“How does this make any sense?” I asked over and over sitting on the edge of the bed one day a few summers ago in Nicaragua. I kept asking God how he could possibly use a family of Americans in a different culture. So clearly seeing how irrelevant we seemed there, and how stripped of everything familiar. And after all the wrestling with Him, we came home to the same questions from family and friends. But his answer is always the same. He is enough. He is sufficient for our weak faith and lack of vision.
We have been asked about why we would leave the comforts of the United States. Why Costa Rica? Why wouldn’t we stay closer to home and serve those here instead? We love that people care, and are authentic enough to ask. We love that they love us so much, that they wonder why we would go and need to question us. So much need here, so much going on presently in our own culture. And while the reality of our leaving sets in, we are still convinced this is what God has next for us. We haven’t deserted our own, and chosen others as more valuable. We are just doing the next thing. The next ‘yes.’ Because when God invites you to something, no matter how impossible, the only answer is yes.
Need is everywhere, it always has been. But need doesn’t determine our call; God determines our call. It’s his work, not ours.
We know that God continues and desires to grow and build up the amazing community of people we are leaving, without us. We are fully aware that anything he has done was His plan all along and accomplished much in spite of us. The great beauty in that is that it’s the same wherever He sends us.
The location isn’t the point. Being obedient to Him is all there is, and that is what always comes first. There’s no place to get to, only a place to be. Seek FIRST the Kingdom. Pray. Respond. Call a friend. Meet your neighbor. Step into this person’s story.
‘Say yes, be still, know who I am and respond.’ That’s it. While we’ll certainly never understand the fullness of Christ this side of Heaven, we believe the Psalm is true, “Those that seek the Lord, lack no good thing.” Psalm 34:10. It’s for us to learn that the ‘good thing’ spoken of is the one thing we could never acquire on our own. That our problems often lay in our version of a ‘good thing.’
The best way I know to explain may be to say that our hearts are simply for his people. And we are all his. We are everywhere. It’s a global call, a world he’s calling to himself. And oh, the beauty of whatever he calls you to. It will be unexpected, and it will be better than anything you could have asked for or imagined. Somewhere in our journey, we found ourselves in a van in front of the Vida Joven office in Costa Rica being asked to pray about staff, to do a work Jimmy and I had only prayed over and discussed with each other privately over the past year. Dumbfounded might be a word to describe how we felt in that moment. And since then, about a hundred opportunities to say yes. And with each yes, we gained a softened heart being molded.
A pastor in Nicaragua once came to our home where we were staying the summer of 2012. He prayed with us, talked with us, and said something I never expected. He said, “If there’s any way you could NOT do this, then don’t.” I understood his point. The absolute resolve and commitment needed to do what was before us was staggering. If somehow we weren’t sure, his advice was… ‘don’t.’ or maybe it was, ‘wait.’
And as I pondered his words, I went to a place to be alone with God. I didn’t pick up a phone and call my Jesus following friends, my mom, or our pastor. Not until this key conversation had happened first between creator and created, until truth had saturated my fear, and his Glory was once again my goal. Agreeing with him about what I was made to do, and knowing the refining of my pride and selfishness was going to hurt. And it has. But in the acknowledgement of your weakness, something beautiful happens. You begin to call on his name for everything. Everything. And he is the only one worthy. Things begin to happen. Lives and hearts begin to be set free. You see it first hand as you walk with him. And then Luke 4:18 begins to be more than words on a page.
Someone recently told us, that as we surrender, WE are the clay on the pottery wheel. We are the ones he is going to mold and shape and change. He is the one that will draw all men to himself. We have no misconceptions about who we are. We are weak. This is worth celebrating in light of who Jesus is. And so now, after asking God to show us His plan with willing hearts, we leave in approximately 67 days. A one way ticket to San Jose, Costa Rica.
How will he possibly accomplish all he’s called us there to do? We don’t have to know that. We’ll say yes. We will go there with hearts ready to learn. We will listen to the heart of God in all we do, and for us, this is enough.
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free.” Luke 4:18