The Wilful Sunflower

In the case of applying for the Education Ministry teachers' training course, I've been telling God, "If You want me to get it, let me get it. If You don't want me to get it, don't let me get it." Plain and simple. Easy-peasy. This is called the 'open door and closed door' way of making decisions. If the door is open, that means I'm supposed to walk through it. If it's closed, then I can't progress any further in this direction, and the answer is 'no'.

But Sherman has other ideas.

"If I'm not supposed to do this, then shouldn't God just close the door and not allow it to happen?" I argued.

"That doesn't always happen. God isn't an autocrat," he replied.

"He should be when you ask Him to be!" I insisted.

"He's God," was all Sherman said.

"Well, if I were to say to a friend, 'Stop me if you think I'm doing something I shouldn't', I think my friend would do so. In the first place, because he's a friend and he doesn't want me to do the wrong thing, and in the second place, because I actually ASKED him to do so."

"What if He respects you enough to give you a choice -- He trusts that you'll really think this through carefully?" Sherman suggested.

This whole conversation gave me a headache :P

Sherman feels strongly that I shouldn't take up this course -- and the subsequent job of teaching in government (public) schools -- if I don't really want it. But I didn't feel that what I want is necessarily a deciding factor, coz God isn't in the business of always giving us what we want, and life is also not always about getting what we want.

"When God sends you somewhere you DON'T want to go, this sending is to be confirmed and affirmed by your faith community. It's not as simple a matter as being something just between you and God," Sherman told me.

So I went about talking with my faith community.

You see, there were a few factors that had led me to apply for this teachers' training course:

• The thought of teaching high school kids had hung around for 3 years. It was not something I would have thought of on my own account, and it just wouldn't go away. I figured maybe it had been planted by someone else -- namely God.
• I saw the need for Christian teachers in our government schools, and something in me moved to want to respond to that need. I prayed a scary prayer -- you know the one -- that prayer that goes, "Lord, here I am, send me"!
• I wanted to help make a difference in the lives of my country's youths by being someone who could walk alongside them in their joys, sorrows, and struggles, and be source of encouragement as well as a listening ear.
• I thought I could teach and might enjoy teaching; in particular, teaching English, because I'm fascinated by the English language.
• I felt that maybe God was challenging me to step out of my comfort zone and follow Him wherever He might send me, even if it were difficult and involved making sacrifices.
• I believed I should trust in Him in the matter of getting posted to a particular school (He could always engineer it so that I would be posted to a school nearby rather than one in a far-away town, I reminded myself).
• The government would pay me a monthly allowance for the duration of the 9-month training course, which meant I would not need to worry about finances. (Yes, practicality did come into it!)
• Doing what I would prefer to do, which is lecture in a private college, felt like a cop-out, like I was running away and taking the easy way out. Because it involved no sacrifice, because it felt self-indulgent (pleasing myself), because it meant that I was trying to retain control of my life (as opposed to giving God control, y'know -- doing what I want instead of what He wants).

This whole year, all eight months of it so far, I've fluctuated wildly between being terrified I would actually get chosen for the course and trying to tell myself to trust God on this. I wasn't sure whether it would be a good thing to finally know and end the uncertainty and move on, or whether it would be better to never know so that things could just continue the way they've always been and I wouldn't have to face the prospect of having to move away from friends and my familiar, comfortable environment here.

When I got shortlisted for the interview, I began to quietly freak out, because there seemed to be a sense of inevitability about it all... I felt fatalistic, as if I was 'doomed' to get into the course, which was NOT WHAT I WANTED AT ALL. But, you know, being a good Christian and wanting to be like Christ Jesus, naturally I was praying, "Yet not my will, but Thine will be done", all the while sweating and hoping it wouldn't come to that. (Now I think I understand a little better what the Gospel writer was talking about when he wrote that Jesus' sweat "was like drops of blood falling to the ground"! Good grief.)

Well, in the absence of any clear direction from God to go for it or not to go for it, I discussed it with my faith community, like I mentioned earlier. The consensus seems to be that this is probably not the way to go. Because I REALLY don't want it, because there is something else I want to do and can see myself doing, because I need my community & friends in my life and can't let go of them right now, because I still have so many things to settle in my life and work out with God before I will be ready for such a huge step, because God is giving me the freedom to choose and I don't have to make myself suffer out of some misguided sense of sacrifice or service, because even if not going for it is a mistake, it is not irredeemable and God is big enough to work around my mistakes, whether made on purpose or by honest accident.