just.listen

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,    the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,

When I came back from Thailand six years ago, I thought that would be the end of short term trips for me. A part of me ardently agrees with this sentiment. I didn’t want to go again until I was ready to stay because sometimes these short trips can seem more like a vacation to slake the conscience than a truly purposeful mission. What difference can you really make in just two short weeks? I’ve been here for almost two years and sometimes wonder if it has made a difference.

So why go just to leave as it finally begins to feel familiar? Because God is at work in a myriad of ways and we are aware of but a few. A good friend wrote this excellent post about the tension that we experience on these brief trips. Someday we will be reunited on the new earth, where we will finally be able to behold God’s master tapestry of which we were but a small and seemingly insignificant thread. 

Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!

If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there you hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me.

This song has been on repeat all week. It’s a song that I imagine Eric Liddell would sing with gusto. Here was a man who could have “had it all” as the world would put it-- fame, fortune, family, maybe even happiness. Instead he counted it all as loss for the sake of God and the gospel. Instead he died in a makeshift grave in an obscure part of China in his pursuit of perfect, everlasting joy. 

I stumbled on his biography at just the right time. I’d been home for another wedding. There are few pleasures sweeter than celebrating the happiest day of your friend’s life. But this time everything sweet turned bitter. As the years creep by, even the most adamantly independent among us begins to wonder, “Is my day ever going to come?” 

And while marriage is good (so good!), it’s not ultimate. Eric Liddell met and married the love of his life, then spent much of that marriage separated from his wife and children. Why? Because he knew a love that far surpassed anything that anyone in the world could offer. 

His life constantly pointed to the glory of Christ, but the all-surpassing worth of Christ shines through even brighter in the testimony of the daughter he never held. She is honest about the pain and the grief that his absence created in her childhood. The struggle was real. But ultimately she realizes that her father loved his family best by loving Jesus most. 

He was worth every lonely night. He was worth every hurt endured. 

People ask me why Jordan. Why the Middle East? Well, there's the command. But then there's also the compulsion. I think now the glorious imagery of Revelation 7 drives my heart for missions even more than the Great Commission. The command reveals our obligation to the unreached. The compulsion flows from a heart filled with affection for Christ and the unreached.

Then I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, "Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!"

I'm living for that day. I want to spend my life hastening that day.

I’m never really sure how to answer now when I travel between New Jersey and South Dakota. If home is merely where your heart is, then the answer is both. But if home is much more than that-- if home is the place we were made for, where we are completely filled and fully loved-- then the answer is neither.

A couple months ago, I attended a conference and one of the plenary sessions was titled, “Following Jesus far from home.” Mind you, this was a Christian women’s conference. Stay-at-home mom was probably one of the most popular professions among the attendees. The message was clear: if we’re followers of Jesus, then we’re all far from home on this earth. It makes no difference whether we are still in our childhood home or thousands of miles away in unfamiliar territory. Wherever we are, we’re only sojourners and exiles.

Once again I found myself reflecting on Hebrews 11:

8 By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. 9 By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.10 For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God... 13 All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth.14 People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. 15 If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return.16 Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

It’s been a constant source of encouragement over this year and a half of settling into a new place. It helps to be reminded that no place on this earth is truly home. Otherwise you keep looking back, keep wishing for what once was.

While reflecting on this past week, one question pierced through like a knife: If you can’t even love the people in your life now, how do you expect to love people in another country, from another culture? If you can’t love the ones that are merely annoying, how are you going to love the ones that are openly hostile?

There are plenty of songs on my playlist that speak of worship in the midst of suffering. But what about in the midst of frustration? Maybe it’s just that it doesn’t have quite as a nice a ring to it. “Even when it hurts” certainly sounds better than “even when it’s annoying.”Or maybe we just don’t realize it’s as important to worship in the midst of everyday frustrations as it is in the throes of suffering. 

But that’s exactly the life Jesus modeled for us. Though his love was supremely demonstrated on Calvary, that love was a constant undercurrent of a life filled with frustration. He was constantly pestered by people who just wanted favors done. His closest friends were often pathetically clueless. More often that he probably liked, he’d sigh, “Don’t you get it yet?” And yet that exasperation never kept him from loving them. 

It’s easier to write about than to live. I wish I could say I’ve learned to love like Jesus, but I haven’t. I fail miserably just about every single day. But rather than fixating on our failures, we’re called to turn our eyes to Jesus. 

While out for my morning run I just had to stop and whisper a word of praise for another beautiful and undeserved day

My life hasn’t panned out the way I thought it would. But that’s a good thing. There is no way I ever could have planned for this. Looking back even on just the last few years, it’s never been clearer that God works all things for the good of those who love him. He has grown me most in the unexpected seasons of life. 

