Red Sea Moment

{This post was written in the JFK airport when I was deciding to have my personal blog be on our previously used Red Sea Moment blog. I've since changed my mind for logistical reasons, but this adventure continues to be a Red Sea Moment. Enjoy.}

My last glimpse of Austin was a gray one. Gray fog, gray clouds. We took off into a flat, gray sky.

I debated over using this blog or creating a new one for this trip. This trip to Germany didn't meet the Red Sea Moments, I thought. My definition of an RSM was one where you felt God called you to do something impossible...and so you did it. That was what going to Bethel School of Worship was for me. Impossible.

Germany has never felt impossible. I guess on paper it was; it's not cheap. But it fell into my lap before I had a chance to worry about logistics. Have you not heard this story?

I've known for some time that this Germany trip existed. I knew of people who had gone. I put it on the back burner of ideas—I would never call it a dream—and continued with university life. Part of that was applying to work with a certain professor. I was aware that he was the professor in charge of the Germany trip, and I was aware that working in his lab would make it easier to go, should I request such a thing. But that wasn't why I did it. I wanted to work in his lab because it was the only one I had halfway understood during a previous tour.

He was happy to let me work in his lab, and he wrote down my name on “his list.” I didn't think anything else of this “list” until Miquela messaged me and asked if I was going to Germany. I replied that I wasn't but that I was interested. I went to talk to the professor about it, and he informed me that I was “already on the list.”

I figured this was God's way of saying that this Germany trip was a good idea.

It was different than the other times I've been “called” somewhere or too something. No prophetic words. No visions. No burning, childhood heart for this country of Germany. Nothing. Just an idea in the back of my head, and a professor who put my name on the list.

I heard someone once say that if you don't know what to do, go where you feel peace. I've also heard that you should assume you have a green light until God gives you a red one. I felt peace about Germany, and I never got a red light. So here I am, in JFK airport, less than 24 hours away from a summer in Germany.

I thought a lot of about this Germany blog on the flight. It's a small thing, but it's a big deal for me to create a new blog for something. I'm a little tired of starting new blogs. I've been wanting to start one, a rambling one, from UT for quite some time, and I was hoping this blog would morph into that when I got back. But that would be tricky for Red Sea Moment, since up until now it's been a trip blog focused on going on impossible adventures. Making it my “life” blog seemed...odd.

And then I remembered another definition of a Red Sea Moment, one I heard yesterday from the pastor of my church. Because as Moses is standing there with the sea lapping at his ankles, he informs God of his troubles and asks Him what to do. God says, “I've given you the power! Stop whining and do!” Aha! This was how my Germany trip occurred. This was a time when asking “what to do” was much less important than just doing what was put in front of me.

This blog remains a place for impossible callings. Indeed, I am fairly sure that everything God will call you to will be impossible. This is how He is glorified.

This Germany trip is an example of doing what is put in front of me with the power and wisdom I've been given. But my life continues to be a series of impossible callings. It is the best way to live. So I am repurposing this blog. It has ceased to be a trip blog. It is now my life blog—my life of Red Sea Moments.

And we start with a summer in Deutschland.