Ministry and Life Transitions

3 days remain.

I only have 3 more days in Canada.

There are only 3 more days until my wife and I begin our new life in Seoul, Korea.

How did it get this way? How did we end up leaving our ministry and our life in Montreal to move to the other side of the world?  How were we so sure that this is where God was calling us? How did we know that this was God’s will for our lives?

When talking about God’s will, it’s easy to get sidetracked and have seemingly unending theological discussions.  Rather than getting sidetracked, I’d rather keep things practical and relevant.  As a result, Psalm 37:4 is really the driving theme of my life and of how I discern God’s will.

“Delight yourself in the LORD; And He will give you the desires of your heart.”

We never planned on leaving Montreal after two years.  After all, we were even thinking about buying a condo there!  Sure, there were times when we wanted to leave, but there were also times when we wanted to stay for a while.  So what convinced us that it was God’s will for us to leave?

Late June 2008, I received a call from Eddie, my former youth pastor when I was in grade 5 – 7.  Not knowing why he called me, we merely talked for a few minutes just catching up about everything.  He then asked me if my wife and I would be willing to move to Korea to partner with him in the English Ministry of Onnuri Community Church.

WHAT?!?

Where the heck did that come from?

When he asked me, my immediate internal response was “NO! Why would I want to move to Korea? Things are amazing in Montreal – we’ve finally developed solid friendships, the youth ministry is thriving and growing, school is working out well.  Why would I move somewhere else? I’m delighting myself in God, and he really is giving me the desires of my heart – success in ministry and life.”  However, even though my immediate internal response was “NO!”, I kept on asking questions about the ministry in Korea.

Although ministry and life was amazing in Montreal, my wife and I always sensed that it would be temporal.  We knew that God placed us in Montreal for a season, but we knew it wouldn’t be “the place where we would make our maximum impact.” (Perhaps I’ll unpack that idea in a later post).

As a result, despite my internal response being “NO!”, perhaps I kept on asking questions because I knew (somewhere deep within) that my season in Montreal was coming to an end?

The thing about University Bachelor degrees is that the first year is always so general.  The first year is so general because the school wants you to receive exposure to a lot of the different nuances in your discipline, so that you can choose what you want to specialize in.  As a result, the second, third, and fourth years, respectively become increasingly specific.  (For example, you can choose arts or sciences.  If you choose sciences, then you have to choose from all of the different disciplines – like biology, chemistry, health sciences, etc.  Then after that, if you choose biology, then you can choose between marine biology, microbiology, biochemistry, etc.)

In the same way, I believe that we all have specific God-ordained callings on our lives that are based on our talents and our passions.  However, we’ll never know what that specific calling is until we start exercising and developing our talents and passions.

Therefore, I didn’t just wake up one day and decide that I had a God-ordained calling on my life to work with multi-/inter-cultural type of ministries, focusing on developing leaders.  It all started by understanding that God wanted me to love him and love others (the central and universal calling that God has placed on all human beings).  Thereafter, the calling upon my life became clearer and clearer as I moved towards loving God and loving others.

For me, that meant God continued to open up doors in my life to enter full-time vocational ministry.  For my wife, that meant God continued to open up doors for her to study social work and counseling.  For one of my friends, that meant God continued to open up doors for him to become a medical doctor.  And for others, it could be something else.

What I’m trying to say is that when we delight ourselves in the Lord, he will give us the desires of our hearts.  Don’t we all dream that someone would pay us to do what we were naturally talented at doing and what we were passionate about?

Well that’s what I’m doing!!! That’s what happened to me, and so many others that I know!  And it happened to me because my focus was on God, and not on myself.

As a result, why Korea?  Well, as much as I was able to exercise and develop my talents and passions in Montreal, God is continuing to clarify my specific calling.  On top of that, he’s beginning to open my eyes in regards to how my specific calling is intertwined with my wife’s.  In Korea, I will have a greater opportunity to work with multi-/inter-cultural type of ministries, focusing on developing leaders.  And In Korea, my wife will have a greater opportunity to discern her specific calling.

Do I think this present opportunity will be the last one? No, not really.  But I do know that my wife and I will be there, giving and doing our best, until God calls us elsewhere.

Thank God that I don’t know what the next step is.  God is a bigger dreamer than I am.