Missionary in Question

Sometimes, I don’t feel like a missionary. Sometimes, I genuinely wonder what I even believe. Sometimes, I can’t tell up from down. Sometimes conviction seems as far away as the North Pole, and confusion is as thick as the muggy Malaysian air in Kuala Lumpur.

If that makes you freak out, let me tell you, I’m right there with you – yep, we’re in the same boat! I can’t stand not knowing what the “right” answer is about EVERYTHING! Earlier this month, while my team was in Kuala Krai, we started conversing about some intense spiritual stuff. Curses. Demons. The power of darkness. We weren’t all in the same place in our viewpoints. I wasn’t okay with that. I was scared to death of what that meant. Why did I feel so strongly one way, while the women that I respect and trust and love, who I know are seeking after the Father’s heart as earnestly as I am, felt very strongly, and very differently?

I began to question everything – myself, my faith, my sincerity. I felt unsettled about the things that were coming up and going on around me. Yet I also had been recognizing doubt in myself and suddenly I didn’t feel confident of anything. My teammates were strong in their stances – maybe I was the one in the wrong and what I was feeling had no validity whatsoever. Maybe I should just ignore the check in my spirit and pretend like everything was fine. My thoughts turned darker and more desperate than that though: Maybe I should step down from leadership – was I hindering what the Spirit was trying to do in my team because of my fear? Did I even have faith at all? Was I missing something huge, and how could I miss it if the Spirit was in me? I know I’ve struggled with fear many times and I began to question if that was the underlying motive of every thought, feeling, response, and action in my life. I was literally at wit’s end – I felt completely alone, I didn’t know where to turn except the Lord, but even there I found no peace because I was beginning to doubt my ability to hear Him or commune with Him at all.

Satan was trying to get a foothold in my team by blowing something WAY out of proportion. Issues that were not core and central to our faith were becoming our entire focus. He was using that to bring division, especially in a group that are truth-seekers and find it extremely difficult to settle without a definite, emphatic answer.

And He never gave us one collectively.

Hold that thought… more on that later.

We got to Kuala Lumpur on Thursday (almost a week ago) and exactly the same scenario came up again. Only this time, we weren’t wrestling with questions about warfare against an enemy – we were wrestling with questions about what was happening within the four walls of the church.

Let me explain the scene:

We arrive in KL, spend the night at a hostel where we stayed last time we were here, a couple weeks ago. It’s a funky place, friendly people but definitely with its own unique vibe. One of my teammates is heavily attacked that night and can’t sleep at all – she senses a dark presence coming off of another guest there, and even the next day she is plagued by it. When she naps, her sleep is filled with nightmares. Others of us feel uneasy –on the surface everything looks fine and dandy, but something oppressive is in that place and as the leader, I have no clue what to do. But I do feel pretty sure we are not gonna be able to stay there for the next week and a half that we will be in KL.

Our contact tells us about an all-night prayer service that night. Well, if there’s one thing God’s been leading and highlighting for our team in the last week, it’s PRAYER! So I encourage my entire team to come, even though it begins at 11 pm, ends at 6 am, and we are all physically, emotionally, and spiritually spent at this point. But we are desperate. We don’t know what else to do. Our only hope is the Lord and we know it. Everyone comes.

As soon as we walk in, I feel relief to the point that tears come rushing out. The worship music playing only increases my emotional response. I feel like a storm-battered ship pulling into harbor. I am SAFE! At last! My only desire, my last hope and prayer that I cling to, is to bring my team home safely. We have been attacked more viciously than I have ever experienced in my life, and all I want is to know that I have led them to safety, to a peaceful harbor, home.

The night unexpectedly turns for me from peaceful and a breath of fresh air, to intense, crazy, and unexpected. A visiting pastor from Africa speaks some fiery words. Things swirl around me so fast I don’t know what’s happening, and I am in utter disbelief. I thought my battle was outside the church, against a spiritual enemy. Why does it feel like my guard is suddenly raised and bristling WITHIN these walls???

My team comes away with as many different perspectives on that night as there are team members (six, to be exact). We debrief, we discuss, we try to reason with each other to get everyone else to see “my side”. There is no consensus. What we experienced that night was entirely unique to each of us, and nothing is going to change that.

I feel myself getting up in arms against my teammates because I don’t understand and I don’t know what else to do. And yet the Lord is whispering something deeper, more powerful, to my heart. He is bringing me back to the core of my faith, to the one thing I know, to the Anchor and solid Rock in the raging storm, to the One who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. As I cling to Jesus with a white-knuckled grip I’ve never needed before, desperate for Him and only Him, I hear His voice.

“Let go.”

“Let go of control. Let go of the need to understand everything perfectly before you will trust Me. Let go of the need to agree with your teammates about every detail of your theology and experience before you will trust them. Let go, and know that I Am God.”

And where am I right now, four days later?

I see Him triumphing. I see His victory in our team times of worship and shouting in unison, “Jesus is the Victor!” I see Him fighting for us when we are lying on our faces, desperate, empty, at the very end of ourselves. I see His hand when the same lady who brought the spiritual heaviness into the hostel becomes our friend through a random encounter on the street, and the next day shows up at church, asking me a billion questions about Christianity. I see His smile as He brings people from the church to lavish love on us through countless unexpected meals, free lodging, and the warmth of friends all around us who only met us days ago.  And I see that smile break into a huge grin as I sit on the steps of KL City Center beneath the Petronas towers, glowing against the dark night sky like a surreal picture, while a rainbow of colors dances in the fountain right in front of me and the warm night air wraps around me… That grin turns into joyous laughter as my team embraces and reconciles and begins to understand on a whole new level what it means to fight for each other.

I am letting go. It is the most painful and traumatic experience I can remember. Yet God is walking me into a place I could never reach without the searing pain and confusion of questioning everything and falling flat on my face b