God Prepares You For What He Has Prepared For You

Many years ago, an eighteen year old college freshman sat in her first ever Bible college course on missions.  The professor, a seasoned missionary in his mid-fifties, passionately extoled the virtues of mission work.  To this day, that freshman remembers his words vividly.

"Some of you will go to the far reaches of the world, the most remote villages, and do God's work there.  Some of you will be in churches.  Some of you will be in office jobs here, wondering what you are doing to build the Kingdom.  Let me tell you."

Almost twenty years ago, I started off my life journey hoping and studying and preparing to work in Bible translation.  That quickly changed to teaching English overseas and using that as a platform to do charitable works in other countries.  If you've been a longtime reader of mine - and for your patience I sincerely thank you - you know those plans were derailed by years of sickness.  Now I do work in my home country.  I haven't gone abroad in almost twenty years.  I definitely don't work with a ministry.  My life looks very similar to many of yours.  Many of us, I am sure, wonder at times what more we can be doing for our faith, for our God, for His Kingdom and His Church.

I don't have specific answers, but I want to continue that professor's opening lecture.

"Let me tell you...  God has plans for each and every one of you.  Each and every one of you will go through trials, will go through struggles, will go through hardships.  And those hardships that almost break you, that is where your ministry will lie.  Your greatest pain - your biggest weakness, your greatest scars, your worst moments - will be what God makes your greatest ministry.  He did not call a great man to be the king of Israel, but a shepherd boy.  In the days when they faced great enemies, He did not call a general, but a humble farmer.  God will take your lowest points and use them to bring glory to His name.  He will never bring you to something you are not able to face.  He prepares you for what He has in store for you."

Throughout my twenties, that refrain would echo in my ears as I stumbled through one job after another.  "Why isn't the job at the hospital working out?  Why am I sick all the time?  Why aren't I able to find a job and move to the city I want to move to?  Why aren't I in a happy relationship with anyone?  Why am I getting all of these random part-time jobs and not a full stable career?" I often wondered to myself.  I wondered if God's plan was to keep me as some kind of a patchwork quilt, slapping together whatever others needed in order to get them through tough times while I struggled.

Then I became a teacher.

All of a sudden, all those random jobs gave me empathy for my students who worked them now.  I understood how principles and concepts of the curriculum applied to a variety of fields of work.  I could teach more effectively.  Because I didn't move where I wanted but where I had to go for school, I was able to meet my now husband.  I still had those questions about why I had to go through those struggles, but life seemed to move on.  But then a student came to me in tears yesterday with bad news.

"Why doesn't anything work out for me?  Why aren't I getting where I want to go?"

And I knew, in that moment, that I had been prepared for their questions, which so painfully reflected my own from many years before.  I was able to share some of my own path and provide the comfort that only experience can bring.  I was able to help shoulder their burdens.  I was able to empathize and tend to that young person's wounded soul and broken heart.  They left my room lighter than before.  

I don't work in a church.  I'm just a teacher, a wandering writer and wife, in the middle of a cornfield.  I will never be a noted priest or spiritual leader.  I don't have to be.  I am right where God wants me to do good in the lives of the students who come into my classroom.

I don't know your situation.  I don't know your questions.  I don't know your past.  But I know this much is true for you:  God has prepared you for what He has prepared for you.  Stick close to Him, even when things don't make sense, and you will always be right where He wants you to be.