1/8/13
I’ve been sick for two weeks now. Not retching over the toilet sick, just a sore throat and cold that has hit another peak. I’m kind of an awful person to get sick enough to be only slightly off-kilter because I always think it will go away by itself and am too stubborn to pay for medicine. There comes a point when I wish I was home so that I could take medicine from my parents’ cabinet and not have to think about the cost or stashing enough medicine for a later date.
It just hit me that this could be my life. Not being sick forever, but a lack of comfort and sacrifice of varying degrees.
Both of those are guaranteed in an active Christian life, but it looks a little different being a long-term missionary, or so I’ve been imagining. Since God confirmed in Australia (October) that He would be sending me back into the mission field, I’ve been waiting to hear more about the where and to whom and how long. The how long has been kicking around my mind the most, stirring up fear. Does He mean for one year or three years or thirty? And what if I’m stuck in a tiny village in the middle of nowhere learning a language I’ve never cared to learn?
The one thing I do know is that I would be working with people whom have had no or very little exposure to the gospel or Christians. Looking back I can see the precision and finesse with which God broke my heart for these people. Two weeks before I left the U.S. in September, I raced through the second half of Radical, and grief flooded me. Having just explained to a friend that no one could really know what happens to those who never hear about Jesus or whether some unknown provision exists, I was crushed to realize that the Bible does have a final word for those who never hear: when they die, they are forever without God, in hell. This isn’t because God is cruel and unforgiving, it’s because the church has failed in going and sending people to share the gospel as He commanded us. With this realization as I was reading, I had to shut the book, discretely rush upstairs, and retreat behind my bedroom door, because the tears were coming and I needed to speak to God about it.
In that moment I felt Him share His grief and desire with me. A weighty expectancy enveloped me as I asked Him, hesitantly, “Do you want me to go?” I wasn’t sure of the response—I don’t think I was ready for one—but I asked Him to make me willing if that’s what He wanted for me.
Only weeks later in Malaysia, barely-suppressed tears overwhelmed me again when one of our contacts briefly discussed the lack of laborers in unreached regions while sharing his testimony. The sense that God may want to send me became stronger.
Somewhere between reading Let the Nations be Glad and Isaiah 41:8-10, God confirmed that He was calling me to these people who’ve never heard of Christ within my first two weeks in Australia. It blew my mind. The path He was revealing was completely different than I could have expected or planned, but the honor and privilege of being chosen continually overwhelmed me, slowly eroding my fears and supplanting other desires.
Now, months later, God is bringing me to a deeper understanding of what He is calling me to, and thoughts of silly hopes and serious expectations I may have to surrender are becoming more substantial.
I may never live in New York while I’m still young.
Graduate school is more uncertain than ever.
My ability to save for an excursion to Antarctica is nil.
I’ll be gone during popular years to find a spouse.
God is clearly starting to show me that I need more than my passion and desire for people to know Christ. Rationally I know the coming years will be difficult, but God is helping me understand more experientially, through sickness, annoyance at teammates, and weariness in serving. With the hopes I leave behind and the frustrations that lie ahead, I feel God telling me that my love for Him needs to plunge new depths. My prayer is to realize more of His love for me this month and receive His guidance as I begin to search and pray through sending agencies.
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This blog has been half-finished on my desktop screen for a month now, so a lot has happened since then in what God is teaching me and how I’ve seen God move. Instead of getting discouraged and lost as to what to do with it and begin a new blog (my pattern for each month), I decided to finish it as if everything else hadn’t happened yet. Hopefully I’ll finish another one that gives you a fuller picture of what January looked like. The majority of our time was spent at orphanages and children homes, especially Jireh House.
