As a single woman who is coming up on a birthday that “celebrates” 3 decades of my life, I struggle with knowing if I am in the place I am suppose to be. When I was in my teens I felt a deep calling to missions/ministry. Growing up as a pastor’s kid and knowing what it was like to live in the ministry, this calling scared me and it was not something that I joyfully embraced. When I finally gave into the idea, I decided that this entrance into ministry meant I would be a pastor’s wife, which is something I could live with. At least in this ideal, I would still be able to have my desires of marriage and kids be fulfilled. I could live with “serving” God if I was able to have godly husband and be a stay at home mom. Fast forward 13 years, I look back at my 17 year old self, walking an isle at a youth conference saying I was making a decision to follow Christ into full time ministry, and I wonder if I was really making a commitment to follow Christ, or just saying I was willing to follow a man into full time ministry. The last 12 years of my life have spent in training, developing and working in a career that I thought would just be something I did until I met the man of my dreams and I could finally fulfill the commitment I made to God to be in full time ministry. In this time I have been productive, and anything but stagnant in my professional life. I have earned 2 degrees in my field, obtained certification as a teacher in 2 different disciplines, become both a state and nationally certified interpreter, risen to the top of my field, have managed to pay off most of my school debt, and have even started grad school. As I approach the end of my 20s, I realize that even in all of the things that I have done, I still have no satisfaction. I realize that in accomplishing good things, I took my eyes off of the best things that God has had for my life, all in the name of keeping busy until God brings me my prince charming and my life of ministry can start. As the author of Ecclesiasties writes,
“I, the Teacher, was king of Israel, and I lived in Jerusalem. I devoted myself to search for understanding and to explore by wisdom everything being done under heaven. I soon discovered that God has dealt a tragic existence to the human race. I observed everything going on under the sun, and really, it is all meaningless—like chasing the wind. What is wrong cannot be made right. What is missing cannot be recovered. I said to myself, “Look, I am wiser than any of the kings who ruled in Jerusalem before me. I have greater wisdom and knowledge than any of them.” So I set out to learn everything from wisdom to madness and folly. But I learned firsthand that pursuing all this is like chasing the wind. The greater my wisdom, the greater my grief. To increase knowledge only increases sorrow.”
Looking back on the last several years, I realize that I have been grasping at the wind…chasing knowledge, prestige, and satisfaction all while I am waiting for my life of ministry to start, while waiting for God to give me someone to follow into this ministerial life.
Only God brings happiness, and satisfaction. I am not sure where this idea came from that I have to follow a husband to be in ministry. Growing up in church all I remember seeing is the moms and wives serving in church and teaching sunday school. I don’t ever remember seeing single women serving or being served by the church. I’m not sure if it was church culture that shaped this thinking within me, or if it was a self imposed mind set to make it seem like I was surrendering to the Lord’s calling on my life, but really i was just putting stipulations on doing what God wanted, IF I get what I want. All this to say, I have bought into satan’s lies that I must have a man to follow before I can follow God. This idea, however is anything but Biblical. I am reminded of the Samaritan woman at the well. Jesus speaks to her lovingly as an equal, even though in that time women were not seen as equals to men, and jews thought Samaritans were even further beneath them. She was confronted by Jesus with her sin, and even though she did not want to see her sin, she told other people of “the one who had told her everything she had done.” She did not need a man to testify to the work which Jesus did in her life. She experienced love and forgiveness from the only one who fully knew her, and that was something worth sharing.
Please do not misunderstand me when as I share my thoughts about not needing a man to be in ministry. I fully believe that through men lovingly leading his wife and family God desires to show the His character to the world. world. God desires that a marriage relationship be a picture of our relationship with Hims. A man is to love and lead His family as Christ sacrificially loved the church, and a wife is to submit herself to her husband as if unto the Lord. I am not saying as I write this, that I am a christian feminist, or I never want to follow a man, because I do think that the picture of marriage which the Bible puts forth is good, and it is something I deeply desire. However, this desire to follow a man into ministry, should not be replaced by an theological idea that I must follow a man in order to follow God. If believe this, then what did Jesus die for? Why did He come here to earth to be our Emmanuel, God with us? My desire to follow a man must not be come an idol that comes before following God. He must be the One who guides my steps, the one who puts a path in front of me to walk on. I must follow, unhindered, and unafraid, for He is the one who sees all of me, yet still calls me His beloved.
