My life is changing. I can feel it. I'm excited and I'm scared. So many things are unknown to me right now. Where will I be in 6 months? 12 months? 18 months? Who will I marry? WILL I even get to marry? Will I continue in this job? Has this job been training for me to work somewhere else? So much I don't know. But one thing I do know... "Faithful is He who is calling me to Himself and utterly trustworthy, and He will also do it [fulfill his call by hallowing and keeping me]."
I love how the amplified says it, "He who is calling you to himself." Often when we talk about going with the gospel we mean send. We send people (missionaries) away to other places. We send them into the unknown, to a place that is dark and unfamiliar. Away from the way that we worship, away from the culture and customs that have shaped their worldview.
Sometime when I think of missionaries I get a romantisized scene in my mind of a man slashing through a dense, dark jungle. A machete is in his right hand and a bible is in the left. Heliocopter blades beat the air in take-off somewhere behind him. The sound fades to only the slice of his machete as he is left there alone. With each swing the brilliance of God is able to shine through a little more over his shoulders. Finally music swells out of no where and with one last swing the missionary is just a silhloutte as the light of God's glory floods through the jungle path to the area infront of him.
While this scene may have it's purposes in depicting a piece of our part in the great comission, I feel like it is terribly inaccurate. In all the talk about sending out missionaries I think we've lost an emphasis on the fact that God is already there. Jesus said, "My father is at work even until now. He has never ceased working; He is still working." God is not asking us to slash our way through darkness ahead of Him, while he waits for us to clear a path. He is calling us to Himself. He calls us to come work with Him. "Come share Me with these people. Come fight against the unjustices happening here, where I am already working." He is already there, no matter where the there may be.
As I'm looking for God to lead my life and use me for whatever he wants I'm finding so much hope and peace in being asked to come here by my Creator rather than just being sent away by my church.
SIDENOTE: I am thinking of starting a short (2-3 min) weekly(ish) video blog in preparation for my mission trip to India this summer. Nothing fancy, basically just introducing what we will be doing, who we'll be working with, what some needs/prayer requests might be as we prepare to leave. Leave a comment on the blog or on my facebook if that is something you'd be interested in watching, no worries if you're not interested. I'm asking because I don't want to spend the time doing it if only my parents want to watch. (Not that I don't like doing things for my parents, it's just that they already know that information. ;-P)
