the mundane or the unknown?

I'm praying one of the hardest prayers for a control freak like me to pray. I say praying, because it's not a “one and done” kind of prayer. It's one of those prayers that I'll have to repeat time and time again—not because I think I need to repeat it for God's sake, but because it will take repetition to get it through my own thick skull and heavily guarded heart.

God, let my pride take a backseat to Your purpose.

Since I was little, I've wanted God to use me. I listened to missionaries talk about their time in exotic countries; I worked VBS on a regular basis; I went on mission trips with the KS-NE Acteens to Wyoming and Tennessee. I dreamed of being the one in the field, of living in a grass hut somewhere far away, of having a Story (with a capital S) and doing the Hard Things. I wanted--still want--the adventures.

The thing is, not everyone does the big things. Sometimes, the hard thing is to be right here in the middle of your own story (lowercase s). The hard thing is to follow God into the mundane instead of into the unknown. The hard thing is to be okay with not having a big story. The hard thing is to keep following God when you can't see Him leading you anywhere—and you feel stuck where He has you right now.

So for now, I'm going to take a deep breath. I'm going to keep praying my prayer—Let my pride take a backseat to Your purpose—so that one of these days it will sink in. I'm going to keep doing the hard thing of simply being right here, in the middle of my ordinary life, unless God tells me to do something different.