Why I’m Going on the World Race, Part II: A Need to Choose

As I was deciding whether or not to do the world race, I went to God with many reasons about how I wasn’t the right person for it. I thought about health concerns and inconvenience and fear and fundraising and so many more. But as I took each concern to God, He slowly gave an answer for each one and quieted my soul. Then I came to Him with a big question, “but am I ~called~ to this?”  

 

There are two different trains of thought to go with this question: am I called in the Biblical sense, and am I called in the personal sense to this specific ministry? The answer to the Biblical one is yes, and I will explain that in a future blog post 🙂 But the second train of thought got me really confused and I want to share that thought processing journey with y’all here.

 

There is such a weight in the statement: “calling from God.” And there should be. I used to think that if somebody was called by God then there must be some sort of burning bush or audible voice from God involved. But I think God generally doesn’t speak in such dramatic forms. So how do I listen to a quiet God? Well, I better get quiet myself.  

 

What did God tell me when I was quiet? He brought to mind a lot of things. He reminded me how my life has been a mix of my own choices and so many things beyond my control. I chose to go to University of Nebraska in Lincoln and to major in English and Global Studies. But I was blessed with so many friends and groups and opportunities during my undergrad years that I had very little choice about. Some of the friends I tried to get close to would run away, while others straight up walked up to me and said “I like you. We’re friends now.” 🙂 God grew me so much throughout college. He never shied away from my questions, and He led me to churches and small groups that welcomed them as well. When I graduated from UNL in the midst of the pandemic, I felt very little control and very few choices left. However, I was blessed with friendships and job experience (and just plain life experience) working at Starbucks. I chose to move back to Lincoln, but I was surrounded by church community and work community that I couldn’t have even imagined. And then I met person after person who challenged me and grew me. And I started to notice a trend… in the span of a single year, I met four people that I looked up to greatly who had all been on the world race! They didn’t pressure me. They didn’t even suggest anything. Just the more I heard their stories, the more alive I felt and the more I wondered if I could do something like that, too.  

 

There are certain things God tells me very clearly what to do (obedience stuff laid out in the Bible). But there are other things, where God gives me the choice. He lays good options in front of me and empowers me to choose. To help weave my own story.

 

I know that God is sovereign and that predestination—that big, Christianese word that means God knows, and to an extent controls, what happens—is biblical. But I also know that God calls us to liberty and freedom and choice. So, this freewill and predestination debate is a beautiful mystery where it can’t, in my opinion, be all or nothing either way. It’s a beautiful balance, or better yet, God’s fully sovereign yet we’re fully free. The same way Jesus was fully God and fully man. And the same way God is three-in-one. All of these beautiful mysteries that make my brain want to explode but also drive me to worship in awe the God that I can’t fully understand.

 

So, in response to was I called to go on the world race? Yeah, I was fully called, but I also fully chose. God’s empowering me to make choices, and He handles all the bits that are outside of my control.

 

Thank You, Abba, that even and especially in the unknown, You are constant and faithful!