Out of Hiding 

You know how sometimes you are asking God for an answer while hoping He is going to say “you are just fine doing what you are doing” even though you know at the core that there is no way He is going to say that? No, just me? Well recently I was praying about a variety of things, and had been feeling a nudging that my place in the background was not going to be my place much longer. So I kinda ignored the nudging, hoping maybe I was wrong. Yep! You guessed it, I was not wrong. This week God decided that He was done with the slight gentle nudge and He needed to be more clear.  So over the past few days He has made it clear that my comfortable background spot needed to be vacated. 

What does that mean? I mean I think in logistics, and I am a planner so what does it mean that I need to vacate my background spot? Does that mean that I need to stop doing the background tasks? Will everything change? Here is what I am getting, no I will not have to stop doing the background tasks, because those are part of who God has created me to be, those are using my gifts and passions.  Just because they are tasks that can be done in the background that does not mean that have to be done in the background. What else does it mean? It means I am going to limit what other responsibilities I take on in ministry in some respects and open up in other areas. I remember a conversation I had with one of my ministry leaders a few months ago (during the nudging) about how I liked my background world and I was content to stay there, and he said something along the lines of you are not suppposed to stay there but I won’t push the issue right now. So now here I am remembering that conversation when it is probably the time that the issue is coming to the top. 

I know that still doesn’t answer the question of what should I be doing right? Why no specifics? Because there are none right now, which for the planner in me, drives me crazy but I know is intentional on God’s part because it’s helping me to grow and trust Him.  Here is what else I know, I have spent most of my adult life perfecting my ability to be in background positions that exclude me from doing something else. I much prefer to watch God move from the safety of a sound booth (where you never get asked to go pray for people or speak or do anything on stage). I can’t remember a time as an adult that I did ministry work out of the background. So I guess the question is for you. Have you taken steps out of your hiding place? What did it look like? How did you handle the fear?