where I'm planted

I recently read a friend's blog entry reflecting on questions posed in a sermon about being where God wants you to be and letting God use you. Would you move to painful places? How would you be a presence in your community?

At first I felt it as a nudge to be someplace else. As if I was taking too long in the ladies' room at the rest stop while God was irritable and waiting for me, three states away.

But it doesn't have to mean that. The answer can also be, yes, I am exactly where I am supposed to be. I am living, loving, sharing, learning where I am today. And God is with me, here.

I think there's a striving, an achiever identity, in evangelical theology and after all these years it's echo still taunts me; it triggers my defenses. It's as if faith is about doing more than, or rather than, being. As if devotion is measured in converts and saying the right words and making oneself a target in the name of the faith.

I don't mean to tout quietism and complacency. I know well the cosy bed of inertia that becomes a grave you have to claw your way out of. But in the same way, there is a blossom that comes up out of the dirt from a seed that was buried in a particular place.

Today, that bloom is me. I am learning to see where I am and that it is good. I do good when I am who I am in this place. God is here. (Or else I'm waiting for God.)