Can anyone run away from God? Not if He has a high calling for you. This is exactly what happened to Amy Burton, a missionary from Dallas, Texas.
Having an ‘ideal home’, with a good job, a nice car, and a good income was what Amy thought as ideal. However, she found out that not until she obeyed God, would she find satisfaction.
Running away from God was what Amy did when she was in her college years. Even though she came from a Christian home with her parents being missionaries in Texas, she did not understand God’s call for her life until stress, relationship problems, and frustrations set in.
She walked away from God when her parents, originally from New Zealand, went to Texas in 1990. She did not understand why they had to leave their home and go to another place where she had no friends, compared to a home where she had everything; life, friends, and happy surroundings. Soon she went to Austin College and had a bad relationship with a guy. She walked out on him and soon discovered that God would seek her out.
She found her real contentment when she began to walk into God’s call for her life and found that she was contented even though she does not have a car, house or a good paying job anymore. She responded to God’s call to go to Indonesia to teach in a School in 2004, and discovered that life starts running when you obeyed God. After being there for about three and a half months she came to Singapore. She hopes to stay here serving God in whatever capacity that He has for her.
Running away from our call is what many are guilty of. I heard people telling me that if they were to serve God in a full time ministry, then they would have to consider about their retirement fund, their children’s education, support from home church, and other pool of reasons that they envisioned to be ‘ideal’ before responding to serve God. Many did not go into the mission field inspite of their call because of these reasons. How then would you respond?
Finding God’s ‘ideal’ plan for your life is to obey God. As Amy testified, it is better to be doing what God has called you to do, then to be doing something else which is out of God’s calling. This is true for all missionaries. They may not have the luxury of things that they had before, but they are happy and contented because they are doing God’s will.
Wherever God called you, be in the ‘ideal’ place for Him so that life can never be the same again. You can be happy and joyful in spite of the struggles in life, but one thing you know, you are in God’s perfect will and that is all that matters.
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