Maybe You Could Use a Gap Year or Month or Day

I’ve been in Austin to see two of my sweet Canadian cousins. The extra perk is that they are staying at my kids’ home for a few days until they head out for Comfort, TX where Tynessa Neufeld will be attending Bible School.

Tynessa is taking a “gap” year to wholeheartedly pursue God and His Word. A “gap year” is typically when a student takes off a year to figure out what they want to do with the rest of their lives. Sometimes that gap year affords them the opportunity to explore the world or volunteer to help build water wells in third world countries or, in Tynessa’s case – to hone in on what God has planned for her future. Tynessa is three years in on her degree from the University of Manitoba, but along the way, she started asking “Where am I going? What will I be doing once I graduate? God, what IS your plan for my life?”

With so many questions about her future and a foolproof plan for her career future, she had an “aha” moment when she realized the answers can best be found in pursuing God and serving others. In fact, their first serving opportunity will be to Houston where the students will do their share in helping meet the needs there. I love her heart to be ON PURPOSE to get the answers for her future from HE Who knows everything about everything. The location is isolated and beautiful. I love that. Focus – void of the distractions of the world. Good for her and no doubt she will hear God’s voice -- loud and clear.

I, too, am in a “gap” year. I’m digging into the Word like the days when I was teaching full time which always gave me clear understanding for today’s decisions and tomorrow’s. We all need a “gap” time to clear our heads and hearts to hear directions from Heaven-Central! I sense that God may be waiting for many of us to admit to our dissatisfaction and lift our chins toward heaven and have guts enough to ask, “Are You asking more of me? Are You wanting me to pursue you more? Do You have plans for me that can only be known and found as I seek You with all my heart?”

If it is, then may God give peace and understanding to those of us who are unsettled. Over the course of the last six years, one of the things I believe God has consistently made clear to me is that He’d require more in my later years than less. Coasting was out of the question. If I wanted to be effective as a teacher and devoted follower of His, to bear more fruit so others see Him in me, I’d have to press in further, go deeper with Him in His Word, get bolder in love, service, and prayer. Those of us who are sensing an unsettled heart are expressing dependence on He Who GAVE His all for us. Unlike those with an "entitlement" mentality, our Lord was “titled” with God, Creator, Almighty, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, but He came to be one like us, without a title, to feel what we feel. He even took GAP times when He was found in the temple at age 12 and went home to learn more about His Father and pray and serve, and in His ministry years, He still needed to have GAP times when He’d steal away to a mountain to pray or to the Garden of Gethsemane to receive the strength He needed for what was up ahead.

We keep hearing the words “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” 2 Chronicles 7:14. We must ask ourselves the questions: "Are we really praying anymore? Do we read our Bibles anymore? As hard as this is to accept, reading a blog post or a daily devotion doesn’t really qualify as reading the Bible. We’re getting push notifications on our phones for our daily Scripture readings, but is that really digging into and seeking God's face and reading and meditating on God's Word?

In 1 Thessalonians 2:13, Paul refers to “the word of God which is at WORK within you.” Maybe it’s time for us to find some GAP moments, minutes, hours, days or even a year to seek Him and find Him. We won't have to look far. He's already there!