I will never forget that August day, the day we learned we were being rerouted to a different mission site than we’d originally been appointed. We were at the tail end of my husband’s family medicine residency, finally finishing seven years of medical training that had consumed our lives. The end of residency signaled the opening of a door to finally tie up loose ends and head overseas as medical missionaries, a calling that had led and guided us for the past decade.
My husband was at the hospital when the news came, so I was home alone with our two small sons. I couldn’t call and interrupt his workday, so I absorbed the sudden shift in our plans alone. I lay on the bed, curled into a ball, and wept.
On the one hand, my highly emotional response might seem odd given the fact that we had never been to either the previously appointed mission site nor the newly appointed one. Our attachment to either place was minimal at best.
Yet on the other hand, our decision-making process had been filled with prayer and reflection, along with conversations providing counsel. We felt as confident as anyone can when making a decision of this kind. We were grateful not only for a place to go, but for the clarity and confirmation regarding the where and the when.
Until that day when the news came that we would no longer be going to the place we were sure we were meant to go.
When my husband came home, I unleashed a new wave of tears. Together, we asked the typical questions. Did we miss something? Did we misunderstand what God was asking us to do? Did we close our eyes and ears to what He was saying so we’d only hear what we wanted to hear? What did this mean, logistically and spiritually? Should we agree with the new direction our organization had set for us, or go back to the beginning and start again?
Although the questions continued swirling for a long time, our way forward was surprisingly and blessedly clear from the moment our path took a sharp turn. We chose to submit to authority, trusting that the knowledge of people who’d been in missions for years and decades ahead of us knew better than we did. That assumption proved true in the end, although it took a long time for us to understand all the dynamics at play that led to our unexpected change of course.
One question that didn’t initially occur to me at the time of being rerouted was one I thought I already knew: What is your calling?
Before the upheaval in my heart that August day, I would have said that my calling was to serve in medical missions alongside my doctor husband. More specifically, we were called to serve in Africa. More specifically still, we were called to serve with a residency training program in Kenya that educates and equips family medicine physicians from Africa for Africa. The final detail in our calling was the specific location in which we’d seek to carry out the aforementioned particulars.
We had it all sorted out. Our calling was specific and clear.
Being rerouted to a new location didn’t change anything else about our calling. We would still serve in medical missions, with the same residency training program in the same country as we expected to. The only change was the literal location within Kenya where we’d live and serve. In hindsight, I realize that’s a relatively minor adjustment compared to some changes other missionaries have had to endure. It was enough of a diversion from our expectations, however, to cause real emotional turmoil and require a long process of healing and coming to terms with our new reality.
Also, it was enough of an alteration to make me question our calling.
If the location of our ministry will be on the other side of the country than we thought, what is our calling? If we’ll be working with a different people group than we’d planned, what is our calling? If our ministry asks us to do something we don’t feel equipped to do, what is our calling?
In an unpredictable, ever-changing world, I had to land on the one thing that never changes: our one and only true calling is to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength (Deut. 6:5, Mark 12:29-30).
On a practical level, the way we express our love for the Lord will differ from one person to the next. We are made with certain gifts and talents which are meant to love and glorify and serve the Lord in various capacities, and which are meant to fulfill specific callings He’s made known to us.
But when our circumstances prohibit our gifts and talents from being expressed easily, or at all, we are left with either despairing of fulfilling our callings or clinging to the foundation of our faith. That foundation is this: He who first loved us is ultimately inviting us to love Him back, to cherish who He is and what He’s done, and to respond with an outpouring of love (1 John 4:10, 19).
I’m reminded of David, who spent approximately fifteen years waiting for his calling to become the next king of Israel to come to fruition. After becoming the king of Judah following the death of Saul, David had to wait an additional seven years before becoming the king of all Israel (2 Sam. 5:4-5).
