Changing Direction

I've been working at Southern Nuclear in Birmingham, Alabama, for a grand total of three and a half weeks now. And I hate it. It's not the people- I love my co-workers and the other co-op students. I like the idea of working with energy generation, and I have ever since going to see my dad at Plant Barry in Mobile back when I was a young 'un. But, I hate sitting at a desk all day, looking and analyzing small details. I hate feeling like what I do with the majority of my time is meaningless. I hate how difficult it is for me to abide with Christ here, and I feel like I'm wasting my life away.

I know this might seem overly dramatic (something I've constantly asked the Lord and myself). And, to some degree it is. If I worked here in the future I know I'd have more interesting assignments, and I might somewhat enjoy it. But this time has made me observe the whole idea of being a vocational engineer to much greater detail than I ever have before. And I now know that it is not what I really want.

Oh, but there are aspects I want- or at least part of me does. I want the security. I want the steady income (not even for a nice house, or comfortable lifestyle- but to go on missions, and serve the Lord). I want to work with big machines and systems. I want the respect and support of my family (dad).

But it's killing my soul. So I've been prayed for by friends as I relay my frustrations, and I got some good advice from Makar- pray for personal mandates from the Lord for my life, and then base my decisions around those mandates. Seems like a good idea to ask the Lord for wisdom- multiple times He tells us He'll answer if we have faith (like James 1:5-8). So today I fasted to try and figure out what I am made to do. God is faithful, and He has answered my cries- to some degree.

A quote that has stuck with me for a while comes from John Eldridge's Wild at Heart. While I wouldn't highly recommend that book now, it had a huge impact on me when I was 13. The quote is something like this: "Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Find out what makes you come alive, and go do that- because what the world needs is people alive."

What the Lord has shown me is that my deep passions, and what makes me come alive, are found in serving the Church. I enjoy sacrificing and spending myself in seeing the Church attain greater unity and purity. That's what I constantly long to see, my dream and desire. To see her impact the culture around her, and to truly love her Lord more than life itself- that's what I want to labor for in this life.

I long for my work to be significant. Not that I be deemed significant, or be recognized and applauded by men- that is not of any consequence to me. I want to be involved in something bigger than myself, and to spend myself there and know that I have proven to be faithful in what little I have been entrusted with in this life.

So, I think that's the direction I'm headed these days.

"Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of His body. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church." Ephesians 5:25-32