A Dream Deferred Is Not A Dream Denied

A smart friend once said that. Actually he wrote it as a theme in his senior synthesis paper from divinity school.

I really feel that I want to do missions. I want to spend some years abroad, but spend most of my life in domestic missions. I want to be able to go where God calls me and service in a variety of contexts with a diversity of people.

And then there's my own mistakes. On one hand I want to start doing missions now, on the other hand I want to make money quickly so I can pay off my debt and be able to afford a missionary's lifestyle. I'm not about having money, but right now much of me is about paying off my debt.

It's interesting how different our lives as Christians are. I am looking forward to the day when I will not be making a lot of money.

I have two interviews in Raleigh tomorrow with marketing firms. I believe these interviews are stops on my life path. That is not necessarily a bad thing.

God has a definite plan for me. Thankfully his grace allows for my mistakes and I know that in spite of those mistakes God still carries out his plan and his goodness, in my life and the lives of others.

Yes, my dream of being a vocational missionary may be deferred for now, but it is not denied. And if I am honest with myself, there are plenty of ways to be a missionary now, they're just not what I planned. But God has long been in the business of showing that his plans are better than man's.