Chicken-Fried-Christ-Follower
I’m sitting here when I shouldn’t be.
Since February 15th, 2007 I’ve been working as a server in a steak house here in Abilene, TX. It had just opened and I was looking for a place to work while throttling back on school work. Since Katrina was working at ACU to pay the bills, my job was to pay off as many loans as we could while still living here in A-town (or “the LENE” ::shudder::).
It was an amazing experience. It took me out of the social circles that contained at LEAST 90% Christians and gave me a base of relationships that were at least 90% non-Christian. This is a missionary’s DREAM. I listened to their stories, laughed with their jokes (some of them anyway…okay…most of them), and prayed for the challenges in their lives. They are some of the most generous, authentic people I’ve ever met.
But in the last few months, I’ve begun to feel the tension of who I am and who I’m being called to be. My grades have been slacking, my marriage and home time was on the back burner, I had little to no time and even less energy to really focus on loving people here in Abilene or mission work and team development for God’s call to us to live in Chicago. In the end, the 30 hours a week I was spending at the restaurant that I had felt pulled to by God (as a way of reaching out to the lost, and a way to pay off loans) was now becoming a hinderance to what God was interested in us doing today (preparing for mission work in Chicago, and loving my wife stronger).
Katrina had just gone through the same thing right before quitting her full-time job. Since she’s been able to follow her dream as a painter, living and working with sane hours and more time with her husband, she’s been more in touch with God and his work in her. Maybe that inspired me, I don’t know. But as I sit here this morning, I’m struck by the absurdity of where God has us right now. BOTH of us are not working for a paycheck (though we are certainly working harder than we’ve ever worked before!), we’re no longer cramming in 60 hours of work in each week, and we ARE making room for what God has in store for us.
Still, as I sit here writing this post, something inside me is saying that I SHOULD be out begging money from customers, not trying to make my own living and truly, relying on the Lord to show me what’s next. Yet I know that is fear welling up inside me – and I’m prepared to follow after what God has for me here. At one level, this seems like the next step in a long journey toward intimacy with Father; at another level, it feels like something brand new.
This is a new and exciting time in our marriage, when we can be missionary partners for maybe the first time. This is a time when we can have the space to listen to God and plan what our steps will be in making our move to Chicago next summer. A time to believe that he is actually faithful in taking care of his children who love him. A time to love deeply, and to be deeply loved in return.
