on keeping on: never give up

We have somehow by God's boundless grace and extravagant goodness and through the workings of bizarre and hard circumstances found ourselves relocated (again) and attempting (again) to begin a new stage of life Stateside in rural central Virginia. What even? Throw a pandemic into the mix and BAM. Here. We. Are. 

Here we are attempting to make sense of God's will and direction for what is next. Attempting to grasp, with what often feels like we are losing our minds, His good and perfect plan.

The transition looks a lot different this time. The transition from transitioning all the time to stopping and staying. 

At this stage, living in the South Pacific for close to a decade feels like a fake life. A life that I conjured up in a crazy dream state. But the artifacts on my basement landing remind me every day that life actually did happen. My social media feeds remind me how that life continues in that far away space that was once our home. 

There was much initial grief of sudden and unexpected changes and loss. But each day has come and gone and each new day keeps on happening. I've talked out all the thoughts and felt through all the emotions until I am blue in the face. I have prayed through the blessings and mistakes and searched the Word for understanding. I have read books and blogs and sought to make sense of all the things. And day after day my Father has met me and slowly and graciously granted peace. Unmerited and overwhelming peace. God is steadily growing in me a less-and-less-shakeable faith in my understanding of His sovereignty over our lives: past, current and future. 

But even so I still don't know what He wants of us next outside of devotion to Him.

(Maybe though. Maybe that's where He wants His disciples?)

We're in this strange holding pattern it seems. Stuck between what was and what is to come. We're working our best at trying to make sense of it all. And in that mess we have done a lot of searching and desperate praying. 

In the messiest of the mess I have often prayed to be released of our calling to serve the ministry of Bible translation. But He hasn't done that. He hasn't released us of the passion we feel to impact Bible poverty. In the searching prayers to know God's will I have sunk deeper and further into His Word. And I have only fallen more dependent on it. Fallen more in love with who He is, what His character means to how I know and love Him and others. Fallen deeper into a desire to understand how He loves, gives, takes away, provides and what He promises and how He fulfills. The deeper I go the more I want of Him. And His Word draws me deeper into Him... and because His Word sustains me how can I not want to work towards sharing the only absolute truth with others? All those others who haven't heard? All those others who are still waiting?

He just hasn't shown us the how. 

And that has led me to asking a lot of things. Why is it that He says "yes" to one part of the equation and leaves a giant gaping hole where the "how" is? Why is He seemingly calling us to something that He isn't enabling us to do? Why is He meeting our passion to serve Him with a "not yet"?

There are loads of good Bible answers to my questions: Trust. Faith. Surrender. Patience. 

But let me be all the way honest. I don't want those hard answers. 

This morning God opened my eyes to something. Maybe what my heart and head have been begging for is escape from the turmoil of unknowns. Maybe that answer I desire about what is next is an easy out. An end - so that this transition can stop.

"Sustain me, and I will be rescued" Psalm 119:117 NLT

Ouch. See, I when I read those words it isn't what I wanted to hear. I would much rather prefer that the rescue be an escape. 

God keeps teaching me that He is much more about my character development (less Sara and more Jesus) than He is orchestrating my circumstances. He is after my heart. He is relentlessly pursuing me and He sustains me in the process. He loves me beyond and through. 

Maybe God will say "yes" in the end and we will continue serving in ministry in the ways we expect. He has done it before. FYI, He has unlimited resources and not one thing is too hard for Him! Then again, maybe He will switch things up and His "yes" or even His "no" will look different than I expect. 

Whatever He gives and however He gives it I know that He is sovereign and loves beyond what I can fathom. 

Maybe we will stay stuck in this holding pattern of waiting longer than we want. (Psh, that's an easy yes. I wanted my answer a month of Sunday's ago.) Maybe the rescue I ache for won't be an escape. Maybe the rescue is being sustained and held, loved and adored, pursued and poured into. Maybe the rescue is all about more intimately knowing the Savior. 

"All of this is for your benefit. And as God's grace reaches more and more people, there will be great thanksgiving, and God will receive more and more glory. That is why we never give up." 

2 Corinthians 4:15-16a NLT