As I grew up I started to make a barrier between what I enjoyed and what I needed to do. School and church needed to be done but hanging with friends and playing Xbox was just messing around. In the earlier years of high school I remember serving at church and not enjoying it at all, why did I need to do these things that made me want to be elsewhere? School was much the same for me, to where I seldom cared much for my grades. I remember talking to a old school friend about it, about why it was it was not fun to do the things I needed to do. Christy Long, bless her sweet soul, told me that God gives us a passion for the work He wants us to do. While I liked the idea I thought that it could not be so simple and easy. There was what you had to do and there was what made you happy, and seldom did the two mix.
Due to this warped paradigm I felt I needed to choose between fun and right. I would cover the basics of what was right to do but then I would do what was fun. As I'm sure many of you are thinking this caused many problems in my life, the foremost of which was that I was not truly happy with my life. I went off to boarding school with this mindset. I was not in a great place in my life and so I decided that I would spend the next few years doing what was right while I tried to figure out what I wanted from life and what God wanted from me. I worked hard on my academics, I started to train and eat healthily, I started to serve at Christian Fellow at our chapel (as well as starting my own life-group in my boarding house), I spend over an hour a day trying to connect with God and understand life better. I devoted myself to this cause, regardless of how I felt. I busied myself so much that I seldom had time to relax.
I learnt a lot in that first year, about God, about life, and about myself. I opened my eyes to the world and learnt all I could. Then, at the end of the year, the Christian Fellowship committee went on a camp, a camp that changed my life. Over the long weekend I realised that there was so much more to life, that I could do so much more for the world and for God through my life. I won't go into the details but God shifted my paradigm to see so much more than I had been seeing. While I realised that I could do so much more with my life I still saw doing what was right and doing what made one happy as somewhat different things.
A year later I finished up school and moved back to the mother city, Cape Town, where I immediately started serving in both the junior and senior youth at my church, Edge Church Melkbos. After a while I was forced to choose a ministry to serve in as I could not properly devote myself to both. I love the teenagers and can connect with them so much better, so naturally the senior youth was my first intention. As I prayed and asked God for His guidance I saw that I was needed much more at the junior youth. I asked God if this was what He wanted of me and I felt that it was. So I said good-bye to the great Fusion (senior youth) team and joined the EPIC (junior youth) team fully. I do not enjoy the grade 4-7 age group very much but that is where I felt God calling me, where He wanted me.
I have tears in my eyes as I type this, as I think about what God did in my heart next. I started to become unhappy serving at EPIC as the children are an age I have never really enjoyed and the team is a bunch of young teenagers who can be more chaotic than the kids. During one of my quiet times, bringing it before God, I was reminded what dear Christy has said to me many months before: God gives us a passion for the work He would have us do, if you don't enjoy what you're doing it's probably not right for you. Within a few weeks I found that I looked forward to youth on a Friday, that I had a passion inside me for the kids and teenagers that I couldn't explain. Months later I now co-lead the youth with a lovely lady, Liane Badenhorst, and I would do just about anything for the kids and for my team.
I have always had a heart for kids and children's ministry, I suspect growing up as one of 18 very close cousins has something to do with it, but the passion God has put within my heart for these kids is beyond anything I thought possible. My week is often made on a Friday night at youth or a Sunday morning at church with the kids.
I apologise for sharing so much of my story, I did not intend to, but I think some backstory helps get the point across. These are ramblings after all, what're you going to do about it? This is only to help me, and a few others out there who I think need it.
It makes me sad when I see someone doing something because they feel they must instead of out of passion and interest. The past month I have been getting so many confirmations of this. My co-worker and I, Brent Waldeck, each get a quote every day that we share with each other. Almost every day for the past month one of us has gotten a quote about doing what makes you happy. You wouldn't really want to live an unhappy life after all would you? Choose a life which you can love and never need a vacation from.
I hope this helps at least some one understand that doing what is right and doing what makes you happy should very much be the same thing, that God will work incredible things in your life if you'll let Him.
Recently God has brought something in my life that has brought me more peace and joy than I thought was even possible. It is something I have been trusting God in for the last year, those of you closest to me will know what I am talking about. A verse that has stuck with me during this time is Proverbs 16:20, Blessed is he who trusts in the Lord. Oh, how I have been blessed. It has not been easy, but most days I find myself walking around with a smile that I can't get rid of. What He has done for me in my life makes me feel whole, like everything is right...
I hope that one day you too can have God bless you like He has blessed me, that He makes you happy beyond comprehension, all you need to do is trust in Him.
I will never let go of this.
Jem.
"It is not the load that breaks you down. It's the way you carry it."
Lou Holtz
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