Have you ever looked back on decisions that didn’t seem life changing at the time, but which later proved to alter the course of your entire life? I don’t often take the time needed to connect all of the dots between events, but I recently spent sometime reflecting about 
how God works in the big, as well as in the seemingly “minor”, decisions of life.
I’ve been associated with The Paradigm Foundation for about 6 years now. The time with Paradigm and its leadership team has been wonderfully rich and trajectory-changing in so many ways. As I look back on my time with the foundation, I am reminded of God’s goodness and kindness towards us (and me, specifically) as He worked to not only propel my family and I towards lives of service, but also worked in me, as He continued changing my heart.
I grew up in a Christian home, with a great Godly family. But for me, as a child, following Jesus meant checking some boxes and just being “nice” – I was convinced that I could earn my way to God and He would be happy with me once I’d completed the checklist that I thought made sense. As you can imagine, this did not turn out very well for me. I felt unfulfilled, restless, and often felt like I was missing the “true purpose” of my life. But I really didn’t understand the true gospel, the grace and mercy of God poured out on undeserving people (like me) through the sacrifice of His one and only son, Jesus.
My young adult years were tumultuous. I lived my life like the rest of the world – I worked too much, neglected my wife and eventually my children, and slowly walked away from the faith I grew up with. On the outside, I was happy with my life and who I was. I had a good job that I was good at. Everything seemed fine, from the outside looking in. But on the inside, I was a hot mess of guilt, shame, anger, frustration, and probably lots of other terrible things. I hit a low point in 2019 and I really felt like I had shipwrecked my entire life.
“But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which He loved [me], even when [I was] dead in [my] trespasses, made [me] alive together with Christ – by grace [I] have been saved…” Ephesians 2:4-5
God changed my heart at that low point in my life. To this day, I still don’t understand the timing of it all, but I trust that His ways are higher than my ways and His thoughts than my thoughts (Isaiah 55:9).
It was not long after being saved that my family and I signed up to go on a short term mission trip to the Dominican Republic through our church. And to this day, I don’t really know why we signed up to do it. I don’t know why we went to the interest meeting for the trip, I don’t know why we pledged to raise money for the trip, I don’t know why we committed to going, and I don’t know why we ended up on the team that just “happened” to be spending a day with the Paradigm Build team. I don’t know why so much of that happened, but I do know God was at work in all of it. There is nothing that has happened to me that was a surprise to God. He certainly knew what He was doing, even if I was, and continue to be, unsure or unaware.
The day we spent in the DR with the Paradigm Build team was a wonderful day of monsoon rainstorms and quicksand mud. It did not 
take long for us to realize that we were pretty far from home. But really, it was a beautiful and very meaningful day. We were able to work alongside a team that a local church had brought together (though we probably were not very helpful).
Later that day, we had the opportunity to participate in a home dedication. I could not have imagined at the time just how special and memorable that ceremony would be. The home was a true gift from God to a family that had a real need and likely would not have been able to purchase or build the home for themselves. But because of so many generous donors, this tangible gift was a display of God’s kindness and love to this family and their community. Each of these homes which are funded and built through the Paradigm Foundation becomes not only a tangible gift to the family in need, but is also a light that shines brightly in the community of God’s love for all people. As we read Psalm 145 together at that home dedication and we sang “How Great is Our God” I was moved to tears at how great our God truly is.
After returning to the US, my family and I struggled to fully process all that God was doing in our hearts. We sensed a growing desire to serve the Lord in ways that we experienced on the trip, but we didn’t know what that would look like. We talked with a pastor at our local church pretty soon after returning to the US about what we were feeling, looking for help in processing our emotions and our new desires. That started a multi-year journey for us, which continued to include a lot of time and experience with The Paradigm Foundation.
Later in 2019, when we heard that Paradigm was doing another trip to the DR, I jumped at the opportunity to go. And when we heard the team was going to Kenya in early 2020, we jumped at the opportunity to do that as well! Each trip we took with Paradigm was a new experience that changed our trajectory in some way.
If you had told me 10 years ago that I would be living and serving in Southeast Asia (where my family and I currently live), I would have never believed you. The number of things that aligned perfectly to connect our family with the Paradigm Foundation are too numerous for it to have been a coincidence – no, it was God that arranged that first meeting in the DR and it is God who continues to shape us through this ministry.
When we first connected with the Paradigm Foundation, there were no gimmicks, no recruiting events, no business cards. It was just 
normal people, doing the Lord’s work, trying to be faithful to God’s call in their lives. But God was at work, drawing us into the work that He was doing through The Foundation – little did we know that He had a radical plan for our lives and he was going to use Paradigm to light the wick.
1 Peter 4:10-11 says this: As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
Since the very day we met the Paradigm team, and served alongside them, we have always known it to be a faithful and God-honoring ministry. Without question, there have been times where the Foundation members and supporters have been tired and exhausted. I’m sure there have been times where they thought about taking a break, or using their talents and skills to do something else altogether. There were probably various doubts or struggles along the way, as they were getting ready for that short-term trip in 2019 where we met. But in their faithfulness they kept putting one foot in front of the other, doing the work they believed God called them to do, relying on the strength that God supplies.
God uses that kind of faithfulness in a myriad of ways. You never know what God is doing in the background, as you plod along, putting one foot in front of the other, “just trying to be faithful”. In the mundane, the routine, and the “not-so-significant” decisions of life, God takes your faithfulness and uses it in ways that you and I will never understand this side of heaven. You never know the lives that God is going to change as He works in and through His faithful servants.
When the members of the Paradigm Foundation were “just being faithful” in their call, do you think they had any idea that God wasusing them and their ministry to change the trajectory of my life, and that of my family? You never know the lives you are impacting, when you just keep putting one foot in front of the other.
And, you never know the people that God is going to bring into your life that will change you, as you seek to co-work with Him, wherever He has called you into service. So how is God seeking to work through you? What things is God waiting to do through you, that will change someone else’s existence or someone’s eternity? My encouragement to you, (and to myself!), is to lean in to whatever God might be “calling” you to do. However scary that may seem. However daunting the task may appear. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other, trusting God to give you the strength, the wisdom, the guidance, as you seek to be faithful in whatever he has put in front of you today.
I thank God for the way He has already used the Paradigm Foundation to help people’s physical needs, to change people’s spiritual hearts, and to bring glory to His name through the faithful, plodding, everyday service that seems so mundane and unexciting. But one day, we will see all that God has done and it will be glorious.