When Missions Gets All Over You

Missions has gotten all over me. In the picture above it was quite a literal thing. In this case, missions got right up in my shoe. That part of missions is the part you have probably experienced right here in the US. This is not the type of "getting all over" I discuss below of course but I thought this might be a good picture to start your brain in the right direction.

When missions gets all over you it is a beautiful thing to watch. When the reality of the gospel in your own life begins to morph into the reality that millions of people all over the world have never heard the gospel. It stirs a dangerous concoction. People you have never met from places you have never been in parts of the world that you have never thought about begin to invade your thoughts. People you have seen on the news from places you know are dangerous have read about in parts of the world you have dreamed about flood your mind. Money you had saved to do things that entertain gets spent on things that to the world seem worthless.

I haven't always had a heart for missions. In fact, just a few short years ago I would have told you that I was called to stay right here in the US and possibly never leave...certainly not relocate. I remember praying a pitiful but effective prayer for the Lord to give me a heart for missions. How laughable this was. I was missing the point that a heart for missions is the heart the Lord wants me to have all the time.....His heart. A heart to share the gospel with those who are just as lost as I was. Most of them with little to no opportunity to hear the gospel.

The result of this prayer was disasterous. The most dangerous parts of town started to look appealing because they housed people for whom the gospel was being twisted. Countries a world away became my "vacation" spots where I could use my company-allotted vacation to visit people who needed to hear that there is one true God who payed the price for their sins to bring them into relationship with Him...their greatest joy. I began to really see people and realized that we are all the same without Christ....Lost. It totally messed up everything I had thought life should be.

I watched these effects play out in a businessman who was reluctant to go overseas but followed out of obedience. As soon as his feet hit the ground it seemed his heart began to burn for the Guatemalan people and their physical and spiritual poverty. I watched as he loved each and every child even playing with them until he was physically exhausted continually saying, they just need to be loved!

I watched as a friend sold off a "luxury" in order to go to a people group in South America and was considering what resources it would take to go to yet another continent where the gospel was scarce.

I have watched as a mother readjusts her familie's schedule each week to drive into a drug-ridden area to reflect the love of Christ to a teenager.

I have watched as families pack up their children and go both short and long-term to places where the danger to Christ-Followers is so real that their location can only be known by a small group of close contacts.

All of this is considered by the world as idiotic. If you have one life, why in the world are you going to spend it traveling to much less living in places where there is only dirty water to drink or in low income locations where you or your children could be in danger. Why in the world would you live at less than your income affords for the sake of someone else? The answer is that this life is not all that we have. This is just the warm-up, the prelude, the pre-game show. We are looking forward to a day when we will be with our Savior but until then we will continue to tell others about Him so that they can be reunited with Him as well. So as we near that day, we live out the commandment to take the good news of the gospel into all nations; US and abroad. We must remember that iIn the words of David Platt, "You are the Plan of God, and there is no Plan B."