How it actually went down

…Or maybe if I check Instagram one more time, I'll feel better about myself, since my internet presence and likeability reflect my real life power to please the masses.

It's a lie I've believed more times than I can count. 

There's always something, you know? Some way we compare ourselves to the ideal, to each other, to our selves who are becoming. For many, it's the dollar value of their occupations, the final settling down of the restless dreamer, the arriving at a longed-for destination, the ring on the finger. The inner voice of failure arises when we see our youth kids get engaged before we do or find ourselves at a job far from worthy of our ACT scores. And when we see "everyone else" get there, that magical land where the grass is greener, we sink and sulk and strive to be as good, holy, and finally trusting enough as they must have been to have the desires of their hearts – our hearts – fulfilled.

Because, of course, that is the Christian formula for happiness.

A couple months after I announced that I would be heading out to the world, I got a message from a friend who has followed my blog for awhile. He asked me how I got there, how my longing and doing finally converged, how it all came together and my calling became a crystal clear path before me.

The assumption was well-intentioned but a little… well, skewed.

I sort of laughed as I replied.  It made me feel like one of those happily married people I had so often envied, heart panging every time I scrolled past one of their #besthusbandever  posts.  People see me and think I have arrived?  Seriously? 

Because here’s how it actually went down.

I went on the World Race and came home a wreck.  Not because I hated America or because I had a distinct calling to start an orphanage in Africa and didn’t have the funds or balls to get over there yet, but because I knew the world was broken and lost and I had no freaking idea what to do next.  I mean, I knew I’d be going to Alaska again, so that became sort of my lifeline for a few more months.  On the Race, the biggest “future life work” hint I took away was that my heart came most alive when I was in evangelism/church-planting/Gospel-discussing kinds of ministries… but no more of this short-term missions business.  The place I observed the most spiritual darkness and need to be reached was India, and that was the country I liked the least, so obviously that made the cut for my limited search criteria once my feet hit American soil and I started scouting out the next big thing.  (You know us Christians, always feeling like we are called to only the hardest tasks...  Scratch that, I can only speak for myself… maybe.) And not that I thought that I was some big BA missionary who had it all together, but I figured… What else am I supposed to do with my life?  This is all I care about.

Anyway, I didn’t find anything that stuck.  Plus, I was dealing with whether I was feeling led/feeling like I wanted to commit to a romantic relationship, and… well, you know how that goes.

So I went back to Alaska as a summer staff member at Echo Ranch Bible Camp.  As I toiled in the Lord’s work on the last frontier, I asked God to open a door.  You know, God, for some long-term church planting-ish thing in India (or anywhere else in Asia, if that’s cool with You).

The next week, Justin, Director of Recruitment for Avant Ministries, showed up to be the camp chapel speaker for a week, and we became friends over controversial theological conversations and mostly-agreeable mission trip stories.  He told me I seemed like I would be a good fit for Avant’s short-cycle church planting Thailand team because I “have missions experience” and “take God seriously” and “want to go to Asia”, so I should check them out.  My reply?  “You’re a recruiter.  Of course you’re saying that.”

I spent half the summer researching missions opportunities in India and the other half wondering about Thailand and the whole 5-7 year thingy and the entire summer freaking out about not having a plan.  I battled bouts of anxiety and loneliness and knowing I wasn’t being present where I was but not feeling motivated to be anywhere but everywhere else.  The more I researched, the more overwhelmed I felt, and the more I just prayed for a blazing, this-can-only-be-from-God kind of sign. But pseudo-signs came and went the whole three months long, with little confirmation or peace or whatever seal of approval with which we so often seek to stamp our big decisions.

I got home.  Still no burning bush or writing on the wall.  I job hunted.  I job landed.  I online dated.  I put missions on the back burner.  I took missions off the back burner and decided, What the heck.  I might as well go to their orientation thing and confirm that we are definitely not what each other is looking for.  I was brutally honest on all my personality/emotional & organizational assessments, determined to display the same amount of I’m seriously not good enough for you guys in my interviews with the staff once I got there.

And I did all those things.  And guess what? 

“We really appreciate your honesty, Reagan.  And if you feel okay about going through with it, we will go ahead and appoint you as an Avant missionary.” 

I freaked out all two weeks long, simultaneously loving all that I was seeing and inwardly dying over the (non-Holy Spirit inspired) conviction that, if I really signed up for this thing, I WAS GOING TO BE SINGLE FOREVER. 

But I decided to trust God who appeared to be showing me an open door.  I wrote, “I think I’m going to marry Avant,” in my journal.  And I took the leap.

As I have progressed through giving others the news, asking for their prayers (and their money), I have held this opportunity with open hands.  It’s not the time frame I was looking for.  It’s not the location I was looking for.  It’s certainly not the marital status I was looking for.  On my own, I am not cut out for this.  I have never lived in another country for more than a month.  I have never seriously tried to learn another language.  My spoken words are quick and choppy and mumbled and jumbled and don’t always know how to present Jesus in all the right ways.  I can be painfully sarcastic and heartbreakingly uncompassionate.  And yet, it appears that God has called this mess of a human to the nations, because it’s not about my missionary prowess, but about His miraculous power.  And if that same power that raised Christ from the dead really does live in me… then maybe I have a chance after all.

And so maybe all that makes it a little easier, this mindset of You can take it if You want, Jesus – it’s not mine to cling to.  And I wonder if that was always meant to be the point of a calling, the pinnacle of “arriving” – that it is He who calls and He who directs us because it is He who created and He who knows us…  So when did it ever just become about our passions and the line of work that makes us happy and what everyone else has made of themselves and what we surely “deserve”? 

When did it ever become about measuring ourselves against ourselves or others, completely disregarding the reason God created us in His image? 

What if we just asked God to show us where He is already working, where He wants us to join Him… and quit worrying about whether it’s good enough?