Staying = Radical Obedience? Sometimes.

They were sitting there on our blue couch, earnest and eager as they told us about the Bright Mountain People*. Hubby and I traced curious fingers over pictures they had brought and tried to imagine living there, with all the foreign tastes, sounds and mannerisms. Such a beautiful people, but such a hopeless future without a Savior.

(not actual picture...only my imaginings)

As teens, our friends had heard about missionaries like Wycliff, Carmichal, and Elliot, but always as a history lesson to encourage the now. All the dangerous work had been done, they thought.

But then, they had a profound realization:

There are still entire cultures that have never heard the name of Jesus. 

 And each year, millions of people die without ever hearing of the God who loved them and died to buy their freedom from death. So our friends went, committing to a lifetime of language learning, relationship-building, and sacrificial living so that the statistic could change.

I was sitting there on the other couch, feeling as if I had swallowed a bag of hot marbles. What am I doing here while people are dying? I wondered. The faces from the pictures were still there when I shut my eyes, and I had a sudden urge to quit my job, sell my car, and book a flight. What if I missed my calling? I even felt a throb of jealousy, that they were living my old dream while I did laundry and brought home paychecks.

My response was not entirely wrong; it is right to be heartbroken over the eternal death of millions of people. If we feel more sadness over a flat tire or a disappointing football game, we need to do a serious gut check.

But I have a tendency to want to rescue people myself, rather than looking to the Rescuer.

An even bigger confession: I have a deep, inner aversion to averageness. Even as a 2nd grader, I hated earning less than an A+ on school assignments.  As a teenager, when I pictured my future, it never included the typical elements of the American Dream. I never wanted the picket fence, the cul-de-sac, the 2.5 kids or the fat paycheck. I wanted to be 100% sold out for Jesus and His Kingdom. In my mind, that meant that I would live sacrificially,  give extravagantly, and home school my nine children while my husband and I went to the furthest corners of the globe with the good news that Jesus reconciles broken people.

And none of this is bad in the least. Even now, many godly people are living this lifestyle and giving all the glory to Jesus.

 But do I desire this radical lifestyle because Jesus desires it from me? Or is it because I want to be "a cut above" your average Jesus-follower? Maybe it's a mix. Most of my movitations are, if I get real with myself.

Truth: even good activities can be downright disobedient if God hasn't asked you to do them. 
(King Saul found that out the hard way. For his story, check out 1 Samuel 15:22)

As I've prayed and journaled through these thoughts, here are some in-progress conclusions:

1) I should make sure my heart is in a position of continual availability to go. Maybe the answer I have taken as "no" is in reality "not yet." If I knew He would send me outside the US in five years, how would that knowledge affect the way I live today? As my cousin, Jeremy recently tweeted: "Your vision of the future affects the decisions of your life today. Without a heart set on eternity you will live for only temporary things."

2) I should be humble enough to realize that Jesus may want me to live a life of faithfulness and relative obscurity, devoid of the moving stories, exotic passport stamps or flashy sacrifices. Am I willing to accept obscurity, the life of the suburban soccer mom and "sideline involvement" in missions if that's what Jesus asks of me? It takes faith to believe that being still and patient can accomplish as much as radical action. Staying can be its own sacrifice, and secret prayer may be more news-worthy in Heaven than any foreign travels on earth.

*The "Bright Mountain People" are called by a pseudonym here, to protect our friends and other workers who bring them the Good News. 

Invisible Gardening

Buried in darkness, the germ of life waits in secret. So much potential packaged so tiny, lost in the loam, out of sight.

Under the heat lamp and the peat and the dark, the first finger of growth presses through membrane into the earth and tiny fibers take shape. Cells add themselves to each other feverishly, exploding quietly.

But above the lamp, I hover. I'm impatient. I see none of the growth below, and the dirt is just dirt, and I wait.

You might have noticed that I haven’t blogged. Normally, I’m not one to lack words, but the creativity seemed buried as well this Christmas. In many ways, my heart has been like a seed in one of my peat trays, growing invisibly, even to me. 

Most mornings I’ve had to take a deep breath, releasing my desire to perform and achieve and produce, trusting that even in the darkness, the Gardener was doing something good in me.

Out my back door lies a freshly dug hole, wide and shallow. My biceps ache, but I’m happy. In the hole rests a new wooden box I made, open to receive compost and the baby plants that now stretch green toward my desk lamp.

So much preparation, weeks in advance of any growth.

For the past few months, I have plugging away doggedly at the things I know are good for my heart. I’ve been reading a challenging book, asking myself the challenging questions, choosing to be vulnerable. And honestly, the lack of visible growth been frustrating.  I’m a more patient gardener than I am a garden, it seems.

But last night, a friend told me that I seemed less anxious and more trusting than I was in the fall. A tendril of green that I had overlooked!

Even when our hearts feel like bare dirt, He is good, and He is at work.