Making Changes

I have learned a bit about making decisions over the last few weeks. First of all, you need to know that R and I are both analytical types, so making decisions is absolutely EXCRUCIATING for us. We write lists of pros and cons, and then more lists of pros and cons, we talk about it from this angle and that angle, then find another angle, we create charts and graphs and venn diagrams, then act out a script for each scenario - it is absolutely agonizing.

So, of course, it seems that God is always having us make decisions. I finally told R that we need to get better at this, because I just really can't take much more.

Somehow through all of the lists and diagrams and scripts, God reached out and laid a profound truth on my heart. One that will change my decision making process forever. It's simple.

"How will this decision affect my first calling from God?"

Not my second or third callings....not the thing I thought He called me to do five years ago...not the thing that I wish was my calling. He wants me to make my decisions based on my first calling from Him, here and now.

My first calling is to be a minister's wife. Period. I've known since the moment God spoke that truth in my ear at the age of 21. (The fact that it took 7 years to nail down which minister is beside the point.)

My wonderful teaching job - where I had been faithfully doing what God called me to do 10 years ago - totally made that first calling ineffectual. For nine months of the year, I had no time to serve our congregation because I was busy "fulfilling my calling." I worked nights and weekends, used up all of my energy at school and came home empty and exhausted, and could hold a marvelous conversation with a 7 year old but had no idea what to talk about with adults.

Then God dropped an unbelievable opportunity in my lap. "Take a different job, my precious child, and discover how fulfilling life can be when you pursue your first calling." Peace.