I don’t like to say that God “calls me” anymore.
When I graduated from a Christian college, I believed I would change the world. I was determined to be useful, significant and different. I wasn’t going to join the throng of sell-outs who eventually move to comfy white-picket homes in the suburbs and attend churches where conversations afterward are meaningless and trivial because I was called to be a missionary—the highest calling a Christian can have.
Every decision I made propelled me on that path. College? A place that would offer overseas opportunities. Major? Something useful, but that could also slide under the radar if I went to a closed country that was anti-Christian. First job? Teaching in inner-city Chicago until a door opened up to go overseas (obviously). First chance to go abroad? China, because closed countries are the place to be if you really love Jesus.
I finally had the chance to answer God’s call on my life to serve Him as a missionary after a few years of teaching in the states. I sold my car, quit my job and moved to China. Yes, I was lonely at times, but I was finally doing what I was called to do, so I loved knowing that I was living such a high calling and making a difference in the world. And then something tragic happened: I fell in love with an actor in Chicago, who was not “called to missions” (careful about short trips back home when you have your guard down).
And I had to face some hard questions.
What if God hadn’t called me to missions after all?
What if I was being just a tad prideful about my “calling”?
What if I was worshipping my call?
When I made the decision to move back to the states and get engaged, I felt like a failure. Though God had made it unmistakably clear that this was the man He intended for me, I still struggled with all the demons in my head yelling at me that I was selling out by leaving the mission field.
But God.
He wanted more for me. He wanted me to step down off my pedestal and walk among the “uncalled” for a while. He wanted me to untangle my identity, unwinding all the programming I had received that led me to believe that I was “more,” that I was doing “more” and being “more” than other Christians. The lies. That my life was somehow more meaningful because I was serving Him in another country. That I was special because I had that call in my life.