My parents’ interest in missions instilled the idea into my thinking at a very early age so as a 5 year old, when our Cherub Choir director dared to leave us and go to Alaska to be a missionary, that’s all it took. From that point on I knew God wanted me to be a missionary! Our family always went to church and I knew lots of Bible stories. I assumed I was a Christian. Head knowledge isn’t heart knowledge though. I had no personal relationship with Christ.
Over my growing up years I did occasionally think of missions. One big drawback loomed. What if God wanted to send me somewhere I didn’t want to go????
During college years I attended an Inter-Varsity Christian leadership training camp — kinda the “cart before the horse” since I wasn’t yet saved. There at camp, while singing the Isaac Watts hymn “When I survey the wondrous cross” everything I’d known in my head fell into place and became real in my life. God opened my eyes and I came to see myself as a sinner in need of the Savior, Jesus, who bore the penalty for my sins and died in my place. As we came to the last verse of that hymn, my heart response sang, “Love so amazing so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.” God had given me the desire to be a missionary. With Christ now in my life He made my questions & fears about the actual location seem irrelevant. Wherever God wanted to send me, I committed to go! BUT …………
Seem like there’s always a but …….. Even as a new Christian, I was still hung up on my own feelings of incompetence & insecurity. Rather like Moses in Ex 3-4. I had lots of “reasons” why God really couldn’t use me. To that God answered with 1 Cor 1:26-29: He calls the weak and foolish. I qualified. And still do! Over and over again God proves Himself faithful to supply all that is needed for whatever task He puts in my hand!