So it's time to wrap this thing up kiddies. I've got a book more to say on the topic...the countless times I've fallen flat on my face and didn't mind my business and the few glimpses and occasions when I knew that God was using me for a purpose to serve my business well. But I wanted to dive into one of these areas of business with you. I mentioned it briefly last time...
Your Business :: The Nations
Oh my loves, that you would fall so in love with Jesus that your heart would break for the nations. They are your business, babies. Our great God said to make disciples of them! He has chosen people from every tribe and every tongue and every nation to be His special possession. We must, must take the Good News to them.
We came to our church nearly nine years ago and M was there. Brand spankin' new herself. She was a beautiful young lady with an infectious laugh and killer smile. We watched her walk with Jesus through High School; challenging her peers to live out their faith and bringing others who didn't know what faith was, to Him. We called her our "other second daughter". She and Syd are so much alike...full of life, loads of moxy, and genuinely caring through and through. They both give the best hugs around and can make you laugh at your saddest moments. She went with a team led by my dad to South Africa when she was in High school. {Jase nor I went that time...but she did!} We adore M and were not surprised at all, when upon finishing her Bachelors Degree in Education, she answered the call of the Lord to go to the nations for two years.
M now serves in Southeast Asia. She's learning a new language, a new culture and a new reality. Sacrificing so much...
Without her parents.
Without her friends.
Without comfort.
Without, without, without.
My Blackberry dinged with an email from M a few days ago. I had sent her an excerpt from my blog post about our business via email {before I published it}. It struck me as I wrote it, that she is minding her business...I won't copy the entire thing here. But for you, my loves, I want you to have this. I want you to see the heart of someone who is scared and brave, quiet and bold, sad and joyful.
December 30, 2011
Mankind is our business. How many times lately have I wished that I had chosen an easier business? I think too many to count. I think I may start crying right here in the middle of one of my favorite cafes in all of Southeast Asia. That's a little dramatic, but needless to say the past week or two has been mighty hard. I keep thinking, it's not that I want to go home, it's just that I wish things were easier. I wish it was an easier road...loving people, following Him. I wish that it was an easier road...moving to a new place, learning a new language, building new relationships, understanding the ways of the culture, taking every thought captive, denying myself, the list goes on and on. I think about y'all in all of it, too. I wish the road of adoption was easier...that no pain of loss would rock you like it has, that doors would fling open, that the strain and drain of the waiting wasn't so taxing, and I'm sure much more that I know nothing of (yet). But here we are. It's hard and it's life. And in my flesh, I wish it was easier.
What I know is that it won't really get easier. Oh great, right? I mean I know there are highs and lows in everything. The more you love though, the harder it gets. But you know I wouldn't trade it. In the midst of all of it, I've just been asking Father to give me the grace to just walk. And grace He has given. It's humbling and convicting to think about walking a road like His, a road where you leave home and become nothing (even though I never really was anything to begin with), a road where you aren't like anyone else and everyone around you is dying. And for y'all, a road on a mission to adopt a child as a son, a road where you sacrifice so much to rescue and redeem a life without security or hope or love, to create a family from broken pieces. And it just is humbling to think that He would even let us walk a road even close to the one He walked. At the same time, it is terrifying to me. Only because I know that in my heart, becoming like Him means the removal of myself. And we all know that isn't the most fun thing in the world to deal with. Because myself likes myself. But I know He is better, and I know I want it. I'm just asking as of late that He would deal gently with me, but that He would get me out of here. One foot in front of the other is sometimes the theme of these days, but you know, it's true that there is this undeniable peace in the midst of all of it. While I feel like my life is crazy, He is this One unmistakable constant. So good all the time, and every day I see it.
We just finished our second 4 week unit of language, and we just had a week break. We have another week off before we go back to language class on the 9th. It's crazy to think that I've been here for almost 3 months. I think what's hard is that I got all pumped to come here and share and teach and serve and we're still learning language...very SLOWLY. :) I came to the realization a week or so ago though that He is glorified in all of it. If I got on a plane tomorrow to go somewhere else where I never used this language ever again, I did it for His Name's sake, and that's enough. What an awesome revelation! It is true how much gratitude and conviction go together. I'm so thankful for the opportunity and that drives me to want to learn more and more. For so long I was thinking how in the world am I effective when all I can do is shoot the breeze with people, but then He leads me to Isaiah 57.
"Build up, build up, prepare the road! Remove obstacles out of the way of my people." For this is what the high and lofty One says - He who lives forever, whose name is holy: "I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite...I have seen his ways, but I will heal him; I will guide him and restore comfort to him, creating praise on the lips of the mourners of Israel. Peace, peace, to those far and near," says the L. "And I will heal them." But the wicked are like the tossing sea, which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and mud. "There is no peace," says my G, "for the wicked."
How cool is that in walking the same road as He did, we are preparing the road for those who walk behind us. So if I'm in SE Asia walking, I'm building up the road, shining light on the way to the Father. If I can't say another word in this language, I've shown a path not yet seen to people here. And the same with y'all. You are building up the road to all who come behind you. You are walking the adoption road toward the heart of Dad, and although He is so much higher than we are, we walks with us, comforts us, and heals us. Even when we're all jacked up and mess up. He says, "Peace." It's precious to me. And I end up being so, so, SO thankful. And then, when Isaiah writes that Dad says, "There is no peace for the wicked." I am convicted anew about my role here in this place. We are the children of the Light, children of the only, true, eternal peace. And I have the opportunity and great privilege to share that Peace with this place. There is no peace apart from Him, and as much as I know that, I see it even more here. I've been understanding more and more that it's not peace, joy, love, and hope that He gives as much as He gives us Himself, and He is all of those things. And that is enough.
1 comment:
" ...to give me the grace just to walk." I never give much thought to the "work" before the "work" of our missionaries. How grateful I am for M and her heart for her business.
We have a "second daughter" from the ministry too. She's going to be a mama next month. How time flies.
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