For the past year there have been screams inside telling me to go; telling me to change; telling me to do it. The problem has been not knowing exactly what the it was. I feel the calling and have "forever" but not knowing exactly what it is. Last night at the Vision Dinner for Campus Crusade I was stirred; stirred to where we gave almost triple what we walked in having decided to give and wanted to give more. Over five years ago, I started working for a psychologist. I felt my calling was to do all the administrative tasks so that he could minister to the hurting people of the world in a way I could never minister. In the past year though, the business services have changed and we aren't ministering to many people through counseling; I would beg to say not really ministering to people at all. I recently told a friend anyone could help people get social security disability why with my passion and desire to make a difference do I need to be working here to help them.
At the close of the program I leaned over to Chad and said I'm tired of mediocre giving. There's always been a reason why we didn't have money to give more. We were working towards this or that; not making much money, etc. But right now due to my dissatisfaction with making a difference, I've been trying to find a way to make a bigger difference. Through this process I've taken on a 10 hr/week position at our church in children's ministry. I wish it was full time. This position is not paid much; it's "just" an internship, but it's money we hadn't budgeted for, so we don't really need it and I've purposely kept it out of the budget so that we could pay down some debt, spend it on Christmas, etc. But I think there is a bigger purpose in this. I think that it needs to be my bigger; making a difference portal. It could change our giving pattern from mediocre to where I feel we're really doing something. I'm not really sure where that money is going to go, but for about six months we're going to try it.
I am going to cut back my hours a bit at the office to make life more manageable for when Chad's on nights, but then the rest of that "extra" income is going to be donated. To where? We haven't decided. Because while we don't have a lot of money; we never will, but we have enough and we're really happy with the level of simplicity in our lives. We have what we need, so why shouldn't we give to a ministry that has had 97 college student conversions in this school year alone; who goes to East Asia and sees an incredible level of meaningful conversions; or houses people who live in cardboard boxes; or reaches people in some of the most heart hardened areas of the world; or gives Christian families to children who have been hurt so much and have so little. There are so many places we could give it's overhwelming. But I want to answer the screaming inside by giving, because that is what I can do. And we will do until another calling happens.
Now I'm not trying to boast on our giving, but rather share the burden on my heart to where maybe you can relate. I do feel we are all called to do different things and I've never thought our calling was to be "big givers" and I'm sure some people wouldn't call this big, but it's big for where we are. I'm tired of mediocre and I'm tired of being unable to answer the screams; so we're giving more than we have before and hopefully can be a part of bigger change. On a video last night someone said "I'll never be the same" I hope that this will happen to our family and to the others our gifts minister to.
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