A hint of surrender
This weekend John asked me what I thought about missions--specifically where I related to them. Little did he know that he was knocking on a door I'd been opening a lot during the last several months. Various chapel speakers would relate the need on the mission field--two women from Wytcliffe vividly painted the faces of people receiving God's word for the first time in their native language. My roommate has never stopped talking passionately about her heart for the Romanian orphans she met on spring break. And I started asking myself what I did think about missions.
I remember coming home from summer mission trips in high school. Outwardly I was excited--I was serving God on the mission field, sharing the good news of Christ...but inwardly, the entire thing frankly scared me to death, and I'd breathe a sigh of relief when it was all over. And I'd feel horrible for feeling that way. After all, Christ told us to share his good news with all people. It wasn't "all people" I feared. It was the "sharing the good news." So I came home from Hong Kong, Peru, and Trinidad secretly deciding that I had done my duty, I obviously wasn't called to missions because it scared me, and now I could go on and get started with my "real" life in the U.S. of A. But lately I'm not so sure. When I hear about missions (both foreign and domestic)--I immediately start making excuses to myself--how I'm not called, how I don't have the missionary skills, how God would obviously never send me. And my reaction is much the same with sharing my faith in general. Instead of looking for ways to talk about Christ, I look for ways to avoid it. I know that isn't the way it should be. I have the bread of life, and all I do is hoard it.
On the drive back from Ohio, my thoughts returned to this now-familiar path. But this time they went further. As I was thinking about my plans for the future, I felt God speaking to my heart with a clarity I rarely experience. He said to me, "Don't hold your life too tightly...it might not be what you've got planned." And I'm still not quite sure what to call the feeling I experienced. But with David Crowder in the background and my hands gripping the steering wheel, my heart began to soften--and it tasted of surrender. I still don't know where my place is in missions--maybe God is simply telling me to open my mind about a possibility--maybe I'll spend the entirety of my life working a 9 to 5. But I know my mission hasn't left me there either.
I remember coming home from summer mission trips in high school. Outwardly I was excited--I was serving God on the mission field, sharing the good news of Christ...but inwardly, the entire thing frankly scared me to death, and I'd breathe a sigh of relief when it was all over. And I'd feel horrible for feeling that way. After all, Christ told us to share his good news with all people. It wasn't "all people" I feared. It was the "sharing the good news." So I came home from Hong Kong, Peru, and Trinidad secretly deciding that I had done my duty, I obviously wasn't called to missions because it scared me, and now I could go on and get started with my "real" life in the U.S. of A. But lately I'm not so sure. When I hear about missions (both foreign and domestic)--I immediately start making excuses to myself--how I'm not called, how I don't have the missionary skills, how God would obviously never send me. And my reaction is much the same with sharing my faith in general. Instead of looking for ways to talk about Christ, I look for ways to avoid it. I know that isn't the way it should be. I have the bread of life, and all I do is hoard it.
On the drive back from Ohio, my thoughts returned to this now-familiar path. But this time they went further. As I was thinking about my plans for the future, I felt God speaking to my heart with a clarity I rarely experience. He said to me, "Don't hold your life too tightly...it might not be what you've got planned." And I'm still not quite sure what to call the feeling I experienced. But with David Crowder in the background and my hands gripping the steering wheel, my heart began to soften--and it tasted of surrender. I still don't know where my place is in missions--maybe God is simply telling me to open my mind about a possibility--maybe I'll spend the entirety of my life working a 9 to 5. But I know my mission hasn't left me there either.
posted by Mandy at 5:38 PM
1 Comments:
"I have the bread of life, and all I do is hoard it."
I so identified with this "missions scare" you speak of. It is being loosened in me - but not in the forced way I had expected. I like the wondering place you are in.
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