When God Calls Us to Live a Not So Ideal Life

"Make me broken so I can be healed...
Make me empty so I can be filled...
‘Til you are my one desire.
‘Til you are my one true love
‘Til you are my breath, my everything
Lord, please keep making me.
Make me lonely so I can be yours...
‘Til you are my one desire.
‘Til you are my one true love
‘Til you are my breath, my everything
Lord, please keep making me." 

I knew from the start of the new school year (2018-19) that it was going to be tough. As I told a friend within the first week, it was going to be a "lean on Jesus" year. So I put my head down and prepared to trudge with Christ through my final contract year in Jakarta, choosing "Keep Making Me" by Sidewalk Prophets as my anthem. And so I trudged. Through six subject preps, coaching, homeroom, mentoring students (Care and Connect and Mission Service Learning), senior school retreat planning, lunch supervision, standardized test preparation for four subjects, and professional development (all of these things required by the school, yeah...), I trudged for two months, praying always that I might be able to run again and finish my teaching position well.

But as with most things, God's idea of letting me run again and finish well and my idea were not the same. If anyone is unaware, I am back in the United States for a while due to my health. My health had been deteriorating for the last few months, mostly as a result of stress (look at the list above and you will understand why). Therefore, after much prayer, advice, and talking with my doctor in the United States, I chose to step out of my teaching position. I spent hours in prayer and much of that time in tears. This was perhaps one of the most difficult decisions I have ever had to make. Leaving less than half way into the new school year and handing over my classes and dreams for those classes and students to other colleagues was so hard, not just because I love my students so much, but let's face it I am a control freak and a perfectionist.

So what was I supposed to do now? This wasn't what I had planned! I was supposed to complete the school year. I was going to finish the IGCSE program with my class of sophomores. We were going to "slam dunk" those dang standardized tests in May. I was going to teach some units for the third time and finally have a better handle on them. I was coaching running and planning to coach soccer with my friend and colleague Elli later in the school year. What had happened and what would happen?

"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways," declares Yahweh. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My thoughts than your thoughts." ~ Isaiah 55: 8-9

On September 1 I was required to attend a spiritual conference for school. The topic for the conference was about the cost of discipleship based on Luke 14:25-35. During that conference I was convicted of how self-absorbed I had become and knew that I wasn't following Christ wholeheartedly. I realized that I needed to step out in faith with my whole life even though I was terrified to relinquish complete control. I needed to give up to God and stop playing it safe, writing prayers in my journal that Christ would help me to be brave in following Him with my entire being.

So what if this painful, less than ideal situation is actually God's answer to those prayers and resolutions for God to "keep making me", to lean on Jesus, and to be a true disciple of Christ? Wait! What?! "No, no, God. You were supposed to take my sports. My obsession with image. I did not mean my job!" But God never promises to leave any part of our lives alone. And He certainly never promises to give anyone an ideal life.

As one of the elders at my church in Jakarta quoted in a sermon, "If obedience to God brings you to a place of suffering, it is not a detour. You are dead set in God's will." I have often overlooked this idea and like Job's friends I want to ask, "So what did I do that brought on this trial? Where did I go wrong?" But what if I am exactly where God wants me? Often during this process I have asked "God, can this all be a bad dream! Can all of this just end?! I wish this had not happened."

"So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us." ~ Gandalf, The Fellowship of the Ring

So how am I going to use the time that is given me? "And what does the Lord require of [me] but to  do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with [my] God" (Micah 6:8).