Choosing the Father’s House

I was at my lowest, completely empty. My childhood had taken the life out of me. So by the time I turned twenty, I was ready for life to be over. That is where God found me.

Somehow, at that lowest point, God used a discipleship training school in my nation’s capital city (Santiago, Chile) to awaken me. After several months, school ended, and I had a decision to make: go forward where God was leading me into his work in the world, or go back to my hometown.

It wasn’t an easy choice. My mother was alone and struggling with my two little sisters. Going home meant working to pay the bills. But going home also meant returning to brokenness, desperation, emotional trauma, and more.

I wondered, Should I follow where God is leading, forward into the world and toward the thing he’s calling me to do? Or do I go back home, bringing him with me into the darkness of my past?

Listen to me, O royal daughter; take to heart what I say.

Forget your people and your family far away.

For your royal husband delights in your beauty;

honor him, for he is your Lord.

The princess of Tyre will shower you with gifts.

The wealthy will beg your favor.

The bride, a princess, looks glorious

in her golden gown.

In her beautiful robes, she is led to the king,

accompanied by her bridesmaids.

What a joyful and enthusiastic procession

as they enter the king’s palace!

Your sons will become kings like their father.

You will make them rulers over many lands.

I will bring honor to your name in every generation.

Conviction came over me as I read the words, “forget . . . your family far away.” It seemed a clear answer! Not easy, but clear. God was inviting me to trust that he could take care of my family as a loving Father. It was an exercise in faith. I just needed to step aside and let him move.

And move he did. As I took steps toward him and his direction for my life, he took steps toward my family back home. My mother found work, and my stepfather began to send money as well. I wasn’t supposed to be their savior; I was supposed to trust the Savior of the world.

Instead, I was supposed to further his mission in the world, investing in other people like me who were broken and hopeless and journeying alongside them to find the same Jesus who brought me hope and new life.

While God could have called me to go home to my family and serve there, I felt relieved he had not. Going home represented rejection, sadness, abandonment, and hopelessness. As a new believer, I would be armed with only the little I knew thus far of faith. But God was inviting me to enter his house instead to be treated like his royal daughter and to discover my purpose within his Kingdom. He wanted to give me a family that would bless future generations.

I still get tricked into doing things by my own human effort only to realize my best efforts fall short. But as I look at Bible passages about leaving my old life and starting a new one, like Matthew 16:24-25, I am learning:

• God invites me not only to die to the bad but also to depend on his good in me.
• Instead of seeking my happiness, God’s happiness can become my happiness.
• When Jesus asks me to die and follow him, to deny myself, it is to make room for God’s good.
• When I empty myself of myself, I have room to fill up on the life he offers.
• By inviting me to be part of his family and his Kingdom, God also invites me to be part of his mission. I am not the center, but part of something greater—his purposes.