A Call to the Edge

I believe I sensed the strong calling to seek God at an early age because of what was modeled for me at home. I saw love in action as my parents faithfully took us to church in a unique way…on a big brown bus. My dad was the church bus driver and my mom was a Sunday school teacher. Every Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday evening my whole family would be bouncing around in a very hot and stuffy bus picking up children and families.
Some of the places we picked up children were in very needy parts of town. My dad would pull up the bus and honk the horn and my mom would warmly greet each child with a smile and a hug. Torn dresses and snotty noses aside, each child was treated with love and dignity. I still remember going up to the cold bus garage on Saturday nights in the middle of winter and holding the flashlight for my dad as he tinkered with the engine to make sure the bus would start the next morning.
Nothing kept my parents from picking up the children; not the intense heat of the summer nor snowstorms in the winter. Their faithfulness to what God asked them to do in the midst of their realities impacted me and shaped the vision of what would come in my future. I can look back now and see that there were many lessons learned on that big brown bus.
I will never forget the day I went out back to talk with my dad about a vision God had called me to. He was tinkering around in the shed of our suburban middle class home when his only daughter gave him the news that I was called to be a missionary in the inner city. All that he had taught me about God and faith now became a new reality for him to grapple with. He thought, Did I really train her up in the Lord for this?
Parents never stop being parents no matter how old we get. To my dad I was the little girl that God had given him to provide for and protect, so the news sank deep into his soul when I said, “God has called, I must go.” He didn’t rant or rave, and he didn’t stop tinkering either, not until he finally paused long enough to ask me a question I have since asked myself many times: “Jodi, why is it that you always feel you have to live life on the edge?”
At that moment I was stumped and didn’t have an answer. I just knew I had heard the invitation to come, and so I must go. It wasn’t bravery or courage, I can assure you, but a compelling from the Spirit of the Lord. I knew that to turn back now I would miss something that would affect the rest of my life. Little did I realize what scene lay ahead when I, in the midst of my reality, stepped right up to the edge and saw as I had never seen before.
At that time—in the early 90s—I was a young, single, white female called to a vision way beyond what I could imagine it would become. Definitely out of my comfort zone, I ventured toward the edge that led me to see the needs of the urban poor who were living out many painful realities of hopelessness and despair. My eyes and my heart were captivated with a compassion that I know came from the Lord Himself. I could no longer stay the same.
Edges bring a certain amount of discomfort for fear of plummeting to the depths of the valley below. Fear of the unknown has a way of limiting our vision. Even though I have struggled with this fear many times in my past, there has always been something beyond the edge that drew me to get a little closer. It was a persistent nudging of the Spirit that kept me moving forward in my journey of faith to know God better and in my desire to live in His presence, even if the edge was the destination.
There’s nothing special about me; no special talents or big degrees. In fact, I have labeled myself Just Jodi on several occasions. Yet God through His Spirit compelled me to come. A Scripture that God has put on my heart since I was a young girl is found in Luke 12:48 and says, “Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required.” Salvation is a free gift but I have a responsibility to come and see and be all that God has for me.
No fear of an edge could release me from my responsibility to NOT settle for a distant and average view of His presence. It was time for me to get closer, surrender my fear, step up to the edge, and see the vision to which I believe God calls us all. Each of us may receive different visions or callings but one goal will be the common chord: seeing the Lord in the majesty of His presence.
So with much trembling (and my dad’s blessing) I walked up to my edge, having no qualifications other than an invitation to come and being open to really seeing who God is and what He wanted me to do. And now I can tell you after all this time, that God has not only allowed me to walk up to the edge, He has even compelled me to set up camp and live there until this very day.
Some of you reading this feel that same burning. You have that same compulsion not to settle for mediocrity; you are being drawn to the edge. Let me encourage you to prayerfully take the next step toward that edge, trusting the prompting of the Holy Spirit within you.