Choose: “One day” or “Today”

Ever since I graduated High School I knew that I wanted to go abroad and make a difference. Not a difference as if the culture and its society were somehow lesser than my own, but a difference in life. To encourage a higher quality of life (not a higher quantity).

It started with my first missions trip to Japan. I fell in love with the people, the food, but most of all for those who wondered aimlessly, going about their lives seeking something to give it true meaning and a wholeness that can be found no where else but with a loving God. I loved Japan so much that I went back on two other mission trips over the following two years. And most recently a fourth time, where I was able to live there for six months teaching English to the Japanese and volunteering at a church where a friend of mine was the head pastor.

After these many times of going, I felt my heart being led to become a pastor and missionary to Japan. So I began to go to school. I went for a bit, but have always had a hard time focusing. Its so hard for me to focus on something that just does not interest me at all (math, science, remembering formal patterns and words for the Japanese language just was not the most appealing subjects to learn for me).

So my dream of becoming what I most desire fades further away from me, because of my lack of focus and determination. Now…sadly it has been 8 years since my heart had become attached to the place and the people that I still love till today. I have moved away from home and family, and the closest of friends to a place that is “foreign” to me.

Am I making it? If scraping by is making it then, no I am not making it. Moving here has put me in debt, hurt me financially, and away from the support of those who know me best. But then I began thinking to myself as I sat on my porcelain throne this evening, “If I can’t make it here as a Christian, where there are much of them around me, how in the world will I make it in Japan?”

My revelation? I won’t. Here I am worried about my future, planning future changes, and my life five years from now, but not even doing anything in the present that will be the building blocks for that future. What the hell was I thinking? I wasn’t. To be honest, I just thought things would somehow just work out, that one day I’d be so motivated to do what needs to be done. But that was just the problem, I was always waiting on the one dang day to happen, that I left myself in limbo waiting for the “one day” to just appear, or somehow be mystically written on my calendar so I knew that THAT was the day. So blind was I that I might have well of been waiting for a text message from God saying today is the day your focus and determination will come to make the changes that need to be made.

I hate to say it, but I was such a fool. And really it was not that I didn’t know, but more that it was at the back of my mind. Kind of like that book you bought but never got around to reading. You see it on the shelf and remind yourself that you’re going to read it, but never do.

So I have begun to make changes in my life today. Choices that will lead me in the right direction, but they are also choices that will have to be followed daily. Not something I can choose now and will last me till I make it to where I am headed. This is needed if you are to change old habits and old ways, that you will have to replace them with new ones and be conscious of them as you live from day to day.

Also, I know that there are choices I need to make if I want that special someone in my life, someone I have taken for granted, hurt in the past, and who has been around for me more than I have deserved. If she will still have me, these changes are partly for her, but if chooses not, then these are changes I will make because I know that they are what God wants, and I have to trust him with my future while plotting and moving along in the direction he points me in.

And if for some reason you are unsure of changes that need to be made in your life, the most surefire way to know is to seek God and read his word. The Holy Spirit will talk to you and tug at your heart, God does speak to us today as he spoke to his people for thousands of years, but it is up to us to listen and obey.

Learn from my years of waiting and mistakes, don’t think that “one day” I’ll do it, or that “one day” I’ll make that change. That magical “one day” may never come, and it may in fact start multiplying into two days, two weeks, two months, two years, and the next thing you know an entire decade goes by and your still no where closer to your dream, to fulfilling God’s purpose for your life. Be wise and go with the tougher decision to make “one day” to “today”. “Today” I will make a change to build upon the life that God has given me.