It Could Cost You Your Life

It could cost you your life…

As my teachers talk in class at New Tribes Bible Institute and I think through what I’m learning, this is what I keep coming back to; the realization that if I continue to pursue overseas missions that I could be giving up everything I have ever had. I’m not just talking about the promising and prosperous life in the States that many friends and family seem so sure I’m guaranteed to have if I stay here. I could be giving up the very breath that I breathe. People can, and do, die on the mission field, and I can’t just say something along the lines of, “Oh, that can’t happen to me”, because it could happen to me, as it could to any other missionary on the field. Trying to reach people who have never heard the Gospel of Christ could easily cost me my life.

Ant the more I’ve thought through this, the more I’ve come to realize that I am okay with it costing me my life. Why? Because it already has.

My life is immaterial, nothing more than a breath in eternity. Yet Christ came down from His perfect heaven and died for mere breaths; sinners like me who deserved eternal hell. He took our punishment upon Himself while we rejected Him, and to accept that gift of salvation, all we have to do is believe in Him and what He did for us.

I’ve come to the realization that I want to please the God who did that for all of us. I know that that won’t make a difference in being saved; my works are not what cause my salvation. I’m grateful for the work that He has already completed, and as a follower of Christ I want to live for Him. And if I truly follow in His footsteps, that means I die with Him.

The thing about that is this; I have died with Him. Galatians 2:20 says, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me.

This is why I have come to be okay with the idea of losing my life for this. I no longer belong to myself, I belong to Christ, and nothing better could happen to me. God opened up my eyes to what is Real, and what is Real is Him. I find my identity in Him, and He died for me. Therefore, I will live for Him.

I’m not perfect, nor do I show Christ perfectly. I am still human and still struggle with sin. However, He continues to grow in me and though I know I will never be perfected as long as I live in this human body, He is faithful, as He always has been.

He knows what He has planned for me. That doesn’t mean His plans are going to be easy or simple. That doesn’t mean I won’t get sick or always be safe. What it does mean is that I can rest in Him and His faithfulness. I can rest in the fact that here I serve Him and when I die, I will be with Him.

And that’s something else- I’m going to die someday anyway. It’s a fact of life; no one makes it out alive. So why shouldn’t I spend my life sharing the only thing in this life that has kept me alive. I attempted suicide once, and it is by His grace that I’m here. If it wasn’t for God and what He’s taught me, I have no doubt that I would have tried again. He has given me joy that has stopped me from a second attempt and He reminds me that, though in myself I have not worth, because of the gift of His Son, I have infinite worth. Because He gave me the gift of life, both spiritually and physically, my life is forfeit to His will. I have no qualms about sharing His gift with those who have never heard and have no chance to hear unless someone brings His Word to them.

The best part is that He has given me new life, and it’s His. So yeah, it will cost me my life, and it already has.  

Who Will it Be?

“If not us, tell me who will be, like Jesus, like Jesus to the least of these” –Audio Adrenaline; Kings and Queens

This is a line from one of my favorite songs in the world, but the meaning of it never took full shape until I listened to it today- the first time I heard it since I was an intern at an orphanage in Guatemala. All of the sudden, the lyrics took a new form.

I thought about the work I did this summer, serving the Lord and loving those kids that I miss so much now. I thought about how I did my best to show them Christ’s love for them and that they had worth and a purpose in Him. I couldn’t have done that without going.

There are children all over the world that have never known love or compassion. They’ve never felt the warmth of a hug or seen the gentleness of a smile. They’ll never come to know Christ because no one is there to show Him.

Yet so many of us still sit here, safe at home on our couches, thinking that someone else will reach out to these precious children. We may sponsor a missionary or even a child (And don’t think I’m discouraging those things, they are fantastic) but we never go ourselves. I’m not saying that everyone is called to other countries but there are children facing this problem over the whole world and there are probably some in your home town that you could reach out to. But there is still that excuse- that someone else will go.

What if every person said that?

There would be no one left to go.

There would be no one showing Christ to the lost.

There would be no one to love those broken children.

We as Christians are called to show Christ’s love to everyone. Now whether God is calling to local ministry, ministry within your country or worldwide ministry doesn’t make a difference. We are all called to some type of ministry and when we feel prompted to reach out to the least of these, we need to respond. We can’t just say that someone else will do what God is calling us to. If we won’t shine the light of Christ in the world as God’s children, then who will?

One other line in this song that I am particularly fond of is this- “And just like a drum I can hear their hearts beating/I know my God won’t let them be defeated”. It is true that God won’t let them be defeated by their circumstances, but so often what He uses to rescue them is us.

We have to be willing to follow Him into whatever He has planned.

