My Citizenship

If I am honest, the truth is I was becoming a bit disenchanted or even cynical.  I could talk the talk.  I knew the right things to say.  I knew how to act and respond.  I loved Jesus, and I desperately longed to live a life that glorified Him, but I was frustrated.  I was so busy DOING that I had no time for just BEING.  Church was just another place I had a job to do.  Bible study was just another thing I had to lead.  Retreats were just another thing I had to prepare. 

While this wasn’t true for my ministry, it was true for my personal relationship with Christ.  Thankfully I think what kept me afloat was I believed so fully in what God had called us to do here in Guatemala.  I loved (and still love of course) these kids so much that for them I wanted better and more.  I desperately longed for them to taste and see that despite all the horror they may have seen or experienced God was and is still good.  He was and is for them.  He loves them with a lavish and unconditional love.  So I kept moving and pushing forward.  I believed that God would continue to sustain me as long as I continued to be obedient. 

But then I would have these flashbacks to seasons past when I was consumed with God’s word and when prayer was such an active and constant part of my daily life.  I missed filling journals with prayers and promises from the Bible.  I missed the intimacy that I felt walking so closely with Christ.

And to be totally frank, part of my frustration was caused by what I believed I was seeing in many Christians and in many churches which was an utter betrayal to what Christ had commanded us to do.    Now before I get thrown to the wolves, hear me out.  I am not saying this WAS happening…I am only saying this was my perception.  I saw Christians more concerned for their own welfare, their own comfort, their own advancement, their own success, and just their own general well-being than that of their neighbor.  I heard more often things like, “Well we can’t save them all!” or “I have to do what is best for my own family and can’t worry about them.” or even worse “They brought it upon themselves.  If they just would have made a better decision, they wouldn’t be in this situation.”

I get it.  Sometimes I feel like I am barely keeping my head above water with my own crew.  How am I supposed to find room to care about someone else’s?  There is even some truth to these statements…we can’t save them all and we do have take care of our family (of course we do), and sometimes people do make poor decisions that have grave consequences.   But what I was struggling with was that everyone wants to lament about the state of affairs these days but rarely is anyone ever ready to get into the trenches and do something about it. 

Where is the church?  I just kept asking myself over and over again…church where are you?  I am only looking at this need here in Guatemala, but I know it is everywhere, and I am not seeing the church rise up and do something about it.  Luke 10:2 says, “And he said to them, ‘The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few.  Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” 

I read verses like this one and thought, “But the workers shouldn’t be few.  The churches are filled with workers!  Why aren’t they going into the harvest?  Why are they so comfortable when there is so much suffering?  Why aren’t they willing to do anything?!”

I was fast tracking it straight from disillusioned to flat out angry and broken.  I recognized the symptoms and decided the first step was to take some time away from social media.  It was only making things worse for me, and I realized that I couldn’t judge everything just from Facebook.  I needed to take some to hear from the Lord on what MY responsibility was.  I needed to be refreshed. I was tired. I was worn down.  I felt like the burden was too heavy and there was no one to help us carry it.   

And then the unexpected happened.   My little social media fast was fine, and I learned a few lessons (namely just delete the folks and pages that only bring discouragement.  No reason to fill our lives with background noise that distract from the important stuff), but in the end, it wasn’t the enlightenment I had hoped it would be. 

Something else ended up doing that instead.  My daddy got sick.  Really sick.  It started as a small, rather routine thing and the next thing I know he is being rushed to emergency surgery because he has gone septic and all his vitals are dropping.  I was still in Guatemala as this was all happening.  My mom and sister were keeping me updated but because everything happened so fast, I didn’t even have a chance to get on an airplane to try and be there with him.  It went from not that serious to life threatening in the span of just a few hours.  All I could think about was how a few years ago, my beloved grandpa went into the hospital for a nosebleed and a few days later died, and I never got to say goodbye. 

I was so scared but more than scared I was angry.  I was angry with God.  I had all the words with Him.  I shouted things like, “I never wanted to be a missionary anyway!  I only did it because YOU asked me to!  Why can’t I just live with my family like everyone else in the world gets to?! Why do I have to make this sacrifice?  This isn’t fair! I don’t want this!”  I even had a moment that I was planning my speech for my husband about how I was packing up and moving back home because I had already done my part, sacrificed my portion, and it was time for me to do what I wanted.  

I was in a bad place.  That’s the truth.

But what frightened me the most, as I started to come out of the fog of the fear and the anger and the confusion and the sadness was that I also wasn’t willing to sacrifice what I loved most for Jesus.  When the time actually came, when the hour struck midnight, I wