employed with a purpose

tomorrow i'm starting my new job. i will be a software engineer for a******. among the other requirements of the job, i will have to travel about 80% of the time. yesterday i got my new laptop in the mail. they told me my life would be my laptop and my cell phone. mentally speaking, i know what to expect, but practically i have no idea.

when i started my previous job at c****************, i accepted the position because i needed an income. it met a need. i remember my first day. i sat down, looked around, and thought to myself, "i can do this for a couple months..." i ended up being there for 14 months.

i'm taking this job for a different reason. mind you, i still need an income, but if that was my only motivation i could have stayed at c************. i'm taking this job because in it i see potential to take huge strides towards effective mission work. what do i mean by that?

i mean, the job should help me towards my goal of full-time involvement in mission work. i do get paid more than i did, which means paying off school loans faster (huge barrier to doing missions full-time). also, i am going to be a "consultant". i'll be going into clients' offices, and finding/implementing solutions to their IT problems.

in terms of my life-plan, my vision right now has me connecting technology with missions. e-mail alone has revolutionized missions, allowing missionaries to communicate instantaneously. life magazine published a book, Life Millennium: The 100 Most Important Events and People of the Past 1000 Years, which lists Gutenberg's printing press as the number one biggest development. i believe the internet can be just as revolutionary, for the same reasons Gutenberg's invention was. the printing press helped spawn the reformation, by allowing the masses access to new ideas. used effectively, the internet can usher in a new gospel movement, allowing not only instantaneous communication with missionaries anywhere on the globe, but take the words of the bible to every nation.

for example, right now there are missionaries in very secluded areas, translating the bible into languages of people who have never had a chance to hear the gospel. if those missionaries have access to scores of linguistic experts here in the states via the internet, imagine how much faster the bible could be written!

i could go on, but let's just say i have some goals with this new job. i am comforted because i know people are praying for me in this new position, and as you're reading this, i petition you to say a prayer too. am i nervous? somewhat, but not much. mostly i am eager to see what happens.