Hi friends!!!! I was planning on writing a friendly and up-beat post to launch my blog-writing and soul-sharing on the World Race this year, but I hope you don't mind if I put the introductions on the back-burner for a short while, as the Lord has really spoken to me tonight and brought me back to His heart, in the midst of some recent anxieties I've been having. So, here goes…
Being called to a year on the World Race with the Lord has been a whirlwind of emotions for me. There is fear, reassured by deep trust in His provision and confidence in His call, and soothed by His transcendant peace. There is hope for seeing and experiencing the Lord in new ways and learning new things about Him through His beautiful creation and His beloved people throughout this broken world. There is excitement for seeing the way He is redeeming that brokenness with His perfect love. There is anxiety for the uncertainty, change in lifestyle, daunting fundraising, and heartbreaking distance from loved ones. But most of all, I feel such joyful thanksgiving and profound humility that the Lord Almighty, Holy God of the Universe, and King of Kings would call me (!!!!) to go away with Him and to experience such raw reliance and intimacy with Him unlike anything I can imagine. THAT brings me to my knees.
As always, our Heavenly Father knows us better than we know ourselves, and so it is no surprise that tonight He has given me pathways back to His heart, into His rest, and in His peace. My sweet sweet roommate, Chaeri (Hi Chaer-bear!!), gave me John Piper's Let the Nations Be Glad! for my birthday recently. I've yet to get past the preface and introduction, and already the Lord has answered prayer and soothed those schyzophrenic emotions that have been stirring in my heart this week. He reminded me that worship – bringing praise and glory to our Heavenly Father, our Best Friend, Comforter, Protector, Healer, and Provider – is the ultimate purpose of life in the universe. Missions only exist because full, true, and perfect worship does not. It is a temporary necessity, while living in a broken world, where poverty isolates and discourages, disease ravages and society stigmatizes, and Satan pounces and distorts who we view ourselves to be in relation to Christ. But we know that our God has already won that battle, that He has already declared VICTORY over all the suffering and heartbreak that has ever existed in this life. His life has the last word. And my heart just BURSTS with His praises for that!!
I'll just be totally transparent: there are a lot of things about next year that I do not know if I am fully at ease about. At one time in my life, which now feels like a life lived by a completely different person, I cynically viewed missionary work as an extension of colonialism and a patronizing imposition onto other peoples and cultures. I used to roll my eyes seeing affluent white kids post pictures of themselves with African babies, taking such a negative view of the motives behind it all. And now, with Christ's love having totally transformed (more like transplanted) my own heart, I feel His intense grief over those who view the world like I once did, and so I have no choice but to follow my sweet Savior on this journey. I desire nothing else but to bring His love to all the corners of the earth, to share my testimony with a heart of total praise so that others may know Him, and to shout of His amazing grace and mercy so that everyone knows that nothing could ever separate us from His love. He has raised this woman, once dead, to life, and I am ready to be used by Him to bring His life to others.
Here I am LORD! I am ready for Your call.
For Thine
is the kingdom,
the power,
and the glory,
forever and ever!
AMEN!
