Trust and Obey

It's interesting to look back on some memories from my life and see how God was leading me on a path to where I am now.

I remember...

I remember one occasion when I was in "the pantry" of my childhood house. I remember climbing up onto the dryer and looking at a couple of books my mother had on the shelf. They were books about American Sign Language (ASL). They were intriguing.

I remember learning the ASL alphabet as a kid.

I remember a deaf congregation meeting upstairs at the church where I attended.

I remember being about nine years old when some missionaries came to our church to share about their project of translating the Bible into the language of a people group in Papua New Guinea. I remember thinking how cool it would be to do something like that.

I remember realizing that I had a love and fascination for languages, always trying to learn phrases in various languages from friends who spoke them.

I remember meeting a breathtakingly beautiful girl from Philly when I was a junior in college. I remember finding out that her parents were deaf pastors in New Jersey. I remember discovering that this girl shared a call to serve overseas in missions some day.

I remember while we were serving as missionary associates in Costa Rica that our area directors encouraged us to consider ministry to the deaf in Latin America. I remember visiting a missionary couple working with the deaf in Nicaragua and hearing the need.

I remember seeing our approval to serve as missionaries to Bolivia and how ministry to the deaf was listed as one of our focuses even though we had not requested that it be listed.

I remember attending a missions event for college students in the U.S. and being challenged by the need for ministry to the deaf in Latin America.

I remember meeting a woman here in Bolivia who grew up in a missionary family working with the deaf here in Bolivia and hearing more specifically about the need here in this country. I remember hearing about a project a team is working on to make a video Bible translation for the deaf using Bolivian Sign Language.

Hindsight is 20/20

At the time that each of these moments happened, I didn't realized they were individual parts of a greater story. I didn't make the connections.

When I was a kid, or even when I was in college, I didn't realize that I would one day be working with the deaf.

As I look back on those memories now, however, I can see that God has led me on a particular path. Now, it seems so very obvious. 

God set these seemingly small moments along the way that led me to where I am now.

I am where I am, because God has led me here.

God's Foresight is 20/20

We don't know what the future holds. But we can have confidence in knowing that God does!

For me, hindsight is 20/20. I'm glad that for God, foresight is 20/20 as well.

God is sovereign and faithful and so very good to us. We don't know what the final destination might be with regard to a specific path of ministry/work in our life. But God does.

What is our job then? We must seek God and faithfully follow each step along the way. We don't realize how the steps fit together in the end, but if we are most concerned with obeying God we can trust that He will work all that out.  So really, our job can be simply summarized as obedience to God based in our trust in Him. Our job then is to trust and obey!

As you look back and your life, do you see the steps He has laid out before you along the way? Where has God led you? Do you trust Him? Are you willing to obey?