deciding what you want

There are a lot of expectations that come with the life I've chosen for myself. There are academic expectations, that I will be prepared for class, readings, assignments, add to discussion, think critically about my life. There are missionary expectations, the ones that I hear even though no one says them to me...you should do more evangelism, why aren't you starting small groups, where is the fruit of your work, what do you think this financial support is for if you can't show us tangible results. Then there are also the local expectations, that I learn the language, that I have some definable project.

But really I cannot actually meet any of these expectations. While I am a student, my life simply does not allow for me to always be prepared for class. Missionary work, especially with the length of 18 months, rarely, if ever, allows enough time to see the fruit of the work you do. As far as explaining to locals why I'm here in an intelligible way, well, I struggle to do that even in my first language, so there really isn't any how in Portuguese, no matter how much I keep learning.

This inability to meet expectations, for a while, was very disheartening to me. I felt as though I was literally unable to do anything well. I was failing at all the things. During this time of supposed failure, many people, myself included, tried to encourage me with the idea that we only have to please God, we don't have to live up to all these expectations that other people put on us. But then we get into the really philosophical discussion about what it means to please God, because simple answers to questions like this haven't satisfied me for a long time. Coming from a highly individualized culture, pleasing God always meant one thing. But being in a more community oriented culture, pleasing God means something different. In both cases they reflect the values of culture. I am left confused and without answers, yet again feeling like some kind of a failure because I have absolutely no idea what it means to please this God I follow.  (I mean, there are some general principles that are definitely clear, but they leave a lot of room for variation when it comes to prioritizing my daily life as a student/missionary/ex-pat).

So, unable to meet the expectations of other people and mostly unsure of what it means to please God in day-to-day situations, I was left only to evaluate my choices based on what I wanted. Why do I want to be in this program? (Not why did God send me to this program? or Why can other people see that this program makes sense for me?) What am I hoping to learn? At the end of this, what experiences do I want to have had? Being able to answer these questions, giving myself priorities and guidelines, has allowed me to make decisions that aren't about pleasing anyone but myself (and hopefully God, but again, confused about exactly what that means, a discussion for another day, for sure). And those decisions, those are the ones I am terribly excited about following through on. An excitement that I have not felt for some time now.