continued thought process...

Nearly two weeks ago, I started writing about our decision about whether or not we should move to the Philippines. My plan was to keep up the inner-discussion regularly, but I got slammed with a ton of photography work. But it's a rainy Saturday morning and my photo shoot isn't happening. Avery woke me up early but went back to sleep so I'm up in a nice quiet house. So here goes...

I wrote earlier about Plan B which is basically moving back to the West Coast for a myriad of reasons (see the post if you're curious). I feel like Sarah and I had kind of reserved ourselves for that plan and I was beginning to feel quite comfortable with that plan. I mean, it sounds great to be back in Cali again for all the reasons I listed on that post. We were beginning to lean that way and I was getting rather excited about it. I mean, there was this little nagging inside me from time to time saying that God still wants us to move to the Philippines, but it was just a small voice and I could easily drown it out.

That is until our church started a new teaching series on Jonah. As soon as I heard that was to be the next series, I honestly thought, "Crap. I'm feeling alright about not going to the Philippines and it's about to get difficult again." If you don't know much about Jonah, here it is in a nutshell. God tells Jonah to go to Nineveh. Jonah says no and tries running the opposite direction to Tarshish. Jonah gets tossed overboard and swallowed by a large fish.

The first teaching two weeks ago was like a severe blow to the gut. There was no guilt or bullying. Just an honest plea to follow God even if it doesn't make sense, or even if you don't want to do it, or even if you have no clue how to do it. I can honestly say that in our decision about the Philippines, I've felt all three of those feelings. There are times when it doesn't make sense. There are times when I don't want to do it. There are times (and this is where I've spent most of the time) when I don't know how it will happen. But at the end of the day, I still feel that still, small voice urging us to go.