A few months into our service in Uganda, some conversations with God bred a lot of deep question marks.  

Personally, serving overseas had been a dream I’d shelved. When I first met my husband, he hadn’t seen himself going overseas. So when, through circumstances I’d never foreseen, we walked/toddled/wheeled ourselves from a 757 into East African humidity, I was on cloud nine. 

But I was also homeschooling (another unanticipated occupation), raising four kids, managing a household with a lot fewer appliances. There I was, in Africa at last. And my days were largely similar to before: discipling kids, making grilled cheese. 

Frederick Buechner once wrote, “The place where God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” At first glance, I love this idea.  

So close to my dream I could smell it (…literally), was motherhood always my “deep gladness”? I never felt enough: My kids could use someone with a longer fuse, about three more pairs of arms, and a passion for dishwashing. Seemed like most of my passions were collecting dust (also literally) while I wiped pretty much everything else. 

Yet service isn’t just what we’re emotional about. It’s also what enduring love requires, creating gladness on a much deeper plane. Willingly choosing people over dreams and sweet spots. Paul Miller writes, “Nothing is easier to start; nothing is harder to finish than [faithful, persevering] love.” Though God’s gifted us for the occasion at hand, if we only follow “gifting,” we may miss rich moments of pouring ourselves out because we choose to care.

Yet if we only serve because it’s the right thing to do, we run the risk of martyrdom, and the “elder son” syndrome – distant from the Father, resisting the table’s celebration for the fields’ sweat.

We know Jesus said both: “No one takes [my life] from me, but I lay it down of my own accord” (John 10:18), but also that He chose to do only what He saw God doing (John 5:19), and chose even the Cross because of the joy that would emerge from it (Hebrews 12:2).  

Richard Foster elaborates, “Joy, not grit, is the hallmark of holy obedience.” And that’s whether the work kindles happiness, or we choose it.