Finding Momentum

We meet Dou­glas, Nel­isha, Faith, and friends to share some cof­fee on our final evening.

One morn­ing, I woke to a rev­e­la­tion that I fear a life wasted.

I real­ized that one of my biggest fears was that if I were to totally sur­ren­der my life to fol­low Jesus any­where, I’d become irrel­e­vant. My skills and tal­ents and edu­ca­tion and train­ing would be wasted. I wouldn’t reach my poten­tial as a Web devel­oper, a designer, an entre­pre­neur, a musi­cian, or a writer.

Would I fol­low Christ if it meant being:

• a laugh­ing­stock?
• mocked and despised?
• alone?
• wasted poten­tial?
• poor?

Do I believe that hav­ing Christ is worth far more than:

• a career?
• famil­iar friends?
• a rela­tion­ship?
• a com­fort­able life?

Morn­ing after morn­ing, I’d stare these ques­tions in the face and wres­tle with the voices in my head. Could I really “deny [myself], take up [my] cross” and fol­low him? (Mk. 8:34) Even if it meant a life wasted in the world’s eyes?

I was reminded that God is my Trea­sure, and he is worth far more than any­thing I can lay claim to.

No mat­ter how I wres­tled with it, I real­ize that none of my fears held any water in the grand scheme of it all. I couldn’t make it work out in such a way where I could jus­tify a life that was sur­ren­dered to God with one half and still held onto the other half.

I couldn’t deny the rich­ness of the Gospel dia­mond. I couldn’t feel con­tent with a luke­warm existence.

Ulti­mately, I was reminded that the my great­est desire was to enjoy God, and I couldn’t do it unless Jesus really was my Treasure.

About halfway through this trip, I started feel­ing peace. It was a sim­ple, quiet con­tent­ment in liv­ing: I have really cool friends here and my skills are use­ful and the mos­qui­tos have stopped bit­ing, gosh I’m almost com­fort­able. 

I’m real­iz­ing that I was happy not because my con­di­tions for my life were met–that my poten­tial would be real­ized, or what I had to offer would be utilized–but that I could trust a God who would pro­vide for me, where ulti­mately he him­self was my great reward.

Collin Tomikawa once told us, “you don’t know how strong the altar is until you put the weight of your entire life on it.” 

That’s what I’ve been learn­ing: that to know the will of God in my life, I must stake my life on the altar and trust.

Trust–that as I give it all, my good Father lav­ishes gifts on me: a solid com­mu­nity, ful­fill­ment in using my skills,  and the ulti­mate gift of Jesus him­self. Not to use these ben­e­fits as pre­con­di­tions for sur­ren­der, but to hunger for the trea­sure of Christ so much that these ben­e­fits are “count[ed] as rub­bish” in the ulti­mate cal­cu­lus of this new life.

I’ve got a lot to learn, and a lot of lis­ten­ing to do as I return home. I don’t have con­crete answers about the future just yet, but I trust that I’ll hear them in the right tim­ing. I’ve told God that I’m open to wher­ever he’s going to lead me, be it in min­istry, in the work­force or in some­thing com­pletely unfore­seen and dif­fer­ent. I know he’s my good Father, my Trea­sure, and I can fol­low Him.

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