Showing Up Openhearted
From time to time, I look back and marvel at how God brought me to my current address. If, for example, I hadn’t been able to return to the one place that felt most like home—a place I moved away from after my first husband died because I couldn’t afford to stay—then I wouldn’t have met Dan.
And if I hadn’t heard of the Shower Truck, and hadn’t wanted to write a story about it, and didn’t have a friend whose husband volunteered with the truck, well then … no Dan.
There’s a short verse in the book of Exodus that I hadn’t noticed before. If you remember, Exodus is the story about God leading the children of Israel out of slavery in Egypt, beginning with the miracle of parting the Red Sea so all 3 million of them could walk across on dry ground.
Here’s the verse that jumped out at me recently, words that God spoke to Moses, the leader of the Israelites at that time:
“See, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared.” – Exodus 24: 20
Just as God had in mind a place for the Israelites to land, he’s also prepared a place for each of his children during our sojourn on earth. And it’s more than simply a location or an address. I think it’s also a calling and a purpose.
So, if we’re each assigned an address with a destiny, then what? If God directed my return to Bend, for example, if he made sure that Dan proposed marriage, made sure I said “Yes,” and now as a couple we have individual and team purpose, then how do we go about walking successfully in that place?
Dr. Rachel Remen tells a story in her book, Kitchen Table Wisdom, about a teacher who attended a bingo game while visiting his elderly parents in Florida. A large sign on the wall read, “You Have to Be Present to Win.”
Similar to being present to collect a prize in a bingo game, Dr. Remen wrote, we need to be emotionally and mentally present as we walk out our calling:
“We are all here for a single purpose: to grow in wisdom and to learn to love better. We can do this through losing as well as through winning; by having and by not having … All we need to do is to show up openhearted for class.”
If God assigned a destiny for each of us—based on our life experiences, the things we love to do, and the things we’re good at—then God’s part is to provide everything we need to successfully inhabit that place.
Our part is to show up with an open heart to learn what he wants us to learn as we love those he sends across our paths.
Which means I don’t have to be afraid of not succeeding in what God destined me to do with my one, brave, sometimes fearful life. Because his measure of success is starkly different from the world’s measurements.
What has God called you to do in the place where he’s currently positioned you? What would it look like if you could step into that wild and scary purpose with his courage and with an open heart?
I think it would look like obedience and trust and taking the healthy risk of opening your heart … and ultimately it would look like joy as you walk out God’s intention for having placed you on this Tilt-a-Whirl planet.
What if we showed up openhearted for class?
