Inspired

Once the Lord allows your heart and mind to see His face in another part of the world many questions begin to flood your mind.

What am I suppose to do now?

Now that You’ve shown me this, allowed me to experience this, helped me grasp Your world just a little more… how is my life suppose to look? What do You want me to do in my own life experience to make Your Holy Name great?

What did you want me to see, Lord? How do you want me to change?

How can I support the missionaries more, Lord? How can I pray for them daily? Is my life just to go back to being as it was before you showed me all that you’ve shown me?

There’s no doubt that a short term mission trip will rock your world and make you come to terms with just how BIG our God is. It also causes a shift in thinking about how you live and just how selfish you really are.

This week at the clothes closet the Lord has shown me that He is bringing the nations to our front door. It’s not that I haven’t realized this before. Many times I stand in that building and I am one of 5 English speaking people among 10-15 people. Usually there are Burmese speaking, Spanish speaking, Chinese speaking and English speaking people all working together to help find things for their families. It’s truly amazing.

The new revelation, however, is that the Lord is putting them in my path for a reason and He is challenging ME to do what I can to reach them with the truth of the gospel. We live in the Information Age. Language barriers are no longer an excuse. The fact that these people are coming to us with needs, greater than that of warm clothing, is inspiring me to think outside of the box and just TRY!

While in Africa we stayed with the McDaniel family. Lee and Tracy are plain people like me. They grew up in the south… also like me. They are educated, have a family and love Jesus… just like me. What I admire about them is their courage, obedience to God’s Word and faith to step outside of themselves to learn a language that they would not otherwise know, live in a place that they probably would not otherwise live and work among a people that they do not know… ALL FOR THE SAKE OF THE GOSPEL.

It challenges me. It inspires me! Here I stand with the opportunity to meet people that I would otherwise not meet, in languages that I would not otherwise ever hear, and I have the chance to DO SOMETHING. It’s really not so different than living in Africa… well, let’s not go THAT far. Africa? Well, It’s a lot hotter, a lot less developed and a lot more challenging, but the opportunity here in the United States IS the same. God’s asking me, “What are you going to do?”

So, I’m trying. The people who work with me are trying. We are all trying to have clothing available for them so that when they come we can invite them to church, give them a Bible and try to share the gospel. Other missionaries are praying for us. One came and wrote out the plan of salvation for me in Spanish so that I might be able to share with someone if the opportunity arises. While she was there she lead a man to the Lord in Spanish!

He is here. His Spirit is alive. He’s working among His people and the opportunity IS here. The question is, “What are we going to do?”

WE are missionaries. Right where we work and live and play… we ARE salt and light if we will let Him use us.

I can’t speak Burmese. I can speak a tiny bit of Spanish and sometimes my English gets all jumbled up. It’s just that we can’t sit on the sidelines and wait for a missionary to come and save 'them’. NO! WE ARE the missionaries. Be inspired! He WILL use us! Plain old people who love Jesus? They are the BEST kind of missionaries.