The Long Way Around: Jordan Parris — Women Around Southeastern

It is the kindness of God that leads us the long way around.

I don’t think Matt Chandler said those precise words in his sermon, Delivered out of Darkness. That’s just my summary statement. In this sermon, Chandler talked about how, in Exodus 13:17, God led the Israelites by the long road out of Egypt. He knew that if they saw war too soon, they would want to turn back and head for Egypt. So, he took them the long way, through the wilderness. And here’s the thing, they went out of Egypt armed for war. The Israelites thought they were ready to handle what was ahead, but God knew they weren’t. In order to make them ready, he took them the long way.

I remember sitting in the small church plant in Thailand where we streamed that sermon. I was serving there for a summer, working in the English as a Second Language program, making friends, and exploring what it would be like to serve on the mission field long term. During the trip debrief, the organization that had sent me had me write a letter to myself that would be sent to me six months later. I wrote all about my questions of whether I should go to the mission field right away on finishing my masters, what it meant to go back, wondering whether or not God would open the door for me to be in Thailand more permanently.

That was a little over four years ago. I have not gone back to Thailand since. Not only was the door closed for me to return to that church plant long-term, but even a short-term trip was cancelled when Covid shut the world down. But this is not the first time this sort of thing has happened.

When I first came to Southeastern, I was only planning to stay six months. I did not have enough money to stay longer than that and I did not know if I would find a job. Anyway, I wanted to get to the mission field as fast as possible. My plan was to just get the 20 credit hours I needed to serve as a career missionary with the International Mission Board and then take off. Six years later, and I’m still here.

Oh, I have tried to leave. After all, our motto is “Go!” and “Fulfill the Mission!” So, I have tried. At every opportunity, I have prayed and explored either going overseas or heading out with a church plant. Inexplicably (to my mind), the answer every time has been no. The summer in Thailand has been the longest I have been away from Wake Forest in all that time. I couldn’t understand. Why had God brought me to seminary if not for me to go and serve him somewhere?

When the letter I had written myself at the end of the Thailand trip arrived, I didn’t open it right away. By then, the door had been closed to return to that team, and a couple of other very disappointing things had happened that were going to keep me in Wake Forest much longer than I had planned. I thought I remembered everything I had written in the letter, and I was bitter over how not one question I had written in the letter had been answered in the way I wanted. A week or so after it arrived, while on a break from school and work, I finally sat down to read the letter, prepared for all the pain I was sure it would cause. Like I said, I was sure I remembered everything I had written. But, when I opened the envelope, I was surprised to see in large all-caps the one thing I wanted to remember from that summer, that I had already forgotten in the six months that had elapsed.

It is the kindness of God that leads us the long way around.

We are a forgetful people. It surprises us how, when faced with adversity in the wilderness, the Israelites could forget the wonders that had brought them out of Egypt. If only they had looked back.

I can look back over my whole life and see where God has led me carefully the long way around, and it has always worked out for my good.

I did not get a Bible degree in college, though I knew God had called me to ministry. The degree I did get was a difficult road, but it prepared me well for the hardships of my journeyman term and showed me what a good ministry of teaching could be.

I didn’t make it into seminary on my first try, but I arrived at exactly the right time to fall in with some people who are still some of my dearest friends.

I haven’t made it back to the mission field, yet. But I am discovering a love and a gift for learning that I’m sure will aid me there. I’m also dealing with unaddressed trauma and some other mental health issues that I’ve always dealt well with, but the pressure cooker of Covid and an advanced degree are showing where I still have work to do.

We really shouldn’t fear the long way. After all, the Son of God himself spent 30 years of ordinary toil before beginning his ministry. How could we be troubled at taking time to do well what God has appointed to us?

Even now, as my graduation date is pushed back another semester, and my time in school seems to stretch on and on, I remember all the times that God has been faithful to lead, and all the times that the long way around has brought me right where I needed to be, stronger, braver, and more in love with Him. And I quietly whisper to myself,

It is the kindness of God that leads us the long way around.