I have been home for nearly two months. It has been nearly two months since I have spent a day absorbed in ministry, joyfully played with children who speak no English, or prayed in earnest for the healing of a complete stranger. It has also been nearly two months since I have slept on the floor, eaten food I don’t recognize or shared a room with ten other girls.
There are many things I have enjoyed about being home; a long, hot shower, a room to myself, the simple freedom of a full tank of gas and the keys to my car. It has been enough to give me moments of pause in considering a life of full-time missions. Do I really want to ‘rough it’ indefinitely?
But tonight I randomly opened a book of devotionals by John Piper. I can only think God laughed to Himself at the seemingly arbitrary way through which he chose to refocus my attention. The instant I read the title of the selection, I knew I was in trouble.
“It Doesn’t Matter What Happens to Me.” It sounds strangely like my new favorite phrase, “It’s not about me”. This is one of the most fundamental and difficult truths I have brought home from the Race.
It’s not about me. My time. My money. My life. It’s not about me.
I have said this countless times in the past two months, knowing that speaking truth has power, even when I don’t feel that it’s true. But, after a year of ‘sacrificing for the Lord’ I am tempted to think I deserve for life to be about me for a while.
Piper argues this sentiment with powerful words:
“‘I have died already with Christ, which all Christians have. ‘Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.’ Galatians 5:24 Crucified means dead…So it just doesn’t matter what happens to me here on earth.”
Piper also points out that this is not a passive acceptance of life’s hardships, it is an active choice.
“‘If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.’ Matthew 6:26 He calls us to choose the cross. People did only one thing on the cross. They died on it.”
How else am I to truly live as though it’s not about me? How else do I consider others as better than myself or forgive as Christ forgave me? Only by dying to myself. My rights. My desires.
But to what end? I am ‘always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.’ 2 Corinthians 4:10
‘For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.’ Romans 5:10
Carrying the death of Jesus allows me to live out the ministry of reconciliation, while having the life of Jesus manifest in my body empowers me to breathe life into dead things. As followers of Jesus, is this not our goal?
the life of Jesus is all that remains for me to live.
It is His life that I offer to those who are dying.