I never planned on walking away from the Church. The people I’ve met since graduating college would probably be shocked to find that not too long ago, I was on the fast track to hell. Among those guilty of suppressing the truth, I was one of the worst. But the beauty of the gospel is that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. If it hadn’t been for that period of open rebellion, I think God’s never stopping, never giving up, always and forever love would still be more fairy tale fantasy than precious reality. When you finally realize you’ve been forgiven much, you learn to love much. It’s his faithfulness that gives me confidence in going on missions. Only he can change a leper’s spots and melt a heart of stone. 

I never planned on moving to the middle of nowhere (in the US, anyway). Time would fail me to tell of all God has taught me since he brought me here, but I think the main lesson has been this: I can’t do this. I can’t love when it’s hard. For someone who takes great pride in being independent, it has been surprisingly liberating to realize just how desperately needy I actually am. Because his grace is sufficient, and his power is made perfect in our weakness. 

Praise God that as high as the heavens are above the earth, so are his thoughts and ways higher than ours.

Pray that God would show us and the people we’re ministering to that we can never be good enough, that is is only by grace that we are saved. 

Pray that we sow faithfully, trusting that it is God who gives the growth

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

Just these first three verses are so rich with meaning and encouragement. I'm a little embarrassed to admit-- it has taken me 20+ years of churchgoing to realize that being a Christian is less about following a set of rules and more about following an example. On an intellectual level, I knew, but practically it wasn't happening. One day I found myself fixated on the word "consider." Nerd that I am, I looked up its Latin root and found that it could mean "to observe the stars." 

That just blew my mind. How many times had a glazed over this passage without really taking it to heart? How often had I thought my paltry few minutes of meditation counted as "considering" Christ? The truth is that I had probably never really considered Christ before. Especially since moving out here, I have known the pleasure of observing the stars. There's no time keeping involved. There's no wondering what is going to happen next. In that moment, you can think of nothing other than the infinite wonder before your eyes. In that moment, everything else seems to fade. As I reflected on the stars, it made so much sense that the writer of Hebrews would urge his readers to consider Christ in that context. They're weary and discouraged. He doesn't tell them to think positively. He doesn't tell them to naively hope for a better day. Instead he tells them to fix their eyes on Christ-- Christ in his suffering. Christ crucified, the hope of glory. That's what we fix our eyes on when we're weary and losing heart.

Among the difficult sayings of Jesus, this is perhaps one of the most difficult for me to swallow. I love my parents deeply. But they don’t want me to be a missionary. Ever. Especially not to the Middle East.

And that kills me inside.

But for many Muslims, the consequences of dishonoring one’s family can be even more severe. It can literally get them killed. I remember a former Muslim teammate sharing her testimony between deep sobs. When she became a Christian, her own father attacked her with a knife. She eventually had to obtain a restraining order against the man who had raised her.

Following Christ may be costly, but it is always worth it.

Pray that I would be able to humbly but clearly convey my heart for Jesus to my parents. Pray that they would see how love for Christ naturally overflows into love for the unreached.

Pray that God would give my parents faith to stop worrying and trust that he is far more capable than they are of keeping me safe. And that even if he doesn’t, he’s still perfectly good, completely powerful, and unquestionably wise.

Truly I say to you, no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or land for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.

For whatever reason (read: God), these past couple weeks have been the ones in which strangers have chosen to engage me. The inevitable question always arises, “So where are you from?” (The implication being I am clearly not from around here.) After I answer, most of them begin to speculate on how difficult it must have been. My knee-jerk reflex is to say it wasn’t. But when I actually think about it and can be honest about it, it was. Those first few months, I thought often of packing up and going home. It’s why I still don’t own more than what will fit in my car. Those first few months, for the first time I could remember, the full force of loneliness hit when I was alone. 

It’s the kind of question only an objective third party could ask, but one that needs more asking. The preceding question was much simpler. It’s a lot easier to talk about the thorns that other people bring into the workplace. Unfortunately the brokenness that we’re best able to address is the one we’re least willing to admit-- our own. 

For me, at least, the brokenness I bring to work is of the kind that I fear most, because it’s the root of all sin: pride. It took much longer to realize this than it should have. I mostly blame denial. I didn’t want to believe that I’m also part of the problem. But I also think it happened because we now tend to shy away from accountability. 

Maybe we don’t want to be perceived as the unqualified judge. Or maybe we just aren’t willing to remove the specks for one another because it would mean removing our own planks first. 

We have unknowingly bought into the lie that to love someone is to accept every part of them unconditionally, including their vices. But it isn’t true. True love wars against the things that threaten to destroy us. Kisses from an enemy multiply, but wounds from a friend can be trusted.