It was a lovely Sunday afternoon. I was just getting over malaria, and the glass of ice-cold mango juice in my hand was just what the doctor ordered. The birds singing in the trees around the terrace and the sounds of the goats across the valley were enough to pull me out of my blues. It was November, and I was feeling pretty much useless. I had signed up as a student missionary to do something—to get things done. Instead, I found myself doing nothing as I recovered my health.
I had arrived hungry to get started, eager to jump into mission life as soon as I got off the plane. But things didn’t turn out as I had expected. I spent the first month just trying to become familiar with the neighborhood and the way things worked. Then I spent the second month trying my hardest to learn French, and making pathetic progress. I needed at least a basic command of French to be involved in the work, and it was rather frustrating, to say the least. When I came down with malaria, it was as though even my body had thrown in the towel and given up.
During this time, I had been praying a lot. While it seemed that I was growing much closer to God, He still hadn’t answered my prayers. It was wonderful to have a deeper and more meaningful prayer life, but what was the use if nothing useful came of it? That was my line of thinking anyway. However, God was working. I had signed up with AFM to be a maintenance worker at the Palawano Project in the Philippines. That was something I felt qualified to do, something I was comfortable with. But plans had changed, and now here I was in Guinea, West Africa. I was praying that maybe God would open a door for me to work alongside a local mechanic or do some other kind of work along those lines. But God had something quite different in mind.
I took another sip of mango juice and settled back in my chair. My friend Marcus and I had accompanied our career missionaries that afternoon to the home of one of their friends across town. He was a very nice guy from Europe who reminded me quite a lot of my grandpa back home in Canada. While we were visiting him, he asked me what I was doing in Benin. I sheepishly came up with some explanation that I was trying to learn French, feeling even worse at the thought that I wasn’t doing anything at all. His reply caught me off guard: “You should teach English in my technical school across town!” I laughed, thinking he was kidding. It wasn’t till the drive home that it occurred to me that this might be the door God was opening.
The next afternoon, I was planning to go to a town up north to visit some student missionaries stationed at another project. Like Gideon, I decided to put out a fleece for God. I told Him that if He brought up the teaching opportunity again before the week was over, I would know that it was not just another dead-end street but a door I was to walk through.
The days up north were full to the brim with experiences and exciting events, but I kept my deal with God in the back of my mind. I was eager to get to work, but also terrified that teaching was something God wanted me to do. I have never taught anything in my life! I would say to myself anytime I thought about it. There is no way I am the man for that job. I returned to our house on Thursday, and that evening we were all going to have supper together. It was that Thursday that I realized just how differently God sees our potential from how we see ourselves.
The supper was delicious as always. After we were done eating, we sat around and visited for a while. Then Uli looked at me and said, “What do you think about teaching at the technical college?”
Well, now we know the answer to that question! I thought wryly. “Well, I don’t know,” I said. “Do you think he was serious about that?” I was still trying to squirm out of receiving the sign I had prayed for.
“Oh, definitely,” Uli replied.
I had a decision to make that would affect my entire SM experience. Being useless was kind of miserable, but it was safe. On the flipside, I had been praying for God to open an opportunity, and now I knew for sure that He had. I had promised Him my service even before I launched, but now that the opportunity I had asked for was in my lap, would I take it? Did I have the nerve to trust God and step out in faith?
It is now nearly February. I have been teaching for over a month and enjoying it more than I thought anyone ever could. All the things I thought I needed, God knew I didn’t. But there are so many things I didn’t realize that I needed until God gave them to me in this teaching position. As He said in Isaiah 55:8, 9, “‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,’ says the Lord. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts higher than your thoughts.’” When I quit trying to live the missionary life I had imagined and instead lived by faith, God took away my unhappiness and dissatisfaction and gave me peace and eyes to see the beauty around me. He also showed me that I have abilities and gifts I hadn’t recognized.
Friend, if you have something in your life that is giving you trouble or causing a feeling of emptiness and dissatisfaction, pray about it. God will answer in His own time and way. Perhaps He has already answered your prayers and given you a door to walk through. My prayer is that you will trust God, pursue an active faith, and walk through the doors He opens to a life filled with meaning and joy. The path God has laid out for your life may not seem like the right one to you, but If you trust Him, I know that He will bring out the best in you for His service and reveal things to you about yourself that you never knew.
