On Saturday I got hired at Chipotle (filing that sentence under “words I never thought I would say”). My life has taken a pretty big and cool turn over the past couple years. Really, it has been a series of gentle and seemingly moderate turns. But eventually, after a few small turns and a lot of growing up, you start to make decisions that would seem idiotic to your two-years-younger self. At least that’s what has happened to me, hence my apprenticeship at Center for Global Action and my job at Chipotle. If you had asked me a year ago what I would be doing right now I would have told you that I’d be working toward a Ph.D to become a college professor. Instead, I’m pursuing missions and working at Chipotle. And I’m cool with that.
This new job has made me think about what is important to me and why I’m doing what I’m doing here in Georgia. Elementary truths have become incredibly valuable to me, the most valuable right now being that I am alive. Whether I am rolling burritos or making six figures, I am living a life of abundance because I am alive with Christ. My life with Christ is more valuable than any other thing I can think of. Whatever gain or success I have obtained in the eyes of the world, I count it as rubbish because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ. There is purpose and there is a calling wherever God plants my feet, and right now my feet are planted in Georgia at Center for Global Action and Chipotle. And I am here to live out that purpose and to be pushed further into it.
Wherever I go and whatever I do, I have learned that I have a deeper and plainer calling than my career, and that is to share the hope of the gospel, to love my neighbor, and to create disciples. I have learned that my purpose goes further than what I accomplish or how I make a living.
God has purposed me to have a beyond-close relationship with him, to be loved by him, to love him and his people, to share the hope and unfailing love he has revealed to me. God has purposed me to be his daughter and to be completely known by him and to live an abundant life—not abundance in the way the world defines it, but the way God defines it. And he has called me to discipleship—to be discipled by him and to go out and make disciples of other people. He has invited me to walk with him in his will, which is “to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ*.” He does this through his church, the body of believers under the headship of Christ. And his church exists wherever believers are gathered—in actual brick-and-mortar churches, in quality time with roommates, in bars, at dinner parties, in AA meetings and yes, at Chipotle. And I’m trying to have church at Chipotle. I want to love my coworkers and customers and share with them the promise of the gospel that God has shown me.
I’m grateful for the beautiful calling and gifts God has placed on my life and I’m excited for the opportunities I have to partner with him during my time in Georgia and beyond. It’s awesome to me that God is the author of abundant life and he has made it so that I can live out my calling and purpose wherever my feet are planted. And he is the same God doing the same mighty work in overseas missions, in our own hearts, and even in Chipotle.
*Ephesians 1:10
