Between want and know...

If you haven’t noticed, lately I’m basically a wavering, sputtering, pathetic little mess of a woman who just wants to know where to point the bow of this sometimes sinking ship.

(That may or may not have been slightly dramatic.)

So I’ve taken to getting counsel where I can get it. And yesterday where I could get it was from Kurt, who spoke these cryptic words:

“Andi, don’t do what you want to do. When someone does what they want to do, they often end up frustrated. Instead, do what you know to do.”

Huh. Alright.

But it makes sense.

Consider this: I want to minister directly to unreached people. I want to live in the bush, and to live there well, to thrive. I want to have lots of relationships that are deep, despite huge cultural gaps. I want to be good at learning an unwritten language.

I want to be able to do all those things. But, in reality, I’m just not that person. What I know—my skills—don’t align. I just end up frustrated. I’m not doing what I know; I’m doing what I want.

You with me?

It’s pretty humbling, to have to look at things and say, yeah, I want to be that woman, I want to be able to do all those things. But God has given me gifts elsewhere, and I’m just going to have to look outside my little “but, but, but—this is what real missionaries do*” box and see how He wants me to put them to good use.

(*That, there in the quotes, is a ridiculous statement, and I know it. Just so I’m not misunderstood.)

And it’s not that these two years have been useless. No, no, no. Absolutely not. This team, this place, these circumstances—the good and the bad of all of them—are just what God had for me, what He wanted me to go through, to push through, to learn through.

Now I’ve just got to figure out what my skills are exactly, and where I can use and develop them for God’s glory.

That’s simple, right?

Right.