When I first applied to be a Go Now missionary, I felt called to the field, but didn’t feel like I was equipped to go—like I didn’t deserve to go. I worked so hard preparing for this trip—reading, writing and studying as much as I could. I still felt like I wasn’t good enough, like being chosen to be a missionary was this huge joke and someone was going to jump out and say, “just kidding,” at any moment.
I prayed and prayed and prayed, begging the Lord to ease my worries and show me his plan. If God could just tell me everything that would happen on this trip, I could prepare for it, so each encounter would be perfect and I would be perfect.
I have always been obsessed with knowing everything before it happened—where I’m going, who I’m staying with, what I’ll be doing, and on and on and on. But for my mission trip, all I knew was when I was leaving.
But not knowing what was going on turned out to be the biggest blessing. It’s an important lesson the Lord has taught me—trust. It’s easy to trust God when you know what’s going on and what God has planned. But trusting God in the waiting? Trusting God in the silence? It’s learning to say to God, “Even though I have no idea what my life has in store for me, I trust you to provide for me and to lead me through it.”
I could read every book on mission work, I could memorize every verse in the Bible, and that would be great, but learning to trust God to use me has worked out so much better. Every day, I encounter problems that never came up in my studying, but I’ve handled them with the faith and grace the Lord has provided for me.
And guess what? I know where I’m going every day. And my partner, Nathanael is the best. I know where I’m staying, and I love my host family. And every day, I do something different that God needs done in Arlington. So pray in the waiting, trust in the process, and praise the Lord all day long.
Deejay Moses, a student at Howard Payne University, is serving this summer at Mission Arlington with Go Now Missions.
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