Melission

A conversation with a friend yesterday reminded me of my college days when I would note how many of my friends had decided to enter the mission field, whether temporarily for a trip or to plan to make it a lifestyle one day. I used to feel like doing a "mission trip" was something I had to do or should do some day, but I never really felt called to it.

Then I learned about finding my "gifts" .. those God-given traits you possess for the purpose of carrying out His plan through your life. I wondered what my gifts could be. I knew I had to find out one day because otherwise I'd feel like I'd be wasting my life without knowing what to do with it. The obvious one was something creative, but I never really found a way to use that to directly and personally connect with people in a spiritual way.

However in the past couple years as Jon and I have been leading the Financial Peace course, I believe I have found my "mission from God" *Blues Brothers voice*. Helping people learn about finances and how to change their life by it - I never thought I'd be into that. I'm not a numbers person! I'm still not incredibly a numbers person. But my faults don't matter. What matters to me (and I think what matters to God, through me) is communicating the truth (about the subject, and essentially about life itself) to people, and helping them realize that changing certain habits is what God wants for them. This is HARD sometimes to reveal to folks, and the hardest to reveal to folks who need it the most! But this is good for my mission. It keeps me having something to work on and be challenged by. Right now in the form of learning how to talk to people about it.

I'm not very comfortable being in front of a huge group of people by myself in a classroom setting, but I've realized that I can help people one on one quite well and quite naturally. I'm pretty excited about this.

It might seem weird helping people come to God through money. That's what it sounds like. But if you open the Book you'll find it's quite an important thing to achieve in life, in God's eyes. If you don't know God or don't want to, you at least have to recognize that being good with money is something desired in life. It's also about living right, communication and doing good for others too.

I've never been one for "Christianese" speak (ie using language that makes you sound like a Bible beater) because I was once (and still am!) quite annoyed by it. I hope that my choice to discuss things not in that manner is a means for me to connect to and help anyone and everyone willing to open their mind to the best things God has for them in life.

Onward, I say.