Diane and I returned from vacation yesterday. We came home a day earlier than we had to so we could go to some high school graduation parties we have been invited to. While in Myrtle Beach for a couple of days, we visited some friends who recently moved to Myrtle Beach. It’s a gated and secured campground/community on the beach. There are several thousand people there. It’s amazing. They have Gospel Sings once or twice a week, a Sunday church service, Bible studies, and they host youth mission teams who do VBS for all the different kids who come in the summer with their families for weekly vacations. They have a pastor who oversees all the Christian activities. I jokingly told them if the pastor ever retired, to let me know and I would apply for the job.
A picture I took at Turtle Beach near Siesta Key on the Gulf of Mexico
I was joking because I am pretty certain that a comfy job on the beach is not in my immediate future. It’s not that Diane would be opposed to it, and it’s not even that I couldn’t get a job like that. I’ve been to seminary, have nearly 10 years of pastoral experience, and would surely be qualified. However, if a job along the beach is in my future, it’s not going to be comfortable. It would be a job that would require me to be a less picky eater. If we are called to beach ministry, I think it will be in the mission field in a developing country.
When you decide to follow Jesus, your own preferences become secondary. You are no longer the boss over you. If you are still making decisions based on your own desires and by what is beneficial to you, you are probably not following Jesus. And it’s not that He calls everyone to poverty or the mission field, but obedience is often inconvenient and at times goes against conventional wisdom. Sometimes you have a heart for the foreign mission field and He is not calling you to go! When we moved to Mason, WV it was not our choice. We felt like God was sending us there. When we came to Short Gap, we had grown to love the Mason area and would have chosen to stay there. But God called us to Short Gap and in the three years since, we have seen several of His reasons for moving us here. And one day, when He calls/sends us somewhere else, we will go trusting Him that He is a better boss of us than we are. We cannot see what the future hold. But God can because He has already been there (yea, I can’t truly understand it either).
I know what my life was like when I was in control of it. Trust me, the Spirit of God has done a better job with my life in the last 16 years than I did on my own in the first 38. And remembering that, I’ll trust Him to lead me for whatever time I have left. For now, it looks as if that means another year in Short Gap. And I will be thankful for the reasons He has for not placing us on the beach 😉
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Scott Knowlton's Blog 