So you think you are called to be a missionary?

 

Do you know this feeling when you are in a missions’ school or a conference and you see the ministry heros of faith sharing testimonies of miraculous provision, supernatural life transformation and God’s tangible work in hopeless places? Possibly the thoughts in your head being like: I want to live like this, I want my life to look like this, I want to follow Jesus this way, I am ready to lay it all down.

If you say “yes” to this, soon the test will come. Many are those who respond with their heart desire, but few are those that are actually ready to do it. Actually ready to “give their life away”, or in other words risk “wasting their life away” for the gospel.

Today’s missions movement in great deal of cases looks like spiritual tourism. I remember when I was in Harvest School in 2017 one of those heros of missions said “Now in order to become a missionary they ask of you two years commitment. How funny! To be a missionary is to lay down your life for a people group. Not two years, not five years, but a lifetime! How about 20 years? How about 30 years?”. This poked me. I wanted to be a missionary, but I was really not ready to even give two years of my life to a place. And even less ready to give away a 10 year period, or 20, or a lifetime!! I felt the glorious, romantic calling to missions – but.. to actually bring a sacrifice of my life? A period like two years? A period like five years? Oh no! This is too costly, I would need to be soooo sure the Lord is asking this of me HIMSELF. I was not ready to “waste it”. Two years is a long time. If I choose to give it away, I need to be sure sure sure, lay out a fleece, consult two or three mentors, have all the finances miraculously provided ahead of time (at least 80%), and on top of that, I need to know that the task will be glorious, meaningful and will not go to waste. And when I try – everything needs to feel smooth, because if I come across a bump on the road, or two bumps the most – this probably means God is not asking this of me. I need to go back and pray more and wait more, while living my life and staying in my safe place.

How often do we come cross this kind of mindset when we meet new candidates for missions life. We get people who feel called to missions, they feel so in love with Jesus and this idea of following Him and obeying without holding anything back. But how quickly they are defeated by “reality check”, how soon they quit calling it holy words like “I need to wait on the Lord”, “I need to pray more”, “I need to prepare more”…  How small their faith is. How little risk they are willing to take. How small is the price they are willing to pay.

Matthew 20:22 But Jesus answered and said, “Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” They said unto Him, “We are able.”
What if becoming a missionary would mean that you don’t have money to do what you want to do. What if it meant, you cannot visit your family whenever you want. What if it meant, you cannot serve at glamourous events you would be invited to. What if it meant, you loose friends who don’t understand your way of living and frankly think it’s not cool enough for them. What if it meant, you need to clean after others. What if it meant, you need to cook for others. What if it meant doing all those pratical things you don’t like, just because noone else wants to do them. What if it meant that you felt lonely. What if it meant you will not have others to count on, but Jesus. What if it meant, you are disapointed and disillusioned time and time again.
Would you still follow?
The prize would be nothing else but Jesus. It wouldn’t be a loving community, it wouldn’t be appreciation by the people, it wouldn’t be seeing the fruit of your work, it wouldn’t be being able to do and grow in what you love to do.
The prize would be: you would grow closer to Him. You would feel what He felt, you would partake in his sufferings. The prize would be Philipian 3:10-11.
“I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.”
Would you still be called to missions?