Using your Gifts: Micah's Story

My name is Micah Varberg, and I am the custodial coordinator at North Heights Christian Academy.

I have always struggled with identity in who I am supposed to be and who God wants me to be. At the age of 18, I found if people didn't like who I was, I would change who I was so that said person would then like me. I did this so many times I didn't know who I was anymore. I honestly didn't want to be on earth anymore and was considering death. Luckily God had other plans for me. 

I remember calling my best friend one day in 2010 and telling him this is it, and the next thing I knew, my brother was driving me to the hospital. They decided that it would be best for me to stay a couple days in a psych ward so they could watch over me and make sure I was safe.

This is where my life started to change. To have 5 days by myself with nothing but God to talk to was the best thing for me. I really started to focus on what God was telling me about my life; he was telling me that I have a gift for kids, a gift for basketball, and a gift for loving his people. God created me for so much more in this world, and I almost threw that away. God saved me, and I needed to take what I learned and apply that to my life. From that day on, I started to rebuild who I was. 

I felt like the Lord was calling me to take my next step in faith, so I started searching for YWAM bases. There was one base in Pittsburgh that focused on basketball ministry, so I applied and left for Pittsburgh in September. 

I feel like this was another turning point in my life where God really formed me into my true identity in Him. The first 2 months of YWAM is the school part where we had different teachers every week. I learned a ton about myself and some pretty big things that I had to work through with tons of prayer. The last 3 months of the program was the outreach phase where my team went to El Salvador and Belize. We did tons of street evangelism where we would just talk to people about Jesus. I saw many people get healed on the streets of El Salvador, which challenged my previous Baptist beliefs about divine healing. I saw people's lives transformed, from not knowing who Jesus was to now serving Jesus with all their hearts. God was using us as a tool to reach his people that he loved so much. 

This was also where we got to use basketball to reach God's people. We got the opportunity to play many really good teams in Belize. One of my favorite experiences there was that we got the chance to play in a prison against their prison team, and we played in front of 2,500 inmates. We played horribly and lost the game by almost 70 points, but the entire team gave their lives to Christ. In my mind, that is a win; God’s main priority isn’t us winning a game. It’s His people knowing him and making him known.

If God can use me like this, then he can use you in the same way. What are your talents, and what gifts did the Lord give you? Are you using those to glorify his name? I encourage you to pray and ask God who you are in him and what He wants to do with you. We are all tools in God's great plan, if we all work together, we can reach the ends of the earth sooner. 

Worrying about Ministry: Hannah's Story

My name is Hannah Varberg, and I’m the communications coordinator at North Heights.

I’ve been a self-proclaimed Christian my entire life, but my faith didn’t truly become alive until I attended University of Northwestern – St. Paul. There, God lit a fire in my heart for Him, and my life goals, purposes, and mindset were completely altered. I wanted to serve Him, tell others about Him, and be active in my faith. At first, I pursued these goals with the motivator of love. I loved God completely, and this fired my ministry and service to Him.

However, as I’m someone who has struggled with anxiety almost my whole life, it wasn’t long until the devil saw this pure motive of love and tried to tarnish it with anxiety. My mind would convince me I wasn’t doing enough to serve God, and this would result in guilt, anxiety, and restlessness. 

Soon, without me even comprehending it, anxiety was the motive behind me doing ministry. I would participate in ministry opportunities because if I didn’t, I would be overwhelmed in guilt and negative self-talk. In this season in my life with anxiety as a motivator, I did a lot of cool things for God. I gave a witch a Bible. I invited non-believing friends to church. I led a small group of international students. What I was doing was exciting and great, but why I was doing it was missing the mark.

Anxiety continued to rule my ministry when my husband and I moved to Granada, Spain to volunteer with a church and cultural center. We were in a foreign country in the middle of a pandemic, and it was difficult for all the reasons that I didn’t expect. The language barrier wasn’t as much of a problem as being anxious about every grammatical mistake was. The pandemic wasn’t the main problem; being inundated with guilt about sitting on my couch during the pandemic was the greater dilemma. 

I found that it was incredibly difficult to relax when we were living in Spain. We had moved across the world following God’s call to make a difference, so whenever we had down time to rest, I just couldn’t do it. My guilt nagged at me to do something. My anxiety constantly questioned “am I making enough Spanish friends here? Am I saying enough? Am I doing enough?”

We spent 9 months in Spain, and of course, they were a beautiful, impactful 9 months. We made many Spanish friends and learned so much, and it was truly a wonderful experience that I would trade for nothing. But unfortunately, anxiety was present behind my church involvement, spiritual conversations, and volunteering the entire time.

We returned home in July of 2021. After a long day of traveling, Micah and I were finally in the car with his parents, and they were taking us to temporarily stay with them. On that ride home, I looked around at my home of Minnesota for the first time in 9 months. I took in the familiar streets, stores, and restaurants, and instead of feeling peaceful about finally being home, anxiety gripped me in a new way. My first thoughts in America were that of worry; we had no jobs, no cars, no place to live. What we were going to do? What was next?

Those thoughts plagued me for the first few weeks back in America. One day I was taking a walk in the warm summer green and worrying about ministry. I was chatting to God in my head and saying, “okay, now what, Lord? Now what? What ministry can I do? Should I jump back into international ministry? Should I start another small group? What’s next?” 

The response stilled my soul. I felt God say, “your ministry right now is to trust me.”

This response blew my mind. I felt like God was asking me to do nothing but spend time with Him and trust Him. All I could do in this moment was say, “All right, God. I’m in.” After this moment with God on the sidewalk of Como Avenue, my guilt and anxiety about doing ceased while I meditated on trusting.

Trusting Him threw me down an unconventional, confusing path at first, but I remained confident in my trustworthy Savior. Although human nature betrayed me a few times and pushed me into worry, I quickly corrected my mindset and returned to trust. I had never been so relaxed with instability than I was in this past season. Without a job, without a car, without a home, and without ministry, I was content. Then 4 months after returning from Spain, fully trusting God led me to North Heights.

Now I’m getting settled into a season of ministry again, working at a church, volunteering with international students, and leading a small group. However, my heart still has not forgotten the lesson He taught me during one sunny walk last summer. Sometimes, God does want us intimately involved in the doing. Other times, the next step of faith could be sitting with the presence of Jesus, without guilt and anxiety, and simply trusting.