To trust God in the light is nothing, but to trust Him in the dark – that is faith.
-C.H. Spurgeon
Before my senior year of college, I was SURE that I would go on the World Race after graduation. Long story short, God was like, nah you’re not doing that.* And in my world at the time, that wasn’t a not a ‘not right now’ – it was a plain, flat-out no. Imagine my surprise as I’m sifting through my post-grad (part 2) options and God is like, hey remember the World Race? Yeah? You should do that. And I was like, but-but-but I thought I was staying here now and doing this and ???? and God was like, haha, yeah no you’re going.*
*Situation has been simplified for the sake of this blog
A lot (and I mean a lot) of people have asked me why I think the World Race is the best avenue to take the Gospel to the nations. When other people and organizations do that or do this that way, why this? Why?
And honestly, my answer is pretty disappointing. Because, I have no idea why this.
Zip, zero, nada. I mean, I believe in the power of Jesus Christ, I believe in the mission and values of Adventures in Missions, and I believe that the Lord has called each and every believer to play a role in the advancement of Gospel.
But when it comes to why this over that, I’m not sure. The how, I get. God placed the World Race on my heart two years ago and it’s never left. God has very clearly closed doors to opportunities and given every green light for this organization, this time, this route. I, and others who know and love me well, have prayed over this and it’s clear: this is where I’m supposed to be.
I’m here out of Love, because I feel specifically called, of course – but I’m here also out of obedience. God said go on the World Race and I said okay.
This is super candid, but I’m well aware that this next year could totally suck. Culture shock after culture shock, weakness after weakness, hardened heart after hardened heart, bad meal after bad meal, sinful Christian after sinful Christian – I know that I’m not signing up for another year living a comfortable life in Birmingham. I know that our time won’t always be used efficiently, that our team (including me!) will make a ton of mistakes, that we will be poor stewards of our time, our thoughts, our deeds, that we’ll have to uproot our lives every month, that our relationships will only go so far in a short amount of time.
And for a second, I’m like, UGH. (Ok it’s for more than a second but still.) Sometimes I believe that maybe God actually wouldn’t call me to this.
Then I read the Bible and I laugh/cry about my pride. He would call me to this because He’s already called His people to this.
Remember Isaiah? He has an amazing encounter with the Lord in Isaiah 6 – where he experiences God’s glory and has true humility to see himself in light of the King, the LORD of hosts. And then this happens:
And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.” (v8)
You’ve probably heard that verse before – at Christian conferences, on those old school VBS t-shirts, wrist tats, whatever. And if you stop there, the story has a pretty happy ending. God displayed His glory to Isaiah and the commissioned him out to tell of this glory to the world. Yay!
But hold the phone. Let’s look at the next few verses and see what God actually calls Isaiah to do:
“And He said, “Go and say to this people: Keep on hearing, but don’t understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive. Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes… Then I said, “How long, O Lord?” And He said, “Until the cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is a desolate waste.” (v9-11)
Aca-awkward. I don’t ever see people getting a tattoo of those follow-up verses. God is basically saying, OK Isaiah, go here, tell them the Truth. Oh and disclaimer, they will not ever get it and you will just keep telling them until they die.
That sucks.
Here’s my point. God doesn’t see things the way we do. In Isaiah’s case, God used the brokenness and disobedience of His covenant people to again and again reflect His justice, grace, and power, and show that in case you forgot again Israel (and all of us) – you’re not meant to do this life on your own. Not to mention, God uses Isaiah to make like a hundred prophesies about Jesus. But did Isaiah see in full his purpose there in real time? No.
I think this next stage of my life is similar to Isaiah’s, too. In my case, I have no idea if any fruit will come of my labor, if my time would be better spent somewhere else, if I’ll see in real time my purpose for being wherever I am. It’s easy, too easy, for my human brain to want to minimize this next year of my life because it’s not ideally what I want it to look like.
And while it’s true that I don’t know why I’m doing this, I know that the One who called me to this is faithful. Because if He’s the One calling, I can trust that this is right. Even when I don’t see it. Because that – that’s real faith.
