Our places are not an accident. Your gifts and stories will be used in many different places over your lifetime. We have freedom to dream about our places; there is great purpose in using our gifts in corporations, nonprofits, state school systems, churches, and neighborhoods. Our God does not separate secular and spiritual. He just wants you to participate in his story wherever you are and with whatever you have....
From Joseph's life we learn it's not about where we are, but how we execute God's mission for our lives wherever we are.
Places will never fulfill us, but can serve as the fertile ground for God to make himself known through us. ...we aren't really in our true "place" yet. The place we were made for is coming; no place feels quite right until we are home.
I want to come to the end of my life and see how God was able to move into time and space through me. I want to see many moments that will last forever, many moments when I sat in boring or painful places that I preached anyway. I want moments no one else saw but that God used to build his kingdom. If I am to go on living and breathing here, I want it to be worth it.
It's not our places, it's what we do in our places.And some questions: What are my places, and how am I seeing God work in them through me?
Am I discontent with my places? Do I want a change? Either way, do I think that God is leading?
Either way, "There is a lot we can know. We know our mission. We know at least a glimpse of the story of God through Scripture. We know we are to love, without warrant, every person God puts in our path, and we know we are to love God more than all of it. When it comes down to it, 99 percent of being in the will of God is being wholly willing to be in the will of God. God is not vague, even though he can be quiet. He is completely wise in his timing of when he shows his will.
We learn from Joseph's story today (when Joseph was put in prison, God helped him and was good to him) our places are significant, even when they are not necessarily the places we would have chosen. God sets us in them and has important work for us to do there.So, I ask myself, as Jennie Allen suggests: is this true?
Maybe I am exactly in the will of God, living a life of purpose, but I can't even see it because I am afraid?
Afraid my place doesn't matter. Afraid I won't succeed. Afraid God doesn't see me?
Afraid that what I'm doing isn't specifically ministry. Afraid what people will think if I live for Christ in my place?
No, I don't think I am afraid. I recognise the ministry opportunities I have: I often fail, but I try my best, with God's help, to do what He has put before me.
But maybe this is still true, as I also contemplate a move: I am not to let fear distract me from living boldly in my places. I can, like Joseph, live more intentionally and embrace the place whether this place or somewhere else - which God has strategically selected for me.
Your place is not the problem; it's what you choose to do in your place that matters.
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