Listening, Hearing, and then Doing

So I have just been confused lately. I dont know what we are supposed to do with our lives. I feel like God wants us to do more than just sit at home and go to church on Sundays. I feel that as Christians we are called to do way more than we do. I don't want to do these things because I want to earn my way into Heaven, but I want to do them because we are commanded to do them. If we are really God's children, why wouldn't we have have the desire do to these things? One of the main things I want to do is move to Guatemala and mission to the kids and women in Rio Hondo. I really really want to go but at the same time, I do not want to leave my family. I am obsessed with my family. Its odd, but I have a really great relationship with all of them and am very close to them. I cannot imagine being away from my parents and my grandma. (Im hoping Mark, Erin, and Ryann Cate would be with us in Guatemala...so im not counting them.)I have other selfish reasons why I dont want to go. In Rio Hondo (and Guatemala in general) it is not safe. It is not safe for a woman to be out at night by herself. I cannot imagine not being able to step out to the nearest fast food place to get dinner for me and John or run to the grocery store to pick up some stuff that we need. My life would change. We would be the white people in the village and we would always be looking over our shoulders to make sure that we are safe. That is scarry. That is difficult. And, that is out of my comfort level. BUT at the same time, I feel called. I feel like I think God has commanded me to go. I was reading last night and I came accross these verses.




23Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!"

24The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, "Children, how hard it is[e] to enter the kingdom of God! 25It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

26The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, "Who then can be saved?"

27Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God."

28Peter said to him, "We have left everything to follow you!"


29"I tell you the truth," Jesus replied, "no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel 30will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life. 31But many who are first will be last, and the last first."









Of course I have read these verses before, but you know when you are reading the Bible and you can just tell that God is talking to you? That God is speaking directly to you? I took verse 29 as a command, not as a way to earn my way into heaven. I felt like God was showing me this verse because it is what I have been struggling with. I dont want to leave my family, but Im pretty sure that God has asked me to....next question...Has He asked John to?....We are praying about that. Its not like we can pick up and leave right now though. We have debt and Im pretty sure God does not want us skipping out on that. But maybe in the next year we will go. I know it takes a lot of preperation, but Im looking forward to it. My prayer in all of this is that I will follow God's will. Im worried that I will follow my own, and I do not want to do that. I think its pretty clear that I am obsessed with those kids down there, so I dont want to go because I want to go, I want to go because that is where God is calling me to go. I wish He would just write it out for me on a piece of paper or a wall.






Here is the other verse that spoke to me last night as I was reading.

"Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me."

Mark 9:37