WHEN GOD CALLS

I remember laying on my bed, sobbing my eyes out. I was miserable. Angry. Confused. Alone. I had just ended a relationship with the person I had moved to Southern California for, and now it was over, and I was left broken beyond what I even knew then. I was mentally sick from the toxic relationship I’d tried to make work, now with engrained misconceptions about who I am and what I’m valued for. I felt nearly brainwashed. I had changed my entire life for this relationship, and now I was stuck hundreds of miles away from family, crying my eyes out in a room I rented in a home with such dog pee infested carpets, I couldn’t leave my room without shoes on. In so many ways, I was trapped. 

If I could have asked God for anything in that moment, it would have been, “Can I please just go home?” I wanted desperately to get out of Southern California, and my heart begged Him to just tell me I could go. But in the deepest places of my soul, I already knew His answer. And it was simply, “Not yet, honey.”

Gut or God?

That was the last time I felt like God was asking the seemingly impossible from me, but it wasn’t the first. I had spent my entire life learning how to recognize His voice, and I had already gotten to experience the miracles that come from radical trust in Him. Obeying Him when it didn’t make sense had led me to graduate high school two years early, leave for college at 16 years old, and move to the Middle East for months with a 3-week notice. I knew that the voice inside me telling me I needed to stay was Him. Trust me… it wasn’t me.

The world will call it a “gut feeling”, but I knew what this really was. Girls, this kinda gut feeling was not the kind you get when you know that you really shouldn’t go on a second date with the reckless guy even though he’s hot. It isn’t the feeling you get when you’re in a weird place at night and all of a sudden feel like it would be best to get in your car and go home. And it also isn’t the feeling you get when Nordstrom has its Anniversary Sale and you legit need that bag, but also legit need to pay rent. Those gut feelings are based on a combination of logic and emotion. In my opinion, that’s the difference between a person’s natural intuition and God’s voice: logic and emotion. 

The type of “gut feeling” I get when God is speaking to me rarely makes sense. In this case alone, both logic and emotion said to go back home to family. But despite all reason, the voice in my soul was telling me not to. And although I wanted nothing less than to stay in Southern California, I also had enough of a track record with God to know that even though I was majorly miserable, His plan was always better than mine.

Don’t get me wrong. It was incredibly difficult to choose to submit to God’s voice, knowing that at the end of the day, I 100% had the choice. I totally could’ve gone home, and knowing God the way I do, I fully believe He would’ve blessed me with wonderful opportunities there, too. But God knew what was around the corner that I did not. Now, thinking back on this time in my life, I am more grateful than ever that I didn’t do what I felt like doing. 

Jesus replied, “You don’t understand now what I am doing, but someday you will.”

John 13:7

Andrew and I Were Married in August

God called me to college before I was “supposed” to go. I was 16.

If I hadn’t, I probably wouldn’t have met my girlfriend, Jess, who I ended up moving to Sacramento with after college. 

It was in our apartment in Sacramento that I got a call asking if I would move to Jordan.

Three weeks later, I was on a plane to the Middle East.

It was my loneliness on the other side of the world that made me make a new online dating profile, where I met my ex.

It was because he lived in Southern California that I applied for a job here.

That job allowed me to take the next step in my relationship with my ex.

It was this time in my life I wanted desperately to go home, but God told me to stay. 

I acted like a wet cat about it, but I did it. I stayed. 

And because I stayed, I not only ended up becoming a licensed esthetician, doing what I do now, but I met the love of my life, my husband.

To think if I hadn’t listened even one of those times, the entire sequence of my life, including who I am married to and what I’ve chosen as a career, could possibly be different. I’ll never know. What I do know is that it didn’t make sense to go to college at 16. It didn’t make sense to up and go to Jordan right after I moved to Sacramento. It didn’t make sense to wing it on a guy I didn’t know well enough to move to Southern California for. And when it ended it flames, it sure as hell didn’t make sense to stay.

