Taking steps of faith

What is the most effective and most faithful way to discern God’s will for our lives? We asked Audrey*, who serves with Wycliffe Bible Translators in partnership with LCA International Mission, to share her journey. 

Taking steps of faith

For me, discerning God’s will has been a step-by-step process. It has involved regularly being still before God, seeking him and being in his word, talking things through with trusted Christians and taking steps of faith without knowing the whole picture.

I moved to Asia at the beginning of 2020 to serve in Bible translation – but I didn’t just wake up one morning and decide to go! The seed had been planted during short-term mission trips after high school. However, it wasn’t until I quit my job to study at Bible college that I started to see where God may be leading me. God provided different opportunities for me to test the waters in Bible translation and, as my counsellor reminded me, ‘God often guides a moving ship’.

During a mission trip in my first year at Bible college, I sensed that this was it – Bible translation was how I could serve. And so, I began the next steps to prepare. It wasn’t easy though, and was often costly, as I ended up doing five years of study and had to change the country I was hoping to serve in as that door closed along the way.

After testing some more options, I found a sense of peace about which country I would serve in and headed there full of excitement and nervous anticipation! The first few weeks were intense as I met team members, set up a home with strangers and started language school. But I had such a deep peace that this was where God wanted me.

However, just two months later I was on a plane back to Australia due to COVID restrictions, which is where I remain two years later.

Naturally, I am disappointed and have more questions than answers. I don’t doubt God was leading me, but it hasn’t turned out how I had hoped and that’s hard. In these times, I have learnt more about what it means to surrender and lament – ‘to take my complaints, anger, sufferings, frustrations and heartaches to God’. I have also had to rely on the body of Christ – people who walk alongside me, listen and gently encourage, and not just quote Bible verses to try to make me feel better!

I’m trusting that at some point, I will see how God has used this experience for my good and that of his kingdom. Sometimes it’s more about the deep transformative work he wants to do in us – rather than through us.

Even if we walk where we sense God is leading us, that doesn’t mean it will be smooth sailing. Obedience doesn’t guarantee success as the world sees it. We are called to be faithful, not necessarily successful, and to love God from the heart as our first priority, out of which obedience flows.

*Not her real name