All the Difference

I just switched my blog to the Beta format, and was exploring it, when I ran across this post that I had saved, but never published. This was yet another step in my spiritual journey which is still ongoing. It's a good reminder, so I thought I'd post it, so I'll be reminded. I started writing this just after the One Point Three retreat in May of this year. I was pretty confused and frustrated back then. I am less so now, and reading this post motivates me even more to press forward. My goal is to begin some type of school in January.

So the Saturday of the retreat, I went for this hike. It started out that I found an easy trail in a hiking book that would take me down to a remote beach. Well, I tried to find the access road, and couldn't seem to figure out where it was. So I ended up stopping in this small little parking lot just outside Lincoln City at Cascade Head. I started up the trail only to find that it was quite overgrown with salmon berry bushes. They were really thick in places, and I'm glad I had my hat on, or my hair would have been full of brambles. This was truly the road less traveled by. The trail was 3.5 miles to the very road I had been trying to find. It turns out, that the road is closed until July, so I wouldn't have found it anyway.

Why a hike on an unknown trail by myself? Well, about a month before I became a believer, I went on a similar walk through a large park in Tacoma. At the time, I was trying to firgure out how to approach this whole Christianity thing. I knew I wanted to approach it by focussing on why I would follow Christ for myself, and not just to make certain people happy. Then, I asked God to show me the path I should follow, and it ultimately lead to my accepting Jesus as Savior.

So this time, the hike was meant to be a time of again asking God what path I should follow. I've been listening to some tapes of Howard Hendricks and he says that one of the questions he asks any prospective leader is, "Where are you going?" And that person needs to be able to answer without hesitation. He needs to have a clearly defined goal or objective. That was my first question to myself, and to God, "Where am I going?" Do I want to remain in my current career? Do I want to continue to pursue going to school? Why? The career question has been the hardest to answer, because the implications are bigger than I want to admit. In the end though, I needed to answer the question once and for all, so I could stop sitting back on my heels and start running my race. "Man makes his plans, but the Lord determines his step." The Lord may determine my steps, but I still need to make plans before He can do that. So I've determined to pursue learning how to teach. I'd like to teach Bible. The main reason, is that I've found teaching people something that I naturaly fall into whenever the need arrises.
Primary Objective: Teaching

I'm thinking that that really ought to be my primary focus. Should God tell me to head in a different direction, then so be it. It's a lot easier to stear a car when the wheels are moving then when it's standing still. I just want to be heading in some sort of direction. I'm thinking that I'll take a speech class since I'm not a very good speaker. That, or a math class to get my math skills back up to college level. God knows. That's why I'm asking Him. ;)