We need to be ready to be used however He sees fit.

That could be going to a foreign country and working on an orphanage like I did. It could be fostering or adopting a child. It could be as simple as reaching out to that kid that is always alone in your town. The main thing is doing whatever God is leading you towards, no matter the cost.

Because eventually, we’ll run out of people who can say that someone else can do their job.

God has a purpose for every one of us individually. Follow Him and He will never lead you astray. Following His plan for you (I speak from experience in this) not only will change the lives of those He sends you to, but it will change yours as well.

(On a personal note) I know I am not the same since I got back from Guatemala, and I couldn’t be more grateful. I can’t wait to see what He has planned for me and I am ready for Him to send me wherever He deems fit.

Basically, I'm encouraging you to reach out; to show Christ's love however you can and wherever you are lead. There is no greater call than to be Christ to the world and, as Christians, it is a call we all have. 

Leaving Home

I wrote this a while ago, before I left Guatemala, but at the time I was hurting too much. So I’m posting it now, a week or so later and I’m still struggling just as a note.

[So this is a little less lesson and a lot more of just what’s going on. It’s Thursday as I am writing this and I’m leaving Guatemala tomorrow night. And it is breaking my heart. Last night was my last church service here and Katie asked me to speak. So I did. I’ll try to write what I said as close as I remember it.

Hey guys,

I just wanted to thank you guys for the time here and for allowing me to love on you guys. It has been incredible and I’m different because of it. I’ve learned to love more openly and honestly because of you guys.

When I came here, I was not a loving person and I was going to do things here the same way I did it back home. I was going to love ya’ll, but from a distance. I wasn’t going to love you strongly enough to get hurt or so that I would get attached… but… (This is where I started choking up and shaking and almost crying) but I couldn’t do that. From the very first week, I loved you. All of you.

I’ve grown to love every single person in this room. Every one of you means so much to me and it’s going to kill me to leave you. It is breaking my heart and it hurts so much, but know that I wouldn’t change a single moment. I’m praying that God is going to send me back here next year, but I don’t know if that is His plan for me yet. If it was my choice though, I wouldn’t come back next summer. I wouldn’t have to because I would never leave. I’d stay here with all of you.

So I guess what I wanted to say is thank you again. For letting me love you all, and for loving me back. It’s been a blessing. Thank you.

I wish that I had said more, but I couldn’t. I was on the verge of tears and my voice was starting to crack. But every word I said was true. I have learned to love deeper and more sacrificially than I ever have and I will love these kids my whole life, whether God sends me back or not.

It is breaking my heart though. When I started working on packing to go back, I sobbed. How can I leave these kids that have become my world and this place that has become more of a home than anywhere else?

There is one especially that every time I see him, I want to cry. God has laid this one specific child on my heart and at first, I thought; God, You’re crazy. This kids hates me. He glares at me all the time and yells at me (in Korean so I really couldn’t understand him [His old house parents were Korean]) and whenever I have to watch the boys’ house, he makes it clear that he doesn’t want me there from how he treats me. Finally though, I surrendered to His will and started focusing on loving this particular child. At first it was difficult, but I kept working on it and praying for him and after about two weeks, he started to not be so rude towards me, and when he would yell at me, it wasn’t so vehement, and more teasing. If I laughed about it he would smile at me instead of glare. He started picking on me the way the other boys that liked me did and he really started to grow on me. The other day he even came up and hugged me and started talking to me in slow enough Spanish that I would mostly understand. So after making so much progress with him and him finally liking me, I have to leave

Every single child in this place is precious to me. I love them all and nothing in me wants to leave. I don’t want tomorrow to come and ruin all of this. 

Needless to say, emotionally I’m a mess right now. But what I said to the kids last night still stand- despite the pain and the heartbreak, despite the tears, I wouldn’t change a moment and I am so glad that I learned to love these kids fully and completely.]

Now I am back in the United States and I have been for a week and two days… And it feels so… wrong. Wrong to have left the place that I loved and began to think of as home and wrong to have left those kids I love. Still God put me in Guatemala for a reason and He sent me back for a reason. I don’t know what that is, but it know there will be a purpose. I just hope that He chooses to send me back to my Guatemalan home soon.

Loving Dangerously?

So a couple of days ago (Wednesday) my perspective was a little skewed. I wasn’t in a great place spiritually and I had a post all ready about it. I since have come out of that place and had a change of perspective. I was just going to delete what I had written and not post it, but then I decided that I would show where I had been and then talk about what I have realized since then.

Here’s the original post from Wednesday-

[I’m going to admit right now; this is going to be a little different than my normal posts. Normally I post a lesson or something that God has been teaching me, but today this is more of a confession of a struggle of mine that has really been pushed in my face these last couple of days.

