Day Two - Unconventional Service

I’ve posted a photo of the view from my front door. Happy Spring in Minnesota! ☺

Yesterday I shared about how God's love stirred a desire in me to serve Him.

What does a young Christian do if she wants to change the world? My gifts and interests all leaned toward the artsy. I loved to dance, sing, act, and write (and as already mentioned, I wanted to be a secret agent). But back in my high school and college days, a woman who wanted to serve God as a vocation either became a Christian schoolteacher or a church youth worker. So, I earned a degree as a Director of Christian Education, preparing to work fulltime in the church.

Then something weird happened. As my husband and I served a congregation in southwestern Minnesota, I found my best “ministry” seemed to happen in conversations with actors in the local community theatre I joined, or at the dance studio where I taught. And my husband longed to use the media to communicate about God in ways beyond church doors.

Another U-turn. We headed to Regent University in Virginia for grad-school. I began to accept that the arts I kept pushing onto the back burner, might be a gift God had given me to help me worship Him and share Him with others.

Are there any secret longings or gifts you’ve shoved into the background, because they didn’t fit your Mother Theresa or Billy Graham image of serving God? I invite you to take another look. God has used talking donkeys, spit and mud, and nets full of slimy fish to convey His truth. Tomorrow I’ll share more of the ways God used U-turns in my life toward the path of becoming a novelist.

For some of my devotional thoughts on the way God uses ordinary things, page through the archives of my blog .

Until tomorrow,
Sharon Hinck