“Where You go,
I’ll go. Where You stay, I’ll stay.”
-“I Will Follow”
by Chris Tomlin, Jason Ingram, & Reuben Morgan
The
caterpillar sat on a small branch with the front third of his fuzzy body
stretched up to the sky.
“I
was born to fly!” he exclaimed, “I just know it!”
He
was tired of spending his entire days eating and crawling, and he was certain
that he was made for something more. But
try as he may, he could not lift his little non-aerodynamic body off of the branch.
Okay,
so I may have read The Very Hungry Caterpillar entirely too many times
in the past couple of weeks to the little boy I babysit, but this scenario
provides a pretty good picture of how my husband and I have felt this past
year. Before I dive into an explanation,
I need to give you a little bit of background.
Last December, God very suddenly pulled us out of full-time
ministry. We absolutely know that it
needed to happen, but the necessity of the removal doesn’t change the fact that
we were ripped away from a life that we absolutely loved. For a year and a half, we were passionate
about the work we were doing, and we felt like we were fulfilling God’s purpose
and call for our lives by using the talents and abilities He had given us to
serve Him. Out of the blue, it all came
crashing down around us, and we found ourselves carried away in a whirlwind
back to the area where we attended Bible college. Since then, our heart has always been (and
still is) to return to full-time ministry eventually. However, God has not yet given us the
privilege of doing that.
In
the meantime, we have been focusing on healing, growing, and learning in the
midst of the daily grind of a life we didn’t choose or want. In the beginning, I desperately needed the
break from full-time ministry, so even though I was grieving heavily, it was
fairly easy for me to welcome this next chapter of our story. However, as the months have passed and I have
experienced more and more healing, I have found myself battling the discontent
that wants to slowly creep into my heart.
I ache with the memories of spending each day taking care of my husband
and the house and working alongside him to reach into the lives of those around
us in various ways. I especially miss
the Sunday nights of laughing, playing, and discussing Biblical truth with the
youth and watching my husband teach them.
Without a doubt, ministry had its own set of challenges, but there’s no
other way we would rather spend our lives. Yet, that desire seems so out of reach at
times. God has been gracious to allow us
to help with leading worship at our new church, and He has given us a few short
windows to help with youth events every once in a while. While we are truly grateful for the
opportunities we’ve been given, we still wish that we could devote more time to
ministry. My husband and I have both
struggled off and on and to different degrees with feeling like that
caterpillar this year: frustrated and stuck to the tree branch when we really
want to fly.
As
I was wrestling with all of this again recently, God directed my thoughts to
the life of His Son. For each struggle
that entered my mind, He reminded me of a relatable situation in Jesus’s life,
thereby showing that He understands exactly what I am going through:
1) In some ways, our current situation feels
like a huge step backward from where we were.
We know that’s not true, but it’s hard to get our hearts on board with
what we know. Jesus is fully God, but He
humbled Himself and came to earth as a human in the absolute lowest and most
helpless of ways. What a seemingly
backwards transformation! Logic says
that this must have been a derailing of the fulfillment of His true calling and
purpose. Yet, He was right where God
wanted Him to be and where we needed Him to be.
This humbling transformation was not a deviation from the course or a
backslide. It was the very fulfillment
of His purpose for that time.
2)
We work hard because God tells us to be faithful, but sometimes it feels like
we are wasting precious time investing ourselves into our secular jobs. This is not to say that our work is at all
meaningless or unimportant, but it isn’t what we really want to do, what we believe we were
really designed to do, or what we believe we are called to do in the long run. Jesus worked as a carpenter until He was
thirty.
3)
I struggle with worrying about what other people think about our situation,
though I know that God is the only One I should worry about pleasing. People thought all sorts of things about
Jesus. Some thought He was from
Satan. Others thought he was a crazy
person, a liar, a pretender, and a blasphemer.
Still others thought He was just a good man or a good teacher. The truth is all that really matters, and God
sees the truth.
4)
We have been tempted to rush ahead of God into ministry without really seeking
His will. Jesus was also presented with
the opportunity to rush ahead of the plan when Satan tempted Him in the
wilderness with all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.
Jesus
understands what we are going through, which brings me comfort. He shows me that I am equating ministry too
much with serving God. Ministry is
certainly one expression of service, but service to God is ultimately obeying
Him. Obedience may look very different
from what we expect. The caterpillar is
indeed made to fly in due time, but it is also made to eat and crawl in order
to develop. God is not only concerned
about what we do, but who we are. He sees
our complete transformation and all of the works that He prepared in advance
for us to do throughout that transformation.
Sometimes our job is to go.
Sometimes our job is to stay. Either
way, our bigger job is to trust Him, to obey Him, and to be faithful to what He
has called us to do today.