When our newest intern came a couple of weeks ago, he and I had a good conversation in the first few days. He talked about what he called “loving dangerously”. By that he meant loving even when you know you are going to get hurt and sacrificing yourself for others.

I thought it was a good theory, but not something I do. I love people, but from a distance. I don’t let myself be close enough to be hurt, because if life has taught me one thing, it’s that everyone leaves eventually. Loving others deeply and allowing yourself to get close only means pain for yourself. That’s how I’ve been the last couple of years. It’s how I think.

But it’s not how I’ve been able to operate here.

I didn’t even realize it, but the other people here started to steal my heart from the first week, especially the kids and the other interns. I fell totally in love with the kids and was finding new and very close friends in the other interns. I was opening up totally to loving others and I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was loving dangerously.

I didn’t realize it until today (Wednesday) when one of the other interns had to go to the hospital. I was scared for and worried about her. I was hurting for her and that’s when I realized how attached I was to everyone here.

I ended up sitting on the roof once again and thinking. I was hurting and mad at myself for it. I kept saying in my head; you know what happens when you get attached to others. You get hurt every time. You’ve learned that in the past. How can you be so stupid to let it happen again? Why open yourself up to this again?

Those thoughts were unrelenting. I was mad at myself for leaving myself vulnerable to this and honestly still kind of am.

I know that it’s far too late to distance myself from the others here, especially the kids. Once I get attached and love someone like that, I can’t stop. And that scares me. I’m leaving in only 9 days from when I’m writing this and I know that it’s going to tear me apart. I have already thought about leaving and how much I hate the idea; how much I want to stay with these children I love so much. Sometime during this month I started thinking of this place as home, and even referring to it as such. After a trip to Antigua with the other interns, I remember saying that I couldn’t wait to get home and sleep. And I meant it. This place has become a home to me because of the people. That’s not normal and very frightening.

And here’s the struggle part- normally in my posts, I’ve overcome something. I’ve learned something and have been able to press on. Not this time though. This time I’m still questioning, still wondering. Even as I type, I wonder whether it was worth getting so attached to the others here. This time I don’t have an answer. I know that as a Christian I am supposed to have those deep relationships, supposed to love sacrificially, but in my heart it’s just not reconciling. Are those deep relationships worth the pain that is inevitably hand in hand with them?

Sorry for the difference in my post. This is what I’m struggling with and I want to be totally honest about it.]

Since then I have realized that, though it’s hard, that is the kind of love we are called to. How could we not be? Christ had that kind of love for us and He gave everything for us. He experienced separation from His Father and that was more pain than we could imagine. He did it because He loves us.

When the intern that had surgery got back, I was so joyful. I was so happy to see that she was ok. I found that the joy of loving others was worth far more than the pain.

In short, God reminded me that being selfless and loving sacrificially is what we’re called to do as His children. We will experience pain in this life, but it will pale in comparison to the joy of when we hear those words-

“Well done, good and faithful servant… Enter into the joy of your master” Matthew 25:21

I think hearing those words is worth far more than worrying about any pain in this temporary life. 

God's Timing is Perfect

So last Wednesday, I had a pretty incredible day all around, but I’m only going to focus on one part of it right now.

I have been struggling with the idea of suffering in the world and it had been more difficult in this last week. As a couple of the interns and I sat on the roof on Wednesday, we walked about the reasons for suffering, but we never really came up with anything that was comforting for us.

I hadn’t been feeling well, so when the others left to go play soccer, I stayed up on the roof to rest. I picked up one of the books that my youth pastor had given me; Timothy Keller’s The Reason for God. This book argues many of the common arguments for why the God of the bible cannot exist and refutes them. (Read it sometime. It’s good).

The particular chapter I was on was talking about the argument of how the God of the bible could not exist in a world with so much suffering. Needless to say, considering my mood that morning, I was curious. The particular chapter had multiple convincing arguments, but there was one in particular that I hadn’t ever heard before; that our suffering now will increase our joy in the future. Keller used the example of how when we lose something (and we think it’s gone forever) that thing will be loved and much more appreciated if it’s found again. We only truly appreciate something when it has been lost and then found again.

I thought it was really interesting and I had never heard that take on it before. I took the book back to my room and set it on my top bunk. As I turned around, I saw something glinting under my bed. It was a ring and I bent down to pick it up, thinking that it might have been the ring that one of my friends had mentioned that they lost. But it wasn’t. It was my ring. My class ring.