This was a man whose calling was as clear as it comes: the prophet of God anointed him as God’s chosen. And although David knew from the outset that he’d have to wait a while to become king (Saul was still sitting on the throne, after all), he probably didn’t imagine it would take as long as it did, nor that he’d spend a decent amount of that waiting period on the run, fleeing for his life through the wilderness.
For as obvious as his calling was, the details of how to fulfill it were as clear as mud. I can well imagine the questions plaguing David as he hid in caves and worked to stay one step ahead of Saul’s murderous mission: Why is this happening? Did I miss something? Is this even worth pursuing anymore? Did God choose the wrong man?
We get a glimpse into his inner thoughts through the many psalms he penned, not only over the course of a lifetime but even some that were written during the exact season he was escaping Saul. Given the intensely stressful situation he found himself in, it’s perhaps unsurprising that some lines of these psalms (Psalms 34, 54, 56, 59) are of an imprecatory nature.[1]
Other lines, however, offer insight into another layer of David’s emotions. After his close friend Jonathan urged him to flee from Saul, David found himself in the land of the Philistines, unsafe and pretending to be insane in order to preserve his life (1 Sam. 21:10-15). In tandem with that episode, David penned the words, “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit” (Ps. 34:18).
The chosen and anointed future king of Israel was residing in a foreign and hostile land, behaving like a madman with drool running down his face in front of an enemy king. His calling had seemingly gone haywire. His expectations of assuming the throne were as far from his current reality as they could possibly be.
And while openly admitting how the circumstances had broken his heart, David also declared that the Lord was near and ready to save his crushed spirit. How can someone so far off from his calling say such a thing?
Because he knew the answer to the foundational question we must all ask ourselves: What is your calling?
David’s answer: to love the Lord. Regardless of the direction (or misdirection) his calling had taken at the time, David never forsook the truth that he was loved by God and was invited to love God back.
This is not to say that we can’t or shouldn’t grieve when our callings change course or even hit a dead end. Of the same event among the Philistines in Gath, David also wrote, “Record my lament; list my tears on your scroll – are they not in your record?” (Ps. 56:8). Yes, we can and should cry, weep, and wail. God hears it all and receives it all.
But alongside our confusion, questions, and laments is the truth that David recorded for us while hiding in the wilderness of Ziph and having the locals expose his whereabouts to Saul (1 Sam. 23:7-29): “Surely God is my help; the Lord is the one who sustains me.” (Ps. 54:4).
How can someone whose calling has been derailed by enemies and other opponents proclaim that God sustains him? Because he knew that his calling was more than a situation or a time or a place. David’s calling was a position with God, a right relationship with his Creator.
My comparatively minor bump in the road that August day was vastly different than David’s years of aiming at a moving target, but it brought me to the same place it brought David. It made me go back to the core of my faith and remind myself that no matter where I am, what I’m doing, or when I’m doing it, my purpose is to love the Lord.
Yes, there are specifics to our individual callings, and we should not overlook them because they matter – we are gifted in specific ways for specific God-honoring tasks and I believe not only that they matter in this lifetime but will also matter in the next. We will, after all, be held accountable for what we have done here and now.
I certainly hope that the Lord was pleased with how I used my gifts to serve the kingdom when we landed at the new mission site, just as I hope He is still pleased with me for how I’m using my gifts at the original site we eventually got to. I hope that my response to our missionary calling, however convoluted it seemed at times, has honored the Lord.
But before we focus on the ways we’ve obeyed God’s commands, before we remember the ways we’ve responded to God’s invitations to follow certain callings, I hope we will rejoice in one another’s response to our one and only true calling.
When I get to heaven, my hope and desire is to answer the question, “What did you do in your earthly life?” with a resounding and emphatic, “I loved the Lord.”
[1] Imprecations invoke curses on one’s enemies, which was common among ancient near Eastern literature, although it should be noted that David’s imprecations place the responsibility of redresses in the hands of the Lord, the divine Judge. Imprecations may also appeal to God to act against evil.
Photo by Priscilla Du Preeze on Unsplash
