SURPRISE: Mission work is not glamorous. Despite the pictures we may post, it is not all smiles either. In fact, mission work very often is nothing like the pictures we post. Because you see, how can a picture portray the stench that surround little Roma children because they haven’t bathed in a very long time? How can a picture show the pain that is in each person’s eye that you pass on the street because they are suffering from a life without Salvation?
Please do not misunderstand me: missionary living is never void of JOY. Because Joy is not dependent upon circumstances but upon a Savior. However, that does not negate the fact that most of missional living is extremely hard. It is messy. And not a cute kind of messy.
As a type A teacher, mess is not something I like to embrace. In fact it makes me extremely uncomfortable (my parents might argue this point because they have seen my room explode when I came home for break during college…let’s make that an exception)
Mess for me indicates chaos. It means OUT OF CONTROL.
However, as a missionary, you very quickly lose any hope of avoiding messy. You want to know why? Because your entire life is messy. Your appearance is messy. Your clothes are messy. Your hair is messy. Your nails are messy. Your smell is messy (sorry TMI). Your backpack is messy. Your sleeping area is messy. Your space is messy. Your emotions are messy. Your mental state is messy. Everything around you is messy. And it’s easy to assume that this is just part of missional living: MESS.
And if I am being really honest, month 3 has been a messy month for me. I have truthfully felt incredibly out of control, chaotic, and simply not myself. If I am being really honest, there have been moments when I want to crawl into a hole. If I am being really honest, I have despised feeling emotionally and mentally messy.
But you want to know what God has revealed to me on month 3? His love is messy. Yep. Creator God’s love for us is messy. It is not neat and tidy because there’s nothing neat and tidy about loving an adulterous and rebellious people. There’s nothing neat and tidy about pursuing a people who continually reject You. There’s nothing neat and tidy about sending Your Son to become flesh to redeem said people. There’s nothing neat and tidy about Jesus being beaten, spit upon, flogged, mocked, accused, and crucified. Nope. Nothing neat and tidy about it.
However, our God made Himself dirty to make us CLEAN. He got His hands dirty to stoop down and become involved. He was willing to not only enter the mess, but to become the mess. All to save US.
Therefore, I reject any belief that love is neat and tidy now. Because it’s just not. Love is messy. Love is complicated. Love is hard. Loving people well requires GRIT. It requires unwavering willingness to get into their mess and love them anyway.
Every country I go to there are people dying to be messy loved. Not to be neat and tidy loved. There are people who need someone willing to meet them where they are, not force them to clean themselves up first. JUST as our Papa loves us.
For while we were still MESSY (sinners) Christ died for US.