I had lost this ring in Florida, on a school trip a few months ago. I had been sure I was never going to see it again. There was literally no way that this ring could have gotten from Florida to Guatemala short of the power of God. The clothes I brought here, along with the suitcase, none of them were anything I had had with me in Florida.

It just cemented what I had just read in Keller’s book. I had been sure I was never going to see this ring again, and when I found it, I almost cried. The ring reminded me of how God can use suffering ultimately for His good, and also how His timing it perfect.

Your Worst and God's Best

“You’re worthless… you aren’t as good as the rest of them… they don’t really want you around; they’re just trying to be nice… You will never measure up… you’ll always be second best... no one wants you around… you aren’t doing any good here.”

Those were the words I heard inside of my head today as I laid on the floor in tears today. It wasn’t my voice, and I knew it. It was the voice that I thought I had banished from my head close to three years ago; the same one that lead me into depression, pushed me to cut myself and almost caused me to end my own life.

I haven’t heard that voice in so many years, and I’ll admit, when it emerged, I was scared. I had thought it was gone from me forever until now. And after I recovered from the shock and fear, I thought; why now? Why when I’m here doing what I’m supposed to be doing and serving the Lord?

Then I realized that that’s exactly why it is happening; because I’m devoting myself to serving God. I am being a force for Him and to expect no opposition would be foolish. When you are devoting yourself to fighting for God, the enemy will not make it easy for you. I was reminded of that today. My most vulnerable point was struck and it hurt. As a matter of fact, on an emotional level it was excruciating.

However, the difficulty of spiritual warfare and the reminder of my past were not the only things that hit me today.

Just listen up for a second. This is where things get good.

I was reminded of God’s faithfulness to those who trust in Him and who cry out to Him.

As I lay on the ground, I didn’t even know what to say, but I knew I had to talk to Him. He was the only one who could keep me from the place I reached three years ago. There was nothing eloquent, nothing formal that I could say. It was simply “God, save me from this. Please God…”

At first nothing seemed to happen. I eventually found the strength to stop the tears and to walk out, but the voice still lingered. I tried to ignore it and decided I would go watch the soccer game that the kids were playing. I started walking toward the field and was stopped by one of the missionaries on campus. She asked me what was going on, and I told her, despite the voice fighting me. I told her that I felt worthless, that I felt life I couldn’t measure up to the other interns on campus and that I wasn’t anything like them.

That’s when she said something that the little voice didn’t know how to respond to. She said, “Rachel, you aren’t here to be David or Hannah, or anyone else. You are here to be Rachel. No one else is like you and God is using your individual personality to help in a way that no one else can.” She then reminded me of how I am fearfully and wonderfully made by God. And the little voice that had been nagging me suddenly went silent.

God used one of the other missionaries to reach me. He knew exactly what I needed to hear and used one of His people to show me that.

So I guess what I’m trying to say is just to put your trust in God, especially when you are being spiritually attacked. He is a good God, and as it says in Psalm 147, He is healing and understanding.

“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. He determines the number of the stars; he gives all of them their names. Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure.” Psalm 147:3-5

Appreciation

I just came down from the mountains today as I am writing this (Which is a couple of days before it can be posted, lack of internet here) and it was such a spectacular view. Everything was beautiful and it just didn’t look real. It looked like it had to be a painting or picture. It was too perfect.

We were all just enjoying looking at it when one of my fellow interns made the comment; “Could you imagine if you couldn’t appreciate this? Like if you grew up here?” We all nodded and agreed with her, but it got me thinking. Isn’t that what we do a lot?

How often do we not appreciate what is in front of us? I know that so often I don’t. I spend so much time outside back at home, and the beauty around my just passes me by. If I take the time to look, I realize the woods I live next to is beautiful. The sky full of clouds, or the night time sky, it’s all incredible. But I am so used to it and never notice.

We are called to be content with the simple things of life. In 1^st Timothy 6:6-8, Paul says, “But godliness with contentment is great gain for we brought nothing into the world and we cannot take anything out of it. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.” We are called to be content with having only the necessities, but we still have so much more than that. Even if we merely have food, water and shelter, we also have the beauty of creation.

God didn’t have to give us the beauty around us, yet we still ignore it. We get so used to it that it just flutters around in the back of our minds, ignored. I guarantee, though, that if it suddenly just disappeared we would notice.

We always covet what others have and want so much more than we need, even though God has given us such things that we completely ignore. The creation around us is more glorious than we can imagine, if we only took the time to appreciate it.

Just go sometime. Go and look closely at the thing around you, the things you are so accustomed to.  It just might surprise you, if you look at it with fresh eyes, how beautiful it is, or how much things have changed. But you have to really look.

Appreciate what God has given you and be content with what you have, because you have even more than you ever realized.