6. Casting Vision

As I continued to pray for God’s guidance, I still desired some revelation or clarity from him about where he was calling me to serve him next. Even as I was learning all these things about direction and destination and the who and how, it didn’t change the fact that I still wanted to hear from him about my future, and a geographical location would be nice. I had experienced God lead me like that before - directing me to a university and to Burkina Faso - and I believed he would do it again. So I patiently waited and persistently asked for something like that again. 

It was still while I was thinking about a geographical location when I realized he was calling me to a spiritual one. 

What if the place God wants to lead us is a spiritual one? Are we too preoccupied with finding a physical address when God is taking us to a spiritual place? 

For me, this looked like two different things. First, the spiritual location he was taking me was into a deeper walk with Christ and a deeper understanding of his word, his will, and his spirit. 

But a second form of spiritual location began to rise out of the fog and take a clearer shape. 

As I learned about the great commission, God’s heart for the nations, and the unfinished task, I began to see that God’s will is fully revealed in Scripture and his call is abundantly clear. His will is for his glory to fill the whole earth and for people from all tongues, tribes, and nations to know him and worship him. His will is that the gospel be preached to all nations, and then the end will come. And his call on every believer is to go and make disciples of all nations. 

The final frontiers of missions today are in the 10/40 window in the Muslim world where access can be difficult. There is a reason these are the final frontiers. They are the hardest. 

I remembered a podcast that I listened to where the featured guest asked, “Where do you want to be in ten years from now? Start taking steps in that direction now.” 

I knew the answer to this question right away. It was buried deep in my heart. The missions seed was planted in my heart at a young age, but part of it didn’t start to bud and bloom until just now. 

I have always wanted to be on a pioneering team that goes to an unreached people group that has no Christian witness yet. 

When I was still living in Burkina Faso, my mentor and missionary friend texted me: “Take BIG steps for your future.” 

While I was still committed to Burkina Faso and then to Togo, it was difficult to take big steps toward something outside of what I was already doing, but when the future suddenly opened up big and wide and I had no commitments, I could go anywhere, and these questions and dreams bubbled back up to the surface.

This was a spiritual location that began to take clear form. Where was I going? To an unreached people group. A muslim unreached people group in a difficult to access area where there is little or maybe no Christian witnesss. I would go with a team. A team that was Christ-centered, gospel-rooted, and Spirit-led. Our strategies would be modeled after the New Testament church and we would be known for our extraordinary love and unity. 

God was forming an image of my next location out of spiritual pixels. Spiritual characteristics began to shape a vision for my future. I called a friend who was well aware of my discernment predicament and who had been praying and fasting with me. 

“Elizabeth, God has given me a picture of where I am going.” 

“Oh yeah?” She said with raised inflection of anticipation. 

“I know what it looks like. I just didn’t know yet where it is.” 

She chuckled, not in mocking but in understanding. And I realized how ridiculous I sounded, but I knew I was getting closer and closer to the clarity I sought. Clarity comes less from having specifics and more from having vision.