Back in the United States

Spending just one week in Honduras is like spending only 30 minutes in Disney World - it wets your appetite for more. Over the course of seven days, our team covered a lot of ground and accomplished many great things, but we also saw just how much is still to be done in that city. I saw God work in amazing ways, but I also see how desperately His presence is needed there every moment, not just over spring break.

That's why it was so hard to leave. When you see God working in a place and are able to join Him in loving and serving, you end up leaving a piece of your heart in that place. It just doesn't feel right to leave.

When Lacey and I pulled up to Searcy Dorm on Harding's campus Sunday night after driving back from the airport, we sat there motionless and in silence. We kept looking around at where we were, like it was part of a long-ago dream. "This is weird." Lacey finally said. "Yeah, it just doesn't quite seem right, does it?"

After a week of seeing what the rest of the world lives like, it is difficult to crawl back in your own warm bed after your clean shower knowing that your alarm clock will awaken you to a world of iphones, laptops, and TVs. I just spent an entire week with nothing to do but love on people, but now I re-enter a culture where my schedule is full of appointments, classes, and assignments. I am forced to live by the minute, always watching the clock and moving under its control. These two lifestyles stand in stark contrast to each other. That's why I ask myself, "What am I doing here?" After a week in Honduras, what in the world am I supposed to do with my life in the United States? I feel that my heart and my purpose were left in Honduras, or in Nicaragua, or somewhere in the world where I deeply know that God is calling me to devote myself to mission work.

That's when I realize that God has placed me where I am for a divine mission. I don't have to go to Honduras to be a missionary. God has given me the opportunities to travel abroad for mission work in order to wet my appetite for the future plans He has for my life. But right now, He has planted me in Searcy, Arkansas, to be a missionary there. It is here that He is equipping me for the life of a missionary. He is working here in Searcy just as much as He is in other places around the world. I just need to live here with the same attitude that I lived in Honduras, waking up every morning with the goal of loving and serving people.

Every day, there is the battle between the urgent and the important. My planner tells me that homework and studying are urgent, but my faith tells me that it is taking time to love and serve others that is important. I think God is trying to teach me how to live like a missionary here at Harding, how to wake up every day with the single task of searching for where He is at work and joining Him, no matter how that messes up my schedule. So I have been praying: God, feel free to interrupt my day. I have labeled some things as urgent, but I am willing to lay them aside for the important.

God has placed each of us right where we are for a divine purpose. He is working all around us, wanting us to see Him and join Him in His mission. He calls us to be fragrant aromas for Him wherever we go. Although we live in a fast-paced, materialistic, busy culture where the urgent things take priority, today, give God the freedom to interrupt your schedule. Let Him show you the important things, and may you experience the uncontainable joy of serving Him.