Life Mission
How do I know what God wants me to do? How do I ‘hear’ his voice? Ever ask those kinds of questions? Or is it just me? I feel like I am still asking those questions, especially now that I am about to finish one phase of my life…..homeschooling my kids…….and have been wondering what is next. I thought by now I would have answers to these questions. Shouldn’t I know what God wants me to do? Yes, I guess I do but the answer has been different than I thought it would be. When I have asked those questions, I was looking for answers that would tell me what I should be doing for an occupation or what job I should take or what activity should I be a part of. I thought it would be like ‘Be a teacher’, or ‘Be a stay at home mom’ or ‘homeschool your kids’ or ‘direct the children’s program at church’. Yes, he has called me to ‘do’ all of those things but what He really wants me to do is very different. I believe he wants me to work at having a close relationship with Him that continues to teach and change me. That relationship has one requirement. Love others like he loves them. Sounds simple doesn’t it. It is simple but not easy to do. It is something I am still learning how to do.
Throughout my life, there are been several times God has used others to teach me how to love. One such example greatly changed my view of how to love. It was a true example of how to love like Jesus. I was sitting at a table with some friends at a wedding reception. The sister of the bride had recently made the choice to divorce her husband and move in with another woman. I have grown up in the church and been told all my life how sinful homosexuality was and about how ‘bad’ ‘those’ people were. My way of dealing with it was just to ignore people like that, or so I thought. As I sat at the table, my friend invited the new partner of the sister to come sit at our table. I sat and watched in amazement my friend demonstrate love, real Godly love, by just having a conversation with her. She didn’t judge or question her or demoralize but just demonstrated love by showing an interest in her. That is true love. That is what we are called to do. I always thought I had to change people, make them be who I think they should be, especially when it comes to my kids. As moms, we want to do all the right things, to be the best Mom, so our kids will turn out to be the ‘perfect’ adults, whatever that looks like. But we can’t. They are their own persons. They make their own decisions. But we can show them unconditional love.
So, what does God want me to do? What is he telling me in that still small voice? Just to simply love others the way he does.