My husband, Giles, and I are embarking on a new adventure in pursuing the lead of the Holy Spirit:  full-time missionary service in Mathare Valley slum, Nairobi, Kenya.  In reflecting upon these past few weeks of confirmation of our calling, we have learned two lessons:  (1) that once you surrender to the Spirit’s prompting and begin to follow it, the path rises up to meet you more quickly and vividly than you ever could have imagined before; and (2) that God wastes nothing– no experience, personal or professional, is insignificant in His great design for our lives.

One concept that keeps surfacing as we begin this journey is openness.  While it may be a lengthy and somewhat involved process to actually make it to the field in 12 to 18 months, we have been encouraged to just take the next step, to open each door that God provides and walk through it, one after another, until we reach the end of the hallway.  Then a dear friend and prayer warrior recently imparted God’s encouragement to us to “hold this season with an open hand.”  This imagery of openness is what God has been speaking into our hearts for several years prior to hearing the call to missions.  Living in a close faith community for more than five years has allowed us to cultivate an attitude of openness as we continue to seek unmasked and unguarded relationships.  While we are not perfect at it, we have intentionally committed as a couple to giving of ourselves and our resources with open hearts, whether monetarily or emotionally.

Therefore, this part of the journey is yet another step toward opening our hands and hearts in total surrender to the One who knows us better than we know ourselves.  I can think of several distinct seasons in my life when my fists have been closed, moments when I was holding tightly to the illusion of control.  Even in those seasons, God did not give up on me or write me off as too strong-willed for His soft heart toward me.  Rather, He slowly and gradually began filling my palms with eternal things, like love and relationships and a deeper awareness of His presence, until I could no longer keep my hands closed.

In asking what it means to have a spirit of openness, I think of two separate physical manifestations– wind and vapor– that are discussed in Scripture in metaphysical terms.  John 3:8 compares those born of the Holy Spirit to the wind:  “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes.”  Also, James 4:13-14 compares our lives to a vapor:  “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make profit’; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow.  For what is your life?  It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.”  This is what it means to live with open hands– being caught up in the wind and choosing to follow it wherever it blows, and embracing with joy and purpose our finite time in this world and our lack of control over it.

My prayer for us as we begin this new adventure with Him is that we will continue to surrender whatever He asks us to lay down or cast off, that we will be patient as He continues to work in us and through others to see His promises and plans fulfilled, and that we will open our hands and hearts every day and in each moment so that He is glorified and we are diminished.