We were asked to write a blog about how we felt before leaving on this mission trip….
Here are my thoughts:
When I was praying and searching and trying to figure out if I was really supposed to go on this mission or not, I came across the passages in Luke and Matthew where Jesus called Simon Peter, James, and John to follow him. In Luke, Jesus went out on the boat with Peter, James, and John. They tried all night to catch fish with no luck. Well, Jesus told them to do it one more time and then they caught so many fish that the boat began to sink. (I must interject a “WOW” here) Ok, so to me those fish meant a lot of money to those men. I mean, that was their job. They could have had it made after that. But they did something weird….they pulled their boats up on shore, LEFT EVERYTHING and followed him.
This passage was instrumental in helping me make the choice to apply. I felt like God was calling me to leave everything to follow him. In Matthew, a similar story is told. In Matthew, Jesus called Peter and Andrew, and when they were called they left their nets AT ONCE to follow him. Hmm, to me the nets mean their job. When I read that, I thought, “NO PROBLEM, it’ll be EASY to leave my job”. Well, in the next paragraph James and John left their jobs and their father.
The first time I read these passages, they were confirmations to me that God wanted me to go on this trip, but recently I went back to them and I saw WAY more than I did the first time. I realized that we can go through our daily lives and do the same things over and over again and we will just continue to live our lives day to day. We will survive this way, but never really LIVE. I decided that I wanted to LIVE, and that’s why I applied. I also realized that I am not just leaving my job. I’m leaving my family, my friends, my students, the youth in my youth group. I’m leaving my comfort zone. I’m leaving my church and my church family. I’m leaving my co-workers and my boss. I’m leaving relationships. I’m leaving WAY more than just my job and my stuff. There are no guarantees that my life will look in any way close to the way it looks now when I return. I just know that my God is with me and will protect me and hold me together through everything. This is going to take a lot of faith and courage.
Ephesians 5 says to make the most of every opportunity and to understand what the Lord’s will is. I guess that is what this trip is about to me. In Philippians 3, Paul says that he considers everything in his life to be RUBBISH in favor of knowing Christ and BEING FOUND IN HIM! Compared to this opportunity, everything in my life does seem like rubbish…everything I’ve worked for….all my stuff….RUBBISH!
So I’m caught in this struggle. Yes, everything in my life is rubbish and I’m glad to call it a loss. But what about the relationships I’ve created? I have to leave expecting to leave it ALL. It is totally worth it, but I’m NOT expecting that to be easy.
I read this passage late one night and I just began to cry. This just sums it all up. It is in James 1. Do not just listen to the word but DO what it says. Religion that our father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. And there is the biggest and best reason to go. It is NOT about me!
Here is what I’m expecting….
I expect the unexpected. I think that I will be faced many times with things I’ve never done before. I will have opportunites to say and do things that I have never imagined myself saying or doing. I will learn how to be a true servant and a true disciple. I want to learn and grow. I want to learn about other cultures. I want to grow as a Christian. I want to grow as aperson. I expect to become beautifully broken and totally undone. I want to learn to build my life on Jesus. I have a feeling that I will be challenged every day.
I expect my passions and desires to change. I expect to be stretched just about as far as I ever thought I could be stretched and then stretched some more. I expect to live among the poor and to really grasp what is means to leave my nets and follow Jesus. I expect there to be heartache and heartbreak. I expect to help people and love on people, and just to learn how to really BE the love of Christ to those who have never encountered him.
I expect this to be the most difficult and most rewarding experience of my life!
