Life a Mist

You guys, I am in such a state of unrest. All I think about all day every day, is missions, and my calling. What am I called to do? I came home in April with the thought of being done with living overseas; I wanted to get involved in ministry similar to what I was doing overseas, but here in the States. Honestly, the reasons I want to live in the States descend from decent to overtly selfish: to be close to family and friends – my network of friendship and support – and to be COMFORTABLE. Perhaps this is a shock to you, but ice cold showers at 7 AM (or anytime of the morning or night, for that matter!), and going without running water and electricity, even for brief periods of time, do not increase one’s level of comfort! And I wanted stability…I was tired of the constant moving, changing relationships, etc. So, I have come home, am enjoying being close to friends and family, and my flesh is much more comfortable here than overseas. But meanwhile, my soul grows more restless and discontent every day. For awhile now, I have been telling myself, “You just need to give yourself more time to adjust to being back. Just give it more time.” But it seems that the longer I stay, the more restless I grow, because the things that used to matter to me hardly matter anymore. I feel like there is a passion and a message and a calling exploding inside of me... a cry that there is so much more I – we - need to live for.

A few weeks ago, I was talking to a friend who is preparing to move with her husband and two young children to a small town in Uganda. I was explaining my restlessness and discontent, and my wrestling and questions regarding missions and my calling. I said, “I keep trying to forget about all this, to just leave it all behind and pretend like it never happened so I can be ‘normal’ again…but it’s not working (I hear some of you laughing already…I concede…I have probably always been a handful of fries short of being a normal Happy Meal). Missions and ministry and poverty and orphans and the suffering – and how the Body is supposed to respond to these people and issues - are still all I think about, all I want to talk about.” She quietly replied, “Leah, it’s a gift.” “What if it’s a gift I don’t want?!?” I wailed. “It’s so hard, there’s so much sacrifice, it stretches the crap outta me!!!!! But it’s the only place I have found true life,” I continued more quietly, “the place where I grew into an intimacy with the living Christ that I wouldn’t give up for the world.” Following God overseas was where the following Scripture went from words on a page to life-giving reality for me:

“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?”

For me, it has been in the most scary and difficult decisions to follow God’s call, whether that was to North Park to school, or overseas again and again, that I have lost my life…and found it. How, having tasted the sweetness of intimacy with the Risen Christ, can I now turn my back and walk away from wherever else He calls me?

I saw a picture in my mind a few weeks ago of Jesus hanging on the cross and me on my face before Him. He asked me, “Where would you not go for me? What will you not give up for me?” In light of all He has given, daily gives, and will give in the future – His ALL - how can I give Him anything less than all my life, my time, my money, my resources, my possessions, my desires, my dreams, my comforts, my securities? Paul was right, my friends, it’s all rubbish…trash, dung, pointless, worth absolutely NOTHING, compared to knowing him, the TRUE life he gives, the joy, freedom, comfort, and companionship he brings. All these things on earth that we strive and strain to acquire and achieve, and then worry and fret over – IT’S ALL GOING TO BURN!!!!!!!!!!! What a beautiful, FREEING thought - that it’s ALL going to burn one day soon!!!! Woo-hoo, what FREEDOM!!!!!! So in light of this, why are we living for that stuff now, anyway?!?

I have been realizing again lately how quickly time is just FLYING by…according to Scripture, our lives are a vapor, a mist; we are here today and gone tomorrow. So the burning question inside of me is, “How am I going to spend this short time I have been given??? How am I going to use my “mist”?? I am realizing that every single one of us will work our butts off for something, give our lives to some cause, because that is how we are made…we are made to give our lives to something. So what cause are you giving your life to? Achievement? Skinniness and appearance? A growing bank account? Bigger, newer cars and houses? Other’s approval? Making yourself as happy and entertained and comfortable as possible? What are you living for? What am I living for? Am I going to work my butt of and give my life for things with only earthly value, or am I going to give up earthly “treasures” for heavenly ones?

So lately, scared of the answer, I have been asking in the quietest whisper possible, “Lord, what is your calling for me for this season of my life?” But I think I already know the answer. My heart is yelling and crying out what my mind is scared to hear. My calling is to go to the nations and tell them the hope of Jesus; to sit with the poor and the suffering, knowing I cannot heal their hearts or solve their hunger; to continue to allow my heart to be broken for the things that break His heart, though that means pain for me; to continue to have my eyes opened to the one-third of our world that is starving, the vast numbers of unemployed, the millions upon millions of children without mothers and fathers; and the billions who are dead while they live because they don’t have an intimate relationship with the living Christ. What is my response to be to this? Yours? What is our response supposed to be as the Body, as Jesus with skin on, to this world full of broken, lonely, hurting, oppressed, starving, confused, lied to captives? What are we doing to be intentional about feeding, loving, serving, walking alongside, healing, breaking free? Not that it’s you or me, but it is the living Christ, the God of the whole universe, who lives INSIDE you and inside me, and who works through our mouths, our words, our hands, and our feet. This is what I am desperately seeking from the Lord: “Lord, what do you want my response to be??”