Eric graduated from Moody Bible Institute in Chicago with a MDIV degree. After Eric graduated he went on several short term mission trips and even applied for some long term missionary assignments. Eric also felt lead to seek out a job in a church setting, but the door for both domestic and international long term service was closed.
Eric went through a time of wondering what his next step should be. He was encouraged on one short term missionary trip that his writing skills could be used to glory God and thus went to pursue a career in writing. His novel CLOSET is his first book and is currently looking for a way to get his second novel published with the potential title of OUTCAST.
You can visit Eric at www.ericjohnswanson.com
Now, here's Eric John Swanson---
Discovering God’s direction
Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve had a lifelong dilemma of wondering if I’m really where God wants me or not. I think it comes from comparing my life to others my age. By now many of my classmates from Moody Bible Institute have a job in some kind of ministry. If the truth were told I have a ministry job as well. Yet it’s not what I expected. If someone told me I would be working in a kitchen seven years after getting a MDIV degree I would have cried out of frustration. Then again, on a brighter note, if someone mentioned I would get a book published in the same span of time I wouldn’t have believe it either.
After my day of fasting I was made aware of how much I have tried to make the dream of others my own. Some is pressure from society, while others come from not always being satisfied in Christ. At times I think as a guy there’s certain pressure to accomplish certain things at a certain age, regardless of what God’s plan is and what He wants from us in life. I know for myself I may never achieve certain expectations I had for myself ten years ago. So I come back to my original thought about what God wants from me.
I thought at one time that I needed to be a senior pastor by now. Then I lowered it to just being a youth pastor. Not to say one is better than the other. In fact I would rather be a youth pastor, but after applying to about every state in the country and overseas I have to believe that this may not be the direction God wants for me to take. Then I thought maybe if just did volunteer work. Fortunately for me I have been able to do this, even though at times I still get passed over, but I know that’s how it goes at times.
I wonder now if God really cares about the job I have anymore. I mean I can read the Bible and believe when Jesus says that the laborers are few that means in this age they are few and not just in the first century. I have been on quite a few short term mission trips, but always had a problem raising my own support in this. So I started to have an inferiority complex and had this guilt feeling about whether or not I was using God’s resources to the best of my ability and perhaps others would be able to use those resources better. So I started and continue to give money to missionaries and evangelism. Yet something within me stirs to do more with my time and money.
So, what is left for me to do? Start my own ministry? Look for a church plant and dedicate my life to seeing a church grow? Do I continue to write novels and perhaps a nonfiction book, even though the only ones that are reading my first novel are Christians, even though some others mentioned they would buy the book, but after four months have yet to do so?I think and believe now what God really wants from me is to live a life that pleases Him. For when I please Him, I’m really living the best possible life -a life of freedom and not of shame and guilt. But is this an excuse to stay in my “holy huddle” that every church I have been to seems to believe in? Still I yearn for something more, but what is that more I seek?
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