World Apostolate
I will be the first person to tell you that I am shy and then many people here will form a quick line to be the first person to contradict that, but it’s true; just not in the way that everyone thinks. For the first nineteen years of my life I was painfully shy to share with or talk to people about God. Who was He? What had He done in my life? This was because I felt insecure in my faith and unsure. After my happening, I felt affirmed and ready to share with any and every person who God was to me, for me. However, as the weeks progressed and what I like to call “The Happening High” digressed, it became harder or at least less interesting to share God with others. Once again I began to drift away from God and I no longer was reflecting Him. My pastor this past week said, “We are all image bearers of God.” We, according to 1Timothy 1, have the gospel entrusted to us by God Himself. How powerful is that? The maker of everything has entrusted you and me with His word to share with everyone. We are God’s messengers and apostles. It is our job to spread Christ. So stop being shy! We are called to shout from the mountaintops, “Here is your God!”
We think it will be easy after weekends like this, screaming from this mountain will be easy. It will be by the time we get there but what we often forget is that to scream from a mountaintop, we must first climb the mountain. It’s not going to be easy, to climb this Everest but then again, it’s not supposed to be. In Acts 9:15-16 God says:
“… This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before and before the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer in My Name.”
People are going to doubt you. You are going to doubt you. But it is by overcoming this doubt, climbing that mountain, that you will be able to shout loudly and from within.
I began my climb a few months ago in a Mexican restaurant. I had been feeling a bit down when my friend Tabitha had out of the blue asked me to join her for a mid-afternoon taco snack. While we waited for our food Tabitha started to tell me about something she thought I would be really interested in; The World Race. She told me that The World Race was a mission trip that took you to eleven different countries over eleven months. I was so captivated by this idea. For a long time I had felt this hunger to do mission work but the week long trips felt superfluous and never fully sated this strong desire I had within me, so I looked into the Race and prayed about it a lot. I did my homework on it, read blogs by current racers, and I knew it wouldn’t be easy but I was so determined to do it. I finally said, “God, this is what I want but if it is not what You want, that is fantastic because I know You have something else in store. But, if this is also what You want, please help.” Things fell in line after I gave it up to God. I applied and after a few interviews, I was accepted. I was over the moon, I even did a happy dance in the copy room of the school work at. And then it hit me; eleven months. I am leaving everything and everyone for eleven months to live out of a backpack. I started to panic as time went on. What had I gotten myself into? Reality was setting in and it was getting harder to romanticize mission work; bathing in a river, missing the occasional meal, never being really clean, not seeing my friends and family whenever I wanted all for God was getting less appealing. But that’s when it hit me; you aren’t supposed to romanticize the mission, you are supposed to accept it in whatever for it presents itself. For some people missioning and spreading God’s word is done by trekking across the world with a backpack, for some it is done in the weekly trips to volunteer at the soup kitchen, and to others it is as simple as sharing who God is in your life with a friend.
To me, God is a constant in a perpetually changing world. He is loving, ever and always. He is a bombardment of, “No I won’t let you alone! I will give you something ever better and sating.” God is a father, a best friend, and a confidant; I can always rely on Him. People always break my heart; I always break my own heart but not God, never God. He picks up the pieces with his tender potter’s hands and molds the pieces back together and says, “Don’t hurt. I made you good, so be good.” I am a very visual person so let me give you my visual of God.
Picture mountains, tall and unchallenged like the doubts and struggles we often times cling to. Now, picture the most beautiful sunset behind that jagged range. That is God. God pierces your heart and lights up the world in all of its enormity, bringing light to the darkest places. He is mighty and terrifyingly peaceful. He is color. He is light. He is breaking past the jagged edges of our insecurities to feed our souls, telling you always, “I love you regardless of what you have done.” That’s how I see God, that’s who he is to me. Who is He to you?
Don’t be afraid to share God with people. He is not something to be hoarded within us. His love is to be shared. So share it, begin your climb. Take everything you have learned and felt here and here (heart), and take it out there. I know it won’t be easy. There will be people, yourself included who will try to devalue your opinion because you are young; what could you really know about God or the Gospel, right? In 1Timothy4, Paul says:
“Do not let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and purity. Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of scripture, to preaching and teaching. Do not neglect your gift which was given to you through a prophetic message when the body of elders laid their hands on you.”
You are an image bearer, an apostle, a servant. I am not asking you to sign up for an insane number of mission trips or sell everything you own. I am asking you to take what you have learned, take what you have felt, take God out there. Share them with the people. Climb to the top of your mountain and shout.
