I am going on the World Race! 11 countries in 11 months to serve the living God and "the least of these" people of the world. Now that I am, I suppose the question is how did I come to this point? The point of taking 11 months of my life to live as…a missionary? Wait a tick, I'm no missionary!
Now would probably be a good time to rewind a bit and give you some background knowledge to help you better understand me and why I'm no missionary. If you have not already, take a minute or two and read my short "All about ME!" blog post. To save you time I will try not to repeat too many things from that post, so if you go read it real quick like it will help you better understand me and this post.
Have you ever put a limit on God, or what He could do? I know I have! There is a song I once heard by Van Zant called "Get Right With the Man." In the song there is a lyric I greatly enjoy and can totally relate to. It goes…
I never let a cowboy make the coffee
Yeah, that's what granny always said to my granddad
And he'd say, never tell a joke that ain't that funny more than once
And if you wanna hear God laugh, tell him your plans
Don't get too high on the bottle
Get right with the Man, son
Like I said, I can relate! "And if you wanna hear God laugh, tell Him your plans." This really hits home for me. I haven’t always been the way I am, or the way most of you probably know me. I used to be a really bad representative of Christ and sadly, still am at times. I surrendered my life to Christ at an early age, but didn’t exactly “get it.” I finally started to get it and live out my faith in college.
When I began to turn my life back to Christ I wanted to do God’s will. I wanted to fulfill my purpose for why He made me. But what I ended up doing was “telling God my plans.” Of course I did not know that was what I was doing. One specific example I can remember is about being a missionary. “Okay God, use me”, I thought. Yet in the back of my mind and heart it was more like. “Okay God use me…just as long as I can live in America and have everything I want!” Sound familiar?
If you are anything like me, you used to envision missionaries as one of three things.
1. People who were basically angels on Earth. Who never did anything wrong, with some sort of “extreme faith” that you didn’t understand.
2. Some type of crazy person who lived in a mud hut in some distant, remote village because from some reason they had something against family, friends, running water and watching football on Sundays. How could anything be more important than football on Sundays? Or…
3. A combo of the two.
Well…nothing could be further from the truth! God has removed these misplaced perceptions and shown me a much more accurate version of what a missionary truly is. Someone who has completely surrendered to His will and is faithful to follow Him wherever He leads. According to the Bible, all of us who claim to be Christ followers are called to go. It’s a cornerstone of the Christian faith known as the Great Commission. “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” -Matthew 28:16-20.
Side note: “Go” doesn’t solely mean to go overseas, for that is often what people assume. It can mean to “go” across the street and talk to that neighbor that doesn’t know Christ. It just means GO! One of the churches I attended in college (shout out to FSBC of Dodge City) had a sign above the door on the way out that read “You are now entering the mission field.” I love that because it’s so true. Your daily life is a mission field.
So how exactly did I go from rebellious High School teen to a soon-to-be 11 month missionary? To be completely honest, I don’t even know! The only answer that I can think of that makes any sense is that God was looking out for me long before I really cared about what He thought. He allowed me to fall but only so far. Far enough to learn from my mistakes and far enough to know I needed Him. Now I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that His way is best, and when I say “Okay God, use me!” I mean exactly that.
Blessings,
Chandler Keenan
