Called to Stay: A Los Angeles Migration Story

Originally published with wildfaithco.com.

I didn’t plan to be an Angeleno. When I moved to LA for college, I had a smattering of dreams. Maybe I would chase the Hollywood life? I majored in Theater. Maybe I would be a songwriter? I wrote some really terrible poetry. Maybe I would nanny in Germany? I joined a dating-like app that paired me with some families. Maybe I’d just find a “good Christian husband” and follow him wherever he went? I got matched on an actual dating app with a few real-life (just) friends.

Only one thing felt certain. Whatever I was going to do, it was going to involve leaving Los Angeles eventually. I’d live a few good years here, enjoy the year-round sun, then move on like everyone else. So it surprised me when, despite my best efforts, I felt called to stay. A few years after I got married (to the one friend I never matched with online), my husband and I prayed about where the Lord would call us to go. We both had a passion for missions and felt certain that our future lay overseas. We even toured several cities in Europe with the express purpose of talking to missions groups about whether our giftings could support their work. And at the end of it all, scratching our heads a bit, we were left with a different question. There was nothing we felt drawn toward, so what if we were meant to stay?

Our wanderings led us back to Jeremiah 29. Just a few verses before the oft-quoted, “for I know the plans I have for you…”, the prophet writes: “Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare” (29:7).

This verse became a theme for us. We framed it above our fireplace and began to ask a set of new questions. What does it look like to pursue what’s best for our neighbors, rather than our own interests? Would it change the neighborhood we choose or our living situation? How we vote? What we buy? What would God do if we just woke up every day and tried to love our own city instead of wondering when we would get the call to leave for someplace else?

When people think about becoming a missionary, they are often compelled by the Great Commission that Jesus gives in Matthew 28 to “go and make disciples of all nations.” But this isn’t a call for a select few super-Christians. It is a call for all of us. We are to be agents of human flourishing wherever we go—that includes those of us who are called to go, like Abraham, as well as those who are exiled like Israel into Babylon. 

There have been seasons here in Los Angeles where I felt like an exile, banished from the places I longed for and caught in the limbo of life stages and careers. But I am starting to see how God has brought me from wandering to welfare, provision beyond my expectations and open doors for the message of the gospel to a city that needs to know His name.

Maybe you are wondering some of these same questions—do I go or do I stay? And if go, then where? And if stay, then why? Would you petition the Lord with these questions today? Ask Him how He might have you engage fully where you are now and show you when—or if—a new migration must begin.