Out of the Boat

If I’ve learned anything in my twenty years of life, it would certainly be that the future is unforeseeable, changeable, and in no way congruent with any of my expectations. But as crazy as it is, the future is also beautiful beyond belief. When I came to college a few years ago, my future plans involved graduating college in three years and then pursuing a career in the field of medicine with the strong possibility of going to medical school. Long story short, here I am less than two years later, writing my first blog as a youth minister working for a collaborative non-profit company. Within these past years I discovered that medicine and research just wasn’t for me. Instead, I have found a love for service and taking care of others. Along the way I have realized that God has given me a heart for ministry and bringing love and truth to youth. So I switched my biomedical science major to psychology and traded a carefully calculated future for a world of unknown.
God is funny that way. It seems any time that I make plans for myself, or think that I have the future figured out, God steps in and reminds me that I’m not the one in control. And thank goodness for that. God is infinitely more creative and imaginative than I am. His plans tend to turn out a million times better than anything I could ever dream up. So God has called me once again out of my comfort zone to step out of the boat in faith into youth ministry. Like Peter, I was faced with the choice to either step out of the boat and walk on the water to meet Jesus, or to cower back into my corner where I feel safe. In reality, that’s God’s call for all of us. He didn’t make us so that we would simply carve out a corner of the world for ourselves and remain there where we feel safe and comfortable. He made us to be brave, to jump out of the boat and run across the waves to meet Him.
As Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI said so eloquently, “The world promises you comfort, but you were not made for comfort; you were made for greatness.” To be disciples of Christ requires us to die to our fears and our cowardly self-preservation, and rise to our true calling to spread the Gospel and live our faith boldly every day. This is not a call for only a specific few people; it is the call for every single person who confesses Christ as their savior. This is not the time for passive Christianity; that time has never existed. This is the time for courageously proclaiming the truth of Christ. We do this by choosing Christ every day with our decisions and actions. This means choosing patience with our servers when they get our orders wrong, or with the people right in front of us when we’re stuck in rush hour traffic. This means choosing to love that one person in our life who seems to always find a way to get on our nerves. This means sharing our faith with both strangers and friends. This means making the effort to pray even when we’re tired or frustrated with God. This means embracing the path God is calling us to even when we are faced with adversity, disapproval, and fear of the unknown. It is in both the day to day moments, and the big life decisions that our faith is tested and strengthened. It is in these moments, when we are asked to choose between comfort and greatness, that we find out what we are truly made of and whether we allow our lives to be motivated by bravery or fear.
When we make the decision to step out of the boat, we can be assured of two things: First, that we will be protected and provided for with God’s all-consuming grace, and second, that God’s plan will be anything but boring.
Jump out of the boat. Run on the water.
the armed

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