Even If I Drag My Feet
I'm in Zambia again. Almost in spite of myself, I've signed on to help teach first grade for the last few months of the year at Sakeji School.
I'm happy to be here. I love seeing students who I knew as first graders, who are now fourth graders. They're all stretched out, and in some cases, matured versions of their former selves. Getting to know the new students is a joy. They are quick to love and eager to learn. And there's a gratitude and peace that pervades this place that is unlike anything I've experienced anywhere else.
And I almost didn't come. In fact, there have been hundreds of moments in the past year that I considered backing out. Even up to the final days before I left, with my bags already packed, my ticket purchased, there was a part of me that squirmed at the thought of getting on that plane and leaving behind a comfortable existence, leaving my family and friends, giving up my income for three months while I'm trying to pay for graduate school, to be hot and tired and poor.
In the weeks leading up to my departure, for every moment of calm assurance that returning to Sakeji for this term was definitely God's will for me, there were just a many moments of panic and doubt. What if I was just doing this for myself? What if I just imagined that God told me to go back to Zambia because I was bored and ready for a change?
Over and over, God reaffirmed my decision to go. Through unexpected gifts that were given to me that made my trip possible, through emails and letters that arrived at just the right time, through my grandmother calling me to tell me a verse she read that morning that she thought I needed to hear. I kept reminding myself of these moments, and of the commitment I had made in a more peaceful state of mind, but even when I was in the air, hurtling across the Atlantic Ocean, no turning back, it felt like it might be a mistake.
That's sometimes how faith feels. It feels like you might have made the worst decision of your life. Because any act of faith has an inherent insanity to it.
In Sunday School yesterday, we talked about the people who are specifically called out in Hebrews 11 as being great people of faith, and without the benefit of hindsight, most of them would be seen as strange at best by any rational-minded person in their circles. Abraham, Noah, Moses, Rahab, Gideon. God asked them to do things that were not just counter-cultural, but contrary to any sense of self-preservation.
This is what God does. He takes everything that makes sense, and He asks you to put that aside and do something completely different. It's frightening, and difficult, but we learn (eventually) that we can trust Him. And my wavering, my lack of faith, in no way lessens His care for me.
That is perhaps the most incredible part. That God does not wait for me to trust Him to prove Himself trustworthy.
My dad shared this with me when I had just arrived in Lusaka.
"Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
If I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
If I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast."
Psalm 139:7-10
Even if I drag my feet, you are with me, you will hold me fast.
I am so thankful that God cared enough for me to push me and pull me and coax me out of my comfort zone (again). Because I'm learning, again, that it's when I'm in over my head that I know best who I am and to Whom I belong.
