Boulders of Misconception

I was sitting in this year’s first “UME” meeting (UME is Students United for Missions… but in Spanish so it’s actually an acronym) listening to various people share from the mixture of countries represented about the spiritual needs of the countries. The idea is to have the students band together with people with similar burdens on their hearts for varying countries and to pray. Also, they organize offerings and missions trips and thing of that sort. The way it has often played out in years past is many students choose to actually work in the field they have been praying for. Just like that some timid Bolivian can end up boldly preaching the gospel to a closed country in the east… that is the idea, and it actually has a tendency of happening...which is cool.

So, I sat in the commencement of said meeting as we sang songs about the needs and the going.  I thought once again “I wanna go. I wanna be a goer. There are so many needs, and I want to reach in so many places and I wanna go. If only I was in such and such a place really doing something. If I had…”

So our thoughts can flow. Mine flow from time to time in that manner. ...starting in a good place, but as they flow down the rolling hills of my mind, they hit some boulders of misconception. Sending my little thought river down some mistaken path, ending up making some turgid swamp of thought, discontentment, and inactivity that never should have been, tucked away in some corner of my mind.

(Did you follow that word picture? I hope so. I had fun typing it.)

The boulders of misconception? What are they? Don’t know them all. But in my mind there are so many to choose from. Here are a few:

-The will of God is a place. (which I will be located someday, but sadly not where I am located now)
-Once I make it to said will of God-land, things will be better. (things will be right, I will be the man I am supposed to be, and be ready)
- I’ve just gotta make it through this place which is a little bit less interesting exciting and
spiritual than what I’m really made for. (expecting too much in life, or ministry)
-Thinking I am the one Christian God just isn’t that interested in walking with or using today. (expecting too little in our spiritual lives or ministry)

Well, I don’t exactly voice it like that because if I did (or we did) I (or we) would have to accept the fact that my (or our) reasoning… is off.

As I stood in the meeting singing and thinking, “I wanna go, I wanna go, I wanna go, just send me somewhere. I’ll be faithful. I promise.” I had the delightful realization… “You’re somewhere, now be faithful.”

In Matthew 25: 14-30 the Lord gives a parable (I think you should read it… maybe the whole chapter just for fun) but the thought is this:

We must be faithful in the little, and He will entrust us with more.

I live in Argentina and study the word of God every day. I leave every weekend to work in a ministry in a young church in a poor neighborhood. I pass by people every day...Christians that need encouragement, and lost who need to hear.

Here is another thing I am sometimes wrong in thinking:

                -The will of God is a full ministry schedule. (what I do.)

But his will is more about who we are day by day and how we live, than about what we do, or where we are.

“This is the will of God, your sanctification…” I Thess 4:3

(or 1 Thess. 5:18, or start looking through the word of God on your own for what is the will of God for your life. Because He has actually told us! Which is really, really cool!)

Exciting news! As a child of God every day I have the opportunity to do the will of God, as I live in obedience to Him.

Exciting news, if you are a child of God, you do too!

You live in ___(insert  country, state, town here)____. You can study the word of God every day. You have ___(insert church or other ministry option you have in front of you there)___ to serve God in and grow through in ___(your town again)___. And you pass people every day, Christians that need encouragement, and lost ones who need to hear. And God wants to use you. More than he wants to use you He wants to know you and have more intimacy and have us be more sanctified and “set apart” unto Him.

This thought has been in my head awhile. I love you all so much. Thank you who are reading this from home, thank you for taking interest in my life and lifting me up in your prayers. So many people have been an encouragement and examples to me, and are being spent where God has placed you.

Some of you have said to me, “I’m so proud of you. I’m so glad you can follow the Lord like that and go to another country.”

I want it to be said. I am not necessarily in the will of God by being in Argentina. I have an everyday every moment the opportunity and option to obey God. I just chose this year because I felt like it was a great opportunity in which I felt that I would grow, be better equipped, and the Lord could be pleased. I feel like His provision has been an encouragement it was a pretty good choice.

But this is just what God is doing in my life right now. He has me in Argentina. And he has you in ________. If you are supposed to be in Argentina or another place why haven’t you left yet? But if the Lord  isn’t calling you to another place and you’re not fighting Him on something like that. Where does He have you? And why?

I feel like as Christian  we have a tendency to waste a lot of time thinking of what our life with God could and would be like if… . As if those missionaries in a foreign country have a little advantage before Jesus and because they are one of a special few who really, really get to follow and know Him.

When in reality that is the desire of the Lord for each one of His children.

Will we say “Here am I Lord send me” and then realize we have already been sent. "Go ye into all the world and make disciples of all nations."

How does the great commission look in my life? Today?

P.S. (I'll talk the next time I get a chance to write a bit.  I'll try and make it sooner- to update you all a little on the whos whats and wheres of my life right now, and in the near furture)