We’ve all heard of these stories about God asking big things of people. He asked Jacob to leave the chaos of his city and go to Bethel to make there an altar. He asked Hosea to relentlessly pursue an adulterous woman. He asked Mother Teresa to go to Calcutta and create a home in a place that lacks hope and worldly comfort. He asked and is still asking Christians to remain faithful to Him in places where they will be killed if they don’t denounce His name. He asks big, bold questions.
At launch in early September, I began thinking a lot about the questions God has asked people and I tried put myself in their shoes but honestly found it hard to. I’m not saying God hasn’t asked me bold questions, but the questions He’s asked have never been hard for me to say yes to. He asked me to give up the comfort of my home for a year and serve internationally, but that’s something I desired as well. I love traveling and missions and I knew college wasn’t the answer so The Race fit and that was that. So when I got onto the field and God asked me a bold question that was in fact hard to say yes to, I was filled with fear and anxiety.
Before we actually began ministry we stayed in a different city in India to recoup from jet lag and have a bit more training on the culture here. In prayer one morning at the house, I heard God ask me to “take the pain of the city.” It was that simple, clear and loud. To be completely honest, I somewhat ignored it at first because I knew it was one of those bold questions. But our God is persistent and I began hearing this multiple times a day until I finally dove into what He was trying to say to me. From my understanding, it was a mixture of a literal and figurative question: to take on the physical hurt of people I would encounter and the emotional distress of the culture. Coming into this understanding, I was again scared. But the Lord doesn’t tempt us over our strength (1 Cor 10:13) and the knowledge of that brought me mass amounts of peace.
The emotional distress showed itself through a deep sadness about the women in this culture while the physical pain came multiple times in different parts of my body. Just one testimony of this is below:
One day I began getting a left hip pain that made it hard to walk or sit. This sharp pain lasted about a day and half and by the end of it I began getting so frustrated at the fact that during ministry no one needed prayed over for anything close to left leg/hip pain so I doubted what God was actually doing. But, again, our God is persistent and faithful and the next night at ministry we prayed over 4 women with left leg and hip pain and one was fully healed. She was able to walk around and stand for more than 2 minutes which is something she hadn’t been able to do for a long time. So while these bold questions God asks are uncomfortable, I now understand the yeses so many Christians have given and continue to give. I now understand why it’s so important to say yes, to allow God’s will to be done. To allow God to do the work, to be broken in order to be built up again.
