I heard the story about a really well-off retired couple who had money to travel the world and do just about whatever they desired, yet they stayed close to home. Why? They run the divorce care group at their local church every Tuesday evening, and they are passionate about seeing God transform lives and walking with people through their darkest moments.
I know another couple who sold their business in order to go into missions full-time. Why? Short-term trips to developing countries changed them. They felt the call from God to minister to “the least of these” and realized the great sense of fulfillment that came from serving in their area of calling.
These two (and thousands of others) who have taken the step towards cross-cultural missions have something in common; their hearts have been stirred by God, and they have been specifically equipped by the Spirit to live missionally, to engage those around them with the love of Jesus, and to walk in obedience in the specific gifts God had given them. They have let God mold their hearts and desires so that they can walk in this calling. This is no small thing!
You may be considering what this call looks like and what it means to follow through on it. Are you looking into and exploring options that will chart the course of your next season and in turn your life? We at UWM desire to come alongside you. It is our prayer that each Christian find that thing or those things that God has specifically equipped them to do and to have a platform from which to do them for kingdom work. We recognize though, that discovering what God is inviting you to is a journey, one that we revisit our whole life long.
Our God is a missional God at His very core. God has gifted and equipped each of us in specific ways to join in on that mission, when we work out of those there is a great joy and fulfillment that the Christian worker feels. We simply cannot meet every need in the world, but we can join where God is working and come alongside our brothers and sisters in meaningful ways.
Discovering those areas of deep gladness can sometimes be a challenge, and they change over the course of a life time. At UWM we are committed to pursuing this type of ministry with our people.
“Discovering vocation does not mean scrambling toward some prize just beyond my reach but accepting the treasure of true self I already possess. Vocation does not come from a voice out there calling me to be something I am not. It comes from a voice in here calling me to be the person I was born to be, to fulfill the original selfhood given me at birth by God.”
-Thomas Merton
By: Nicole Paschall, Serving in Hungary