Growing up, my mom’s favorite hymn was titled, “I Sing a
Song of the Saints of God.” The Lyrics are as follows:
I sing a song of the saints of God,
patient and brave and true,
who toiled and fought and lived and died
for the Lord they loved and knew.
And one was a doctor, and one was a
queen,
and one was a shepherdess on the green;
they were all of them saints of God, and
I mean,
God helping, to be one too.
They loved their Lord so dear, so dear,
and his love made them strong;
and they followed the right for Jesus’
sake
the whole of their good lives long.
And one was a soldier, and one was a
priest,
and one was slain by a fierce wild
beast;
and there’s not any reason, no, not the
least,
why I shouldn’t be one too.
They lived not only in ages past;
there are hundreds of thousands still.
The world is bright with the joyous
saints
who love to do Jesus’ will.
You can meet them in school, on the
street, in the store,
in church, by the sea, in the house next
door;
they are saints of God, whether rich or
poor,
and I mean to be one too.
Over the past few days, this hymn has been heavy on my mind
as I have continually been blessed to meet God’s saints here in Belgrade. Each
story I listen to is an example of extreme faith, and God’s love, and not one is the story of a “missionary.” They are simply stories of people
living their life lead by the Holy Spirit, loving the people that they
encounter with all of their heart.
This month I have had the privilege of meeting diplomats,
bankers, international consultants, housewives, and UN relief workers who long
to see God move in the people around them. Last night, in a conversation after
a youth group meeting, the leader said to me, “People think that you have to be
doing work for the church in order to be living as a Christian. This is not the
case. You can be doing work for the Lord wherever you are.”
Being a missionary is not a job that requires traveling to
the bush in Africa or doing relief work for natural disasters. God calls us to
love people right where we are. Throughout the Gospel, Jesus did not go out
looking for people to heal or teach, he ministered to them as he walked down the street, while traveling from town to town, or eating supper at a friend’s house. It is wrong to think that we cannot do
the same.
I am so humbled by the lives of the people that I have met
over the past few weeks. They do not tell extravagant stories of people they
left everything to go help. Their stories simply tell their daily life in the
Spirit, and how He led them to love the people around them. Being a “saint of
God” is not something that is unattainable. Through God’s grace we are able to
show His love to the people in our neighborhoods, at the grocery store, or at
the desk across from us.
