God said go

I was on the verge of saying no.

I had asked God for a number of days whether I ought to fill a spot on my church’s missions trip to Brazil to serve on a medical boat for 10 days, providing rudimentary health care in remote regions.

I had received no answers, no whispers from that still, small voice inside of me that, despite all of my steady years of churchgoing, I’m still learning to listen for and listen to.

My heart was definitely in the trip, I told my pastor, but I wasn’t sure about the time off work and the cost. I’ve always been drawn to overseas travel and missions, but my experiences are limited. Six weeks in Vietnam in 1999 and a week in Mexico last summer hardly hold a candle to the deep cavern that is my love of adventure.

God knows this. That much I know. He knows me inside and out; he knitted me together in my mother’s womb. If he cares for sparrows, he cares for me. If he cares about what I had for breakfast, he cares about the notion of me serving him in Brazil.

In Mexico last summer with the youth group, we built a home in four days for a family that has never owned a home. (The 7-year-old girl, upon seeing the bedroom, bed, pillow, and teddy bear we provided her, said in Spanish “This is mine,” and I cried to think that she’d never been able to make such a claim.) On the trip, we spoke often of being the hands and feet of Jesus.

Leaving the gym two days ago, I figured that the preceding days without an answer meant no on Brazil. Nonetheless, I thought about what I would say to others if I was to raise money for the trip, and “the hands and feet of Jesus” was a phrase on the tip of my tongue. As I drove back to work, I continued to pray that His will would be done. And the first song that came on the radio was Matthew West’s “Do Something,” with lyrics such as “If not you then who / If not now then when” and “It’s hard to talk about being the hands and feet of Jesus.” Other lyrics referenced how, in the face of all the world’s needs, we often feel helpless and tell God, “Hey, why don’t you do something?” As the song says, God has a simple reply: “I made you.”

And then the following song, Chris Tomlin’s “Whom Shall I Fear (God of Angel Armies)” – a personal favorite, it so happens – begins like this: “You answer when I call.”

Yes indeed. My worries were gone. Being away from work is manageable, and God will provide the resources.

I felt like I was floating – not just because I’d get to scratch that travel itch, but because God has proven to me once again that He is in charge of my plans… and he’ll even tell me directly.