Tag Archives: submission

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PackingTheHouseI am surprised how fast January flew by. Classes are in session, and this week has brought me four exams. I was disappointed in my failure to prepare for one, and started it more on edge than usual, but received a notification by the end of the day that I had aced it. That glory goes entirely to God!

The big developing news with the Lemmons is a recent decision to sell our house and downsize. We were looking at our finances and recognized the only way to be free of debt before we begin our adventure overseas is to release the house. This idea came roughly a week after I began to prayerfully submit to God that I was ready to surrender whatever He decided was next if He would only make it known to me. The house it is!

An online value estimator predicted the possibility that we just might be able to shake these chains free if God wills that we should do so. We are counting on the knowledge that He does want us free. We calculated the result of rolling our mortgage savings into our consumer debt, and the result (God willing) will be financial freedom in about twenty months. Now that is something to celebrate!

In the meantime, this is sort of a dress rehearsal for the paring down of material possessions that will come prior to our trans-Atlantic migration. I like to think of this move as a wide funnel rather than the eye of a needle we anticipate then. We will likely find ourselves in either a shared house or an apartment, either of which would provide us a one bedroom existence with drastically reduced living areas. God doesn’t want us dependent on material things anyway, so it’s good to loosen our grip on them. It is amazing the perspective you get on possessions when you know you will lose them in several years anyway. The “just in case” collections don’t survive. “What if I ever need one of those?” is no longer a good reason to keep something. If it doesn’t get used frequently now, chances are we won’t need it in the next seven years. It’s actually liberating!

It makes me think: weren’t we supposed to be living that way in the first place? Ready to go at a moment’s notice? Not clinging to the things of this world? If I never make it to see the red clay of Uganda again, I am still pleased to release my grip on the soil beneath me and the trappings of Earth!

“Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them.” (1 John 2:15, NIV)

“Jesus looked at him and loved him. ‘One thing you lack,’ he said. ‘Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.’” (Mark 10:21, NIV)

“And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.” (Matthew 19:29, NIV)

“You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.” (Revelation 3:17, NIV)

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PrepareThe great heroes of the Bible endured long waits, disappointment, discouragement, and real strife, yet were commended for their faith.  Noah likely spent seventy-five years building the ark amid many who scoffed at him on the high and dry hill.  Jacob toiled seven extra years, a total of fourteen, for the bride he loved.  Even the leprous army commander Naaman, who at first went away angry, expecting Elisha to instantly cure him with a wave of his hand, obediently baptized himself in the Jordan River seven times before he became clean.  So who do I think I am that I should instantly be equipped for my ministry, though God has not even revealed to me exactly what it will be?  Why do I feel disappointed when those who might support me chuckle when they hear that graduation is nearly four years in the future?

Mine are trivial discouragements compared to what lies ahead.  They stretch me just enough to make it to and through the next one.  God is doing in me what I could never ask or imagine, and He is preparing me for something I cannot even fathom.  Every day my heart grows closer to that which lies ahead than that which I leave behind.  My grip on the material things around me is loosening, and the reality that we will likely remain stateside only a few more years is firming in the minds of my wife and me.  In our hearts, we are already in Uganda loving children not our own and serving brothers and sisters who today remain strangers.  In our minds, the Lord has made our calling clear, but in the minds of those around us, we are as lunatics forecasting rain on a high and dry hill where rain has never fallen.

We are looking forward to our visit in April, partly to make new friends, visit mission clinics and orphan ministries, and perhaps view a sample of the work before us – a spying out of Canaan so to speak.  A mostly selfish part of me also longs to put an end to the ridicule that comes after the inquiry, “Have you been there before?”  What always comes next is, “How do you know you will want to live there?”  The answer is simply: God didn’t ask me what I wanted.  I asked Him what He wanted.

“Want to” is something I am learning to submit to God, and what I find is that God changes my “want to” to conform to His will if I let Him.  Since He has called Cindy and me to prepare for missionary work in Uganda, God has fashioned my desire after His calling.  He has made me want Uganda.  My heart aches for Uganda’s children every day, and I’ve never met one of them.  Not only me, but He has imbued Cindy with the same passion.  Why Uganda?  I don’t know why, but I know!   Why wait?  Why a degree in nursing?  I don’t know why, but I know I am to become a nurse.   I am just doing what I am given to do.  “Want to” would not have had me in Uganda.  “Want to” would not have had me ministering to others in the first place.  “Want to” would not have me investigating the northern territories of Uganda, where war and violence are still fresh and where the Karamajong still fight over cattle and sometimes offer human sacrifices to appease an idol god.  “Will do” overcomes “want to” and God, who directs the hearts of kings like a watercourse (Proverbs 21:1), can move my “want to” according to His will.

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Some people are cast right into ministry, while others are called to make arduous preparations for it. Jonah got spit onto the beach of Nineveh, but Noah was called to labor on his ark about seventy-five years before there was ever a drop of rain in the sky.

I was feeling pitiful, wondering why God could not just use me like I am rather than calling me to nursing school, but I considered Noah. It had never rained before, but he stacked gopherwood. The earth was high and dry, but he cut timber and boiled pitch. Noah was faithful to his calling, even though it was years before God would call him to climb aboard and batten the hatch.

As I considered the years of schooling I have yet to complete before receiving my nursing degree and the preparations to be made for whatever God has planned for me, I thought I would read the account of Noah, hoping for some encouragement.

This is what I found:

Genesis 5:28-29 NIV
[28] When Lamech had lived 182 years, he had a son. [29] He named him Noah and said, "He will comfort us in the labor and painful toil of our hands caused by the ground the Lord has cursed. "

His father named him Noah, to be a comfort for those of us who toil. Thank God for the story of Noah! and for the fulfillment of his type in the person and life of Jesus Christ, who seals us with His Spirit to withstand the tumultuous elements of this Earth for a promise on the other side of the storm!

Dear Father, today, make me diligent to the tasks at hand, keeping my focus on You, with my life in Your hands not mine. May the goal be before me, but my attention be always on following Your direction for my next step. Forgive my impatience, Lord, and cleanse me of it. Thank You for motivation, and for the promise of working according to Your purpose. In gratitude, I offer You this small gift: me.