I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. Ephesians 2:19-20
Our story began over twelve years ago at the ripe 'ole ages of fifteen and seventeen. On a warm summer night at the doorstep of my parents house, Sean and I made a promise to each other. The stars in the sky that night were no match to the stars in our eyes as we vowed to spend the rest of our lives together. But, it wasn't going to be just an ordinary life... no, we we're going to serve the Lord together - maybe even be missionaries. Young and in love, we were filled with passion for eachother and for the Lord. He had placed many dreams in our youthful hearts. But before any of those things could happen, we had to be married - and so our lives together soon began...
Having no aspirations (or money) for college and simply wanting to get married as quickly as possible... Sean got a job, we got married, and I got pregnant. And before we knew it, years had passed by and life simply... happened. Dreams of serving the Lord in full time ministry were replaced with dreams of owning a home. Dreams of living and serving among the natives were replaced with dreams of making six figures. I remember driving through Pleasant Valley early in our marriage and dreamily saying to Sean, "I want to live here someday!"...And sure enough..WE DO! God seemed to be giving us many of our temporal dreams while our hearts desire and call to serve Him full-time was forgotton. As we delved more and more into the things of this world, oh so subtly, we became comfortable in our little life and complacency crept in.
Although we've always remained active in the church body at Calvary Chapel Placerville, serving the Lord where it "fit in" to our lives, a deep feeling of discontentment had started to take root in our hearts. In my life, I've personally struggled with not being content ...the more you have the more you want...that sort of thing. But this feeling of discontentment was quite different. We were discontent with what we had poured so much of our lives into - materialism. Now don't get me wrong, God has blessed us all for a purpose - but knowing in our hearts that it never seemed to be enough and that we had fallen deeply into materialism, we were prompted by the Lord to really seek Him as to what He truly desired for our little family.
One day, after church Sean and I were discussing life and quite simply where we were headed - what path were we pursuing? What was it the Lord desired of us ultimately? Who were we serving? The Lord kept laying on our hearts the verse in Matthew that says, "You cannot serve both God and mammon". God was making it ever so clear to us that in our current condition we we're living more for mammon than we were for God. That was a hard reality to face, but once we did, it put us on a pursuit to find God's call on our lives. I have heard it so many times over the last year,"The enemy of the best is often the good". You see, the direction we were headed wasn't bad...and to us, it was "all good". However, we knew in our heart of hearts that the Lord was calling us to more than "all good" - He was calling us to His "best" for us. We knew his best was not serving Him where it "fit in" to our lives, but rather fitting our lives around serving Him.
I recently read a awesome book by Gisela Yohannan , "Consider Your Call". In it she writes, "Do we not have the right to pursue our [worldly] dreams like everyone else? Is there anything wrong this? No, there is nothing wrong with our rights or with our dreams. But I can speak here for my husband and myself: I am convinced that we could never really enjoy our dreams, even if they all became a reality- as long as there is a lost world!"
Isn't that the truth! Unless we as believers are doing our personal part to further the Gospel of Christ we will never be content with our circumstances. This was exactly what we came to terms with. God had given us all of our "dreams", but complacency and comfort had crept in and rendered us inneffective in our call to share the Gospel with unbelievers. Our "comfort zone" was no longer comfortable as we re-discovered our true hearts desire to make our lives count more for the Kingdom.
So knowing a change had to occur, but still unsure of what that was, we began to pray and seek His will for our family. Remembering a speaker from Gospel For Asia that had come to our church a few years prior and his powerful testimony about being caught up in materialism, I suggested to Sean that we should pray and consider serving at the headquarters for Gospel for Asia in Texas...( this wasn't the first time I had dropped this subtle hint )...but suprisingly this time he was all for it. After praying we began the application process- and in a few short weeks (although they didn't feel so short) we found ourselves on a plane (my first plane trip ever!) headed to Dallas, TX for a week long series of interviews with the leaders at GFA.... and that my dear friends is a whole other story.
Having no aspirations (or money) for college and simply wanting to get married as quickly as possible... Sean got a job, we got married, and I got pregnant. And before we knew it, years had passed by and life simply... happened. Dreams of serving the Lord in full time ministry were replaced with dreams of owning a home. Dreams of living and serving among the natives were replaced with dreams of making six figures. I remember driving through Pleasant Valley early in our marriage and dreamily saying to Sean, "I want to live here someday!"...And sure enough..WE DO! God seemed to be giving us many of our temporal dreams while our hearts desire and call to serve Him full-time was forgotton. As we delved more and more into the things of this world, oh so subtly, we became comfortable in our little life and complacency crept in.
Although we've always remained active in the church body at Calvary Chapel Placerville, serving the Lord where it "fit in" to our lives, a deep feeling of discontentment had started to take root in our hearts. In my life, I've personally struggled with not being content ...the more you have the more you want...that sort of thing. But this feeling of discontentment was quite different. We were discontent with what we had poured so much of our lives into - materialism. Now don't get me wrong, God has blessed us all for a purpose - but knowing in our hearts that it never seemed to be enough and that we had fallen deeply into materialism, we were prompted by the Lord to really seek Him as to what He truly desired for our little family.
One day, after church Sean and I were discussing life and quite simply where we were headed - what path were we pursuing? What was it the Lord desired of us ultimately? Who were we serving? The Lord kept laying on our hearts the verse in Matthew that says, "You cannot serve both God and mammon". God was making it ever so clear to us that in our current condition we we're living more for mammon than we were for God. That was a hard reality to face, but once we did, it put us on a pursuit to find God's call on our lives. I have heard it so many times over the last year,"The enemy of the best is often the good". You see, the direction we were headed wasn't bad...and to us, it was "all good". However, we knew in our heart of hearts that the Lord was calling us to more than "all good" - He was calling us to His "best" for us. We knew his best was not serving Him where it "fit in" to our lives, but rather fitting our lives around serving Him.
I recently read a awesome book by Gisela Yohannan , "Consider Your Call". In it she writes, "Do we not have the right to pursue our [worldly] dreams like everyone else? Is there anything wrong this? No, there is nothing wrong with our rights or with our dreams. But I can speak here for my husband and myself: I am convinced that we could never really enjoy our dreams, even if they all became a reality- as long as there is a lost world!"
Isn't that the truth! Unless we as believers are doing our personal part to further the Gospel of Christ we will never be content with our circumstances. This was exactly what we came to terms with. God had given us all of our "dreams", but complacency and comfort had crept in and rendered us inneffective in our call to share the Gospel with unbelievers. Our "comfort zone" was no longer comfortable as we re-discovered our true hearts desire to make our lives count more for the Kingdom.
So knowing a change had to occur, but still unsure of what that was, we began to pray and seek His will for our family. Remembering a speaker from Gospel For Asia that had come to our church a few years prior and his powerful testimony about being caught up in materialism, I suggested to Sean that we should pray and consider serving at the headquarters for Gospel for Asia in Texas...( this wasn't the first time I had dropped this subtle hint )...but suprisingly this time he was all for it. After praying we began the application process- and in a few short weeks (although they didn't feel so short) we found ourselves on a plane (my first plane trip ever!) headed to Dallas, TX for a week long series of interviews with the leaders at GFA.... and that my dear friends is a whole other story.
A Quick Carter Catch-up...
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