But God doesn’t have to make sense. He doesn’t owe anyone an explanation. 

“Man, I really like Vegas.” -Elvis

Circumstances in my husband’s job started to rapidly decline faster than we could keep up with. What was once a dream, was now causing him a such a dark depression, I felt completely worried and helpless. I didn’t know what to do.  All I knew was that my husband wasn’t himself and it broke my heart. We started asking God what He wanted. The danger in doing that is that you usually get an answer. Did God want us to power through this darkness, trusting that He would be our strength when we were completely empty? Or, did God want us to leave, and this was His way of showing us that this isn’t meant for us anymore?

I remember when Andrew asked me if I’d ever consider moving to Las Vegas to settle down. LOL. Um, okay, yeah. Let’s take a small town girl who’s taken directions based on where Clydesdale horses are and stick her in a city so insane, it’s capable of giving anxiety an anxiety disorder. In an oven. Needless to say, that was never going to happen. And before I knew it, I was sitting in my cute Southern California apartment with my husband, bravely admitting, “I’m absolutely terrified. But if you were to ask me what I want right now, it’s to move to Vegas.” All of a sudden, I wanted it more than anything. All of a sudden, I couldn’t wait to dream about moving to Vegas. All of a sudden, my eyes saw the desert as gorgeous. I knew that heart change wasn’t from me; that heart change was God’s answer.

We started talking about how to tie up loose ends here in California, how to tell my parents that we’re moving, and when to leave the jobs that have radically influenced our lives. We thought about going later in the year when it felt like a more tidy clean-up. Andrew could finish baseball season, as a collegiate coach, instead of leaving in the middle of it. We could line up new jobs. Our lease would end in August. There would be a beautiful bow to tie up our time here, the perfect end to the story. But the darkness we were experiencing was getting worse. Things were getting harder, messier, and more painful.

“God, what do you want us to do?”

Getting Our Feet Wet

There’s a story in the Bible (in Exodus 14) where God asks Moses to lead His followers, the Israelites, out of slavery in Egypt. When escaping, they come to the Red Sea and get stuck. The Egyptians are closing in behind them, and there’s nowhere to go but the sea. They’re trapped. We all know the story of God telling Moses to raise his staff, and God parted the waters and allowed them to cross. But that didn’t happen until they were already at the sea. So often we hear God asking us to metaphorically walk across the sea, and we’re like, “Okay, let me know once you’ve made a path for me and I’ll be on my way.” That’s not how it works. The sea isn’t going to open until your feet are already wet.

Sometimes you have to act in bold faith before you get God’s answer. We both quit our jobs before having anything else lined up. We put in our notice on our apartment before having another place to live. We are moving to Las Vegas with a bucket of uncertainty. But it is so worth the risk of falling flat when the flip side is the chance to see God’s faithfulness. The chance that someone else could see how BIG and personal God is by watching us radically obey Him when it doesn’t make sense is worth any chance of failing. 

God doesn’t owe us any explanation. We don’t have to understand why He wants us to do something. He doesn’t ask us to understand. He doesn’t ask us to be happy about it. He asks us to trust Him.

Andrew quit his job before having anything lined up in Las Vegas.

At his very first job interview following, he was hired on the spot. 

I just resigned from my job on Wednesday, without anything lined up.

We are preparing for a move, without any lease signed on a house. 

Would God bless us if we stayed? Oh, of course. In our situation in particular, I believe in my heart of hearts that this was one of those times God was allowing us to choose. But never, ever will I give up an open opportunity to see my God be God. I share this with you all today, having no clue what’s around the corner, knowing that God is good no matter what. I am stoked beyond belief to see what He’s up to. But for now, I don’t have to know why. I just have to run into the sea, get my feet wet, and see what He’ll do. Because when God calls, you answer.

Jesus replied, “You don’t understand now what I am doing, but someday you will.”

John 13:7

xo,
Suz