What You’re Waiting For Isn’t Approval—It’s Courage.

If you’re waiting for a sign—this is it.

⏳ 3 min read

If you’re waiting for a sign—this is it.

I wasn’t looking for someone to talk me out of it.
I was looking for someone to tell me I was wrong.
Someone to disqualify me.
So I wouldn’t have to do the thing I already knew I was meant to do.

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Paris didn’t start as an invitation.
It started as a murmur—a quiet, knowing statement from my pastor before a trip to Europe:
“What Mark needs is a Mocha.”

Mark was a missionary and a pastor, starting a new church in Paris.
We were headed to Switzerland to help him with a ski camp for some of his early members.

But when my pastor said that?
He meant me.
Wait… he meant me?

I had to sit with that. Let it land.
Am I actually the kind of person someone needs to help start a church?

The very thought of it was so validating.
It was encouraging. Even a little exciting.
But me? I’m no pastor. I’m no missionary.
I’m just a guy.

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But what if…
Oh man—that question. When it shows up in your head? Pay attention.

What if…

What if I did go?
What if I tried?
What if I failed?

Could I actually be—a missionary?

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That question followed me across the Atlantic to preview the people and places.

What came next was a blur:
Switzerland. Ski camp. Jet lag. Lots of Jesus.
And finally, Paris.

I was still trying to wrap my head around the language, the people, the weight of what this could become. There was even a failed swipe at romance—of course there was.
It is Paris.

But under it all, something deeper was building:
I wasn’t just visiting anymore.
I was starting to imagine staying.

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But imagining staying is different than deciding to stay.
And I didn’t trust myself to make that kind of decision alone.

Out of unbiased voices, I called a missionary in Nice to get his unfiltered view.

His advice was clear:

“If you at all can not go, then don’t.
This will be one of the most demanding things you ever do.
It will test your faith. It will be lonely. It will be hard.
But if you can’t not go—if you know you’d regret staying—then you already have your answer.”

It wasn’t permission.
It was reverence.
It was empowerment.
It was acknowledgment—that only I had the answer that God had already given me.

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Because no human can give you approval to be who you are.
And certainly not who you are becoming.
Not your pastor. Not your parents. Not your friends.
Not even some wise voice from across the ocean.

That kind of approval does not exist.
It is not theirs to give.

They cannot disqualify you either.
They only have that power if you hand it to them.

You are the only one who knows what God—or the Universe, or your Higher Power—is calling you to do, and who they are calling you to be.

You are the only one that knows it.

Now trust it.
Believe it.

The thing you can’t not do—that’s the thing.
The ache that will not leave you alone—follow it.

And the still, small voice—the whisper—inside of you?
It’s not a suggestion.
It’s not a question.
It is the answer.

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💬 What’s the thing you can’t not do?
Drop it in the comments—a word, a phrase, a declaration.
Put it out into the world and own it.

Now is your time.
Be bold.
Be brave.
Be you.

—Scott

Scott is a spiritual cartographer—husband, father, and weathered guide through sacred terrain—still holding space for the holy in the human.

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This story, and many others, are told in greater detail in his memoir,
A Row With Two Chairs: Creating a Life Worth Saving.
Available everywhere—or just [click here].