Fulfillment
FULFILLMENT: noun. the achievement of something desired, promised, or predicted.
My sister picked me up from LAX on Thanksgiving evening and we headed north to the San Luis Obispo area for a few days of respite. Our time of rest in a friend’s idyllic Airstream camper was interrupted at the same time each night with a subtle yet persistent reminder of my “What now, Lord?” question.
I didn’t realize it at the time but with hindsight I now see that I was caught in a tangle of implicational thinking. There were a few opportunities that had been displayed before me as to what my what now could look like moving forward. Yet there didn’t seem to be an option that quite fit with the various impressions I’d had in my spirit while traveling and that made sense to me.
It took a few days for me to realize that the exchange of faithfulness I’d been invited into had to include a resolve to abandon my idea of logic and a willingness to truly embrace God’s plans & desires over my own.
As I leaned into the tension in my heart I discovered God was extending an invitation tailored specifically to me.
The greater depth of surrender He’d invited me into, the exchange of faithfulness, was an opportunity He had been setting up for me to move to Herrnhut, Germany and join the Youth With A Mission Team (YWAM) there.
The fulfillment of my intense desire to live a cross-cultural life began to take form as I took steps towards applying for a Discipleship Training School (DTS) in Herrnhut; as I did this I knew that completing a DTS would mark the beginning of what I suspect will be a lifetime of international ministry.
The decision to move was followed by a swift but beautiful transition from Huntington to Herrnhut. I was overwhelmed with God’s faithfulness in tending to not only every practical detail involved with a move but even more so the way He tended to my heart as I said countless “see you laters” to friends and family.
I departed the States January 18th and had two months to become familiar with the YWAM Herrnhut base and what God is doing in Europe before starting DTS March 20th.
Each of the past 11 weeks of DTS have confronted fear and disappointment that has accumulated over my nearly 30 years of life.
I’ve been challenged to accept the invitation to a life of continual surrender.
To exchange fear for faith and uncertainty for dependence.
To choose to find fulfillment not in what I’m doing but rather in the joy and simplicity of living a love-filled life. A life immersed in the life, death & resurrection of Jesus.
I’ve discovered that fulfillment isn’t perfection or the manifestation of idyllic dreams.
Fulfillment is simply the achievement of something desired, promised, or predicted.
With God one YES merely leads to another which leads to another until we find ourselves absorbed into a story of greater significance than we could ever imagine.
PC: Florian Schneider
