1. Get Comfortable

An excerpt from a longer essay on “The Discipleship of Discernment”, insights from a year of prayer and fasting about decision-making, God’s will, and living in obedience to the mission of Jesus Christ.

I've been here before. When I first learned that I wouldn’t be returning to Burkina in 2018, I panicked because I didn’t know what was next. Then God provided Togo. The same thing happened at the end of 2018 when I learned we wouldn’t be going back to Burkina again. I panicked at the unknown. God provided. The whole of 2019 found me in the same place: frightened at the unknown. 

How much comfort and security we place in making plans and having certainty! In the west, we idolize clarity and are addicted to what’s next. A strong cultural pressure exists to have a ten year plan. For my whole life, I had known what was next: from primary school to secondary school to university to my first job to moving to Burkina Faso. Now I was looking into a foggy future, and the “what’s next” question scared me. 

I sat around our table at the Maybury house in Togo with four other single nurses who became my dearest friends and favorite housemates. We all found ourselves in this position, which helped us normalize the fact that we were all going against the grain of cultural expectations in our twenties by quitting our jobs and moving to Africa where there are few prospects for a husband. We helped each other feel at home in the place of uncertainty. And we often conversed about it until one of us would throw our hands up in the air and say, “I don’t know what I’m doing with my life!” and then the rest of us would chime in our amens. 

But it wasn’t true. We did know what we were doing with our lives, and we constantly brought the conversation back to that fact. Our lives were surrendered to Christ, not the American expectation or dream, and knowing him had brought us to the nations to serve and share the gospel with unreached people. That’s exactly what we were doing with our lives.

At the time, I took great comfort in the song “New Wine” by Hillsong. One powerful line resonated with me. It says, “When I trust you I don’t need to understand.”

I began to recognize how unsettled I could get when I didn’t understand, when I didn't have specific plans for the future, or when I didn’t know what was next. I kept coming back to the Lord begging for clarity so that I could get out of the fog as quickly as possible. On one occasion, he spoke. 

You've been in this place of uncertainty before, and I provided. Here you are again. You can freak out every time, or you can get comfortable. Because this is going to be a pattern for the rest of your life. 

One of my housemates, Melissa, that lived in Maybury house with me shared this excerpt from Oswald Chambers’ “Gracious Uncertainty.”

I was learning that understanding and knowing what’s next had become an idol. Although plans are priority in the western way, the Jesus Way is characterized by uncertainty and trusting God when we don’t understand. Might as well get comfortable here.