Winter has arrived here in north central PA. We've received around 18" in the last day and a half or so. It was good snow. Soft, light, easily shoveled...
Not that I didn't complain from time to time, but I have long had the sense that complaining about that over which one has no control is a waste of time. It neither makes good, helpful, or endearing conversation, nor does it change anything.
I've known people who say "I could never live anywhere else" when referring to the place in which they've lived all of their lives. And I guess I can appreciate that the good Lord does not call all to the lifestyle to which I seem to have been called. But I do wonder what might happen if each of us, and I include myself in all of this, were to say to God, "Here I am, send me." Do we have the trust in our Lord to be uprooted from our jobs, our homes, our family, all that is familiar...
Can we say, in spite of what we might want, in spite of what we may think we can and cannot do, in spite of what we like and enjoy, that we are truly WILLING servants.
Carol and I are currently in something of a discernment mode regarding our future work with the Great Guana Cay congregation. It would put us back into a more active ministry role. It would move us from our comfortable home here in north central PA, near our family...to the Bahamas. Some might say, "and you VACILLATE?
Many of us tend to stay put because we fear change or we tend to go because we love adventure. The human spirit is fickle. So how do we discern the will of God? It begins with a willingness to set aside all that we like, all that we love, all that we have established, and say openly and honestly, that we would rather live in destitute poverty in the slums of Kibera witnessing to God's grace, than to live in the lap of luxury and confidence, comfort and convenience, doing little for the Lord.
So as Carol and I look forward to getting a furnace installed in the next couple of weeks, we realize too that this will free us up for more possibilities. We won't be locked in to feeding the wood stove every 3-6 hours. We wouldn't have to flush the toilets with antifreeze, turn of the water and drain the lines. We will be more fluid, more free to move about... God just keeps making it easier to do His will (for all of us).
Internet communication makes things possible that have hitherto not been possible. Information flows freely across the airwaves. Travel is easier now than it has ever been (in spite of people's anxiety about having to produce a vaccine card and wear a mask, and even quarantine oneself).
Since Christ suffered so much for us, might we not more easily and willing follow in His footsteps, taking on His yoke? Who are we to whine, complain, make excuses, or otherwise neglect the wonderful possibilities he sets before us.
It's not so much a matter of "I haven't heard God's call." It's more a matter of not really having been interested in listening for that call nor being willing to obey when we hear it, forsaking all others...Too often we hear God's call once and we stay with that, even past the expiration date of the call, thinking it wouldn't, couldn't, and won't be done with out us, never wondering if maybe it could or should be done without us, or maybe not done anymore at all. God's call is difficult to construe to be sure...but it must be that which we seek with all the intelligence, imagination, and love he makes available to us
The new Heaven and the new Earth which God promises should make one realize just how bland, sick, broken, and ugly this earth is. Our future resurrection lives will mock today's existence - the Grand Canyon, the Pyramids of Egypt, the small Parisian Cafe, are all but things which moth and rust consume, things which will be made new without decay, without decline, without destruction.
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