Sometimes when I get started thinking it might not necessarily always be a good thing. But, there are those rare occasions where it's actually a really good thing. I don't know what we'll get me started thinking sometimes, but on those rare occasions its action center and should be thinking about. Here over the past few weeks, some stuff is happening is pretty open my mind up to ideas I've never explored before. And for once, it's actually been a really good thing.
How to start? Where did I think my life was going to go? Well, since I was in high school I've planning on being a teacher, which is a good thing, and I keep hearing how we need more male teachers to be good role models for students, and I agree. So that's put me on a career path that has me right now in my junior year of college, a semester away from embarking on my student teaching experiences and after that probably getting a job as a teacher somewhere. Where will I end up? Probably at some small Christian school doing whatever they need, just standing in the background, not attracting much attention, but not causing any problems either. Just being a good role model to the students and getting my job done. I would probably end up getting married along the line, settle down and have a family. Eventually retire one day, with whatever one can save for retirement working at a Christian school. That's what I thought I would do, and for all I know that might be what I end up doing. I don't know.
I've never really thought about the importance of my ministry outside of teaching. I just thought that my ministry would be primarily through my career in (what I thought would be) a Christian school. Missions? Not a chance. I'm not that kind of guy. I don't go out I'll make connections with other people easily. I just go out daily and get done the tasks I need to do.
A few weeks ago I was home on spring break. It was nice just relaxing, not having to do much to worry about school for a week. The nice thing was it was missions conference at my home church, something I haven't been at in a couple years since I would be down at school the last two years. So that was nice. I got to hear from several missionaries, their different perspectives and goals in their ministries. However, one of those three missionaries actually ready stuck out to me for reasons that I don't really expect coming into the conference. This missionary was part of a team that is working out in Salt Lake City, planting a church in that city. The fire, and the passion that this guy had for reaching the city was great, and I absolutely loved it. Their whole philosophy to their ministry, I just thought was amazing, I loved it, and I thought this is exactly what we as churches need to be doing right now. And so I left and went back to school, with all of this in the back of my head, but not really anything that's grabbing me, but I understood that this is something thy God is going to be using greatly in the future.
Fast forward a few more weeks on back in school, and it's time for our annual missions conference at college. The cool thing about this missions conference as opposes to the other two that I've been to at Faith, was how the focus of this conference was on building the church, particularly through urban ministry. Throughout that into entire week, listening to the speakers, I heard a marvelous passion for reaching the world by going to our own back door. Urban centers around the world are growing at unfathomable rates, and the United States is no exception to this. If we want to reach the world, we've literally just have to look out inter backyard, here in America, and reach our neighbor for Christ. After that who knows we're still take the gospel; it could be sent a neighbor down the street or to Beijing or New Delhi or the heart of Africa. That's how global our urban centers are now. And so throughout this week I looked at thinking to myself, "you know, I could actually see myself doing this."
Part three. I'm an elementary education major. I love to teach. I love working with kids. And after almost three years of classes for my major and all the headaches that accompany the homework for it, I'm pretty sure that I still want to do this for the rest of my life. One of the requirements that we have for my major is that I have to go out into schools and observe an actual classroom in action. See the teacher working with the kids, and even sometimes I get to work with kids myself. This semester I have had the awesome privilege to go to a school and inner city Des Moines. When I was first found out that I would have to go here, I didn't really like the idea. I've never really spent much time in the public school, and I really didn't think that I would ever have it do anything with the public school, among things I'd be part of the teachers union, I'll pass. Work with kids whose parents really don't care what's happening, I'll pass. I truly thought that a Christian school would be the only place that I could teach. I also had the opportunity to teach a lesson in this classroom that I was observing in. I mean, it's always a good thing to actually get practice teaching a real class if you want to actually do it for a living. I was teaching this lesson in the classroom the Tuesday after the end of missions conference. This was my third time back to school, and by this time I was actually pretty comfortable there, yet there's a few things that I'm not quite used to yet been I might not ever get used to, but compared to what I thought when I first found out I was going to have to come to this school, I was pretty comfortable. While I was teaching, I started to see the students differently. I'm not seeing them as inner city, underprivileged kids, even though they are, but I started seeing them as kids that are literally just looking for somebody to love them, to care for them, stuff that they might not be receiving at home. I start to see these students the same way that the missionaries I had been hearing see the people they work with daily: people hungering for something, but not knowing what.
Now, all the sudden, where do I want to teach? I could very well end up in a Christian school, and if that's God's will for me, let's do it: that sounds awesome. But maybe God has other plans for me. Maybe His plans are to teach in a comfortable environment. Maybe his plans have me somewhere where teaching isn't everything that my ministry is about. Maybe teaching is the job that I have to put me in a better position to minister and serve God, but my ministry isn't dependent on my teaching. Like I said earlier I always thought that I would end up with a wife probably have kids somewhere along the line and that I would just live that normal easy life that most (western) Christians think about. I'm not getting married any time soon, I’ve never even had a girlfriend. At this point there really aren't even any prospects. It is pretty clear at this point that it is not God's plan for me to have a girlfriend, let alone be married, at least not for right now. Possibly it may never be. That's something that can be tough to swallow, especially if you've spent you whole life thinking that way. The fact is maybe this is just a time that God is telling me that, "You know what Jeremy? You don't need another person your life. All you need is Me. Trust Me, do what I say, and you won't regret it." And maybe someday there will be a wife. Maybe there are kids. I may be better suited to do the kind of ministry that God wants me to do as a single guy than if I have a family. Maybe I need to not have those things holding you back from doing what I really need to do. And it's easy to say that. I've been saying that for years, well, maybe not, quite but you get the point. But the thing is now, I kind of actually believe it. And that's pretty awesome.
I don't know where God is leading me right now, and honestly at this point and don't care where He's leading me. If I'm serving Him and glorifying Him, that's all that really matters. I know God is helping me to realize through on number of circumstances, that I need to just learned a love and serve Him, and not worry about anything else. He will give me what I need when I need it. I'm a month away from the end of my third year in school. After that, I have one semester left on campus taking classes, and that all head off to do 14 weeks if student teaching. After that I get to walk grab my diploma, I have to find a job somewhere, some way, somehow. And the closer and closer it gets in that time, the easier and easier it will be to start to worry about what am I doing next. But right now I'm finding, that there's a pretty awesome plan for me, and I don't have to worry about it, because it's going to come at that time when it's going to be amazing.
No comments:
Post a Comment