We are currently back in our passport country for the summer after some of the most difficult months of my life. We have faced personal, life-changing challenges, unrest in our host country, and exhaustion from it all. I wrote about how God called us to our current host country after years of service in another country in a Velvet Ashes blog post last year, and, long story short, God was very clear when he gave us the call to move to our host country. We had no doubt in our mind that following him meant a continental move.
Now, two years after our move, I find myself asking him to show me why he called us here.
I was sitting across from a friend at a coffee shop recently, and she asked me how I was doing in the midst of the struggles of this year.
Tears began sliding down my face as I broke down in front of her. “I just keep asking God, ‘If this was the way it was going to happen, why did you call us here? Why?’”
In my humanness, I strain to see the impact. All I see is the struggle.
I think we’re all hoping to be world changers in some way. Our brokenness overemphasizes our desire to be seen and valued by the world. And, perhaps subconsciously, when we give things up for the sake of the gospel, we want to see the fruit and have some sort of receipt that validates our sacrifice. Some sort of validation feels, again in humanness, owed to us. The sacrifices of time, closeness, and relationship. The sacrifices of comfort and ease and security, of understanding and finances and family. What has been bought with these sacrifices? When things get hard, we want to know that it was all worth it.
“Why did you call us here, God? What are we doing here?”
The future feels uncertain for me right now. I don’t know where you are—maybe in a similar place as me—wanting clear answers and clear receipts. People keep asking me about the future as if the answers should be obvious. But just like when God called us here, I want to choose to trust in his plan and his purpose. Even when I can’t see it or it’s not obvious. Even when it’s not natural or doesn’t make sense from a human perspective.
I come back often to the story in Joshua of when the Israelites crossed the Jordan after another miraculous parting of water, this time taking them into the Promised Land.
“‘Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. . . . These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.’” (Joshua 4:5–7 NIV)
At the end of their painstakingly long journey through the wilderness that began with a sea-splitting miracle, the Israelites crossed the Jordan on dry ground to the Promised Land. What did God ask them to do? To remember, and to make sure generations to come remembered as well. This was for their sake, these stones of remembrance. God knows how easily we forget.
What do we come back to when we turn from asking God “what” each day to asking him “why” each day? Where is our grounding place?
Rather than asking God for a return on my investment, I want to return to that place of grounding. For me, my stones of remembrance are things like the clear call to come here, fruit I’ve seen from previous seasons that God graciously used to prove his faithfulness to me, and provision when it all seemed impossible. He does not leave us in the desert alone, and he does not leave us there to wander forever.
I may not know what the future holds, but I know the One who holds the future.
Sometimes, God chooses to allow us to count the fruit, and when that happens, it is truly a blessing. Other times, we may not know the impact for years to come. Often, we never know. What God does with our sacrifices is his business. There is, however, a place where we can see the impact every time. And this is where we can truly find the answer to our “why.” To walk with our God and to know him more. To be changed by him. This is the “why” that truly matters every time: relationship with the One who sacrificed everything for us.
What sacrifices have you made that you are struggling to reconcile with God’s call on your life? Where can you return in times of difficulty and hardship?
