My wife, son, and I arrived at the airport in March 2006 accompanied by a small entourage of family and friends ready to send us off to the Czech Republic.
We were excited to begin this new adventure that the Lord had called us to. Others in our group had mixed emotions—there was a little gladness mixed with a lot of sadness.
When we finally got in line at the airport security checkpoint, my father recalls me turning around with a huge smile on my face. I don’t remember that moment, but I do know that my reaction to him would have looked quite different a few hours later.
After our first flight, we had a connection in Amsterdam. I remember watching my six-year-old son proudly pull his little suitcase to our next gate. But at that moment, the smile on my face was gone. The reality of leaving our home, with all its comforts, had hit me. What are we doing? I asked myself. Is this really worth it?
When the Adventure Starts to Feel Costly
I doubt I am the first missionary to think these thoughts during the first few months, weeks, or (in my case) hours of their journey.
What is it that makes the whole missionary enterprise worth it? If the answer is wrapped up in the thrill of going on a great adventure, I think we would have packed up our bags and come back “home” pretty quickly.
Emotions and enthusiasm will only carry so much weight in helping you decide to stay.
Let’s face it, there aren’t many people who are truly enthusiastic about learning a hard language and acclimating to a significantly different culture than their own. It sounds fun to think about . . . and, yes, there is some fun in it. But when you find yourself speaking like a first grader for the hundredth time, you start to shout out, “Yes! I do have a college degree!” It is in those moments that enthusiasm wanes, and there needs to be more that sustains your calling.
In the Gospels, Jesus makes some hard statements. Read passages like Luke 14:25-33, in which Jesus says to take up your cross, to hate your family members and even yourself (metaphorically speaking), and to count the cost.
Even that wonderful Great Commission passage of Matthew 28:18-20 is a hard statement when you think that the command to “make disciples” involves “going.” The Great Commission isn’t just going to your neighbor next door—which we should do—but it also involves going to the nations that don’t yet know the name of Jesus Christ. That type of going entails leaving the comforts of your home in order to learn a language you don’t know and to go to a people you don’t know—and who may even hate you for the God you do know.
The Difference Between Going and Staying
The decision to go is one thing. The decision to stay there is another.
What happens after you make good progress in learning the language, and you start building some strong relationships, but there’s no tangible fruit? What if you are faithfully preaching the gospel and nobody is responding? What if you face persecution in varying forms?
Missionary Adoniram Judson served in Burma for 38 years and saw several churches planted. However, he also lost two wives and a few children. Early on, he even contemplated his own death. In his despair, he is quoted as saying, “God is to me the Great Unknown. I believe in him, but I find him not.”
Think of the prophet Jeremiah. God called Jeremiah to prophesy against Judah, to remind them of the covenant God had with them and of the consequences for breaking it. Jeremiah is told that he would face strong opposition, and, as we read the rest of his book, we see that no real fruit (in terms of repentance) came from it.
Looking to Christ, Not Ourselves
When you contemplate all of this, it’s easy to wonder if enthusiasm alone can sustain a missionary in the work God calls them to do. If not enthusiasm, what can sustain them?
Could the answer be as simple as obedience?
One of my favorite passages in Scripture is Hebrews 12:1-3. It instructs us to remember the many who have gone on before us who obeyed God and responded in faith. Then, we are to run the race, not by the power of our own strength or the energy of enthusiasm, but by faith—by “looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Paul said in Philippians 2:8 that Jesus “humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” If the Son of God fully and completely obeyed the will of the Father, then following in his footsteps in obedience to his calling is a stronger foundation to stand on than any amount of abstract enthusiasm. Excitement may launch a missionary, but only Christ sustains the journey.
Let us not forget one other thing.
Though obedience to God’s call to missions is better than enthusiasm, it doesn’t mean we need to grit our teeth and begrudgingly live a life of misery. Remember that the writer of Hebrews says that Jesus went to the cross for the joy set before him.
Likewise, in John 15:11, Jesus said, “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.”
Obedience comes with joy. It doesn’t mean that everything will be easy and life will be filled with good times, but that we can have joy. Joy will come as we deepen our understanding that Jesus is more satisfying than anything else in this world, that he alone is worth pursuing, and he alone is worth obeying—no matter where he calls you to go and what he calls you to do.
