I have been in Thailand for just about a week now, and needless to say, I am LOVING it! The people, the culture, the street markets, the food, and all these sweet little babies my team and I get to love on this month! Multiple times already I have thought to myself, “Yah know what? I think I would totally live here if I could.” I love getting to see the different ways that people around the world live. I always find myself thinking about what it would be like to spend a day in their shoes. What is life like for that lady that faithfully sets up her little juice stand on the busy street’s edge every single morning? What’s her family like? I wonder how she grew up. What does she think about all day as she patiently waits for customers to walk on by? And what about the old man that drives that tuk-tuk (taxi) around town all day? How long has he been offering people rides from place to place? I wonder if he enjoys what he does. I wonder what he was like when he was a boy. What do you think he dreamt of becoming? Do all these people take for granted how delicious their food is? Like for real though, does this lady know that her little cart on the corner of the street literally is serving the world’s best Pad thai?
In all seriousness though, I haven’t been to many places in this world, but it has always awakened something in me whenever I have been given the privilege to step into a different culture. This world is so big and filled with so many different people, all of whom have their own unique and personal story. With so many different cultures, languages, ways of life, and history, it often brings tears to my eyes when I think that the one thing I have seen that we all have in common is a desperate and urgent need for relationship with our Savior. Our brokenness often takes different forms or manifests itself in different ways, but the answer for every single one of us is found in Jesus Christ. Specifically in Thailand, it has saddened me to walk around the city and see temple after temple dedicated to the prayer, sacrifice, and worship of a God who will never hear the cries of his seekers. It saddens me to go to sleep at night with the knowledge that in the street right behind where I sleep, countless women are taken advantage of night after night, having their bodies be sold for as little as two dollars. It saddens me to know that the little boy I’m holding was abandoned at birth because of a disease he carries. It saddens me to think about all the people in this world that have never been able to know the Jesus that I have grown to love, but as I get the chance to step into their way of life and hear their stories, it simultaneously begins to awaken a certain passion and desire within me. A passion to love the poor, the hungry, and the orphaned; and a desire to share the transformational love of Jesus with those who have never heard it.
That is a desire and a passion I can trust is from the Lord. I know that it is definitely nothing I have earned on my own and definitely nothing I will be able to keep on my own, so I want to be diligent and obedient in following wherever it is that desire takes me. I want to be wise in how I steward that passion but also careful that I do not quench it. But it is like nothing I have ever felt, so I know that I want to pursue it. I know that it is a desire that can be so easily forgotten, brushed aside, or misinterpreted, but I also know that a life spent devoted to the spreading of God’s kingdom is exactly what I was created for. That can mean different things and take multiple forms, but I always want my passion and desire for the kingdom of God to be sufficient enough for me to say “yes” to whatever the Lord asks. If it means staying in the states, working as an accountant, and simply loving on my family, then I want my answer to be “yes.”If it means taking a harder, less attractive path for my life and possibly suffering for it along the way, then I still want my response to the Lord to be “yes.” Hasn’t Christ called his believers to suffer for his name anyway? In my own life, I want to walk along the path of obedience. Obedience no matter what the cost. From his prison cell, Paul wrote in the book of Philippians that “It has been granted to us that for the sake of Christ we should not only believe but also suffer for his sake.”
Jesus, I pray that your Spirit would enable me to live a manner of life that is worthy to be considered sufferable for the sake of Christ. Lord, give me a Spirit that strives for the faith of the gospel. I don’t want to live a life where I sit idly by on the sidelines. I want to honor you by being in the game, by participating in the offensive attack, by standing strong as I suffer the blows that come against the advance of the gospel. Your gospel is going to move forward with or without me, but I just ask that you let me be a part of it. Don’t let me miss it.
So as I walk through a city seemingly made entirely of Buddhist temples, hold a sick little baby, scrub a dirty bathroom floor, or even order one of those lady’s mango smoothies; I am constantly reminded that the answer to the problems that face the country of Thailand is the exact same as the answer to my own problems. And that answer is something that is worth fighting for. It is something worth suffering for. It is something worth abandoning all else for. And the more I discover the depth and meaning of that answer in my own life, the more I begin to realize that it may even be something that is worth dying for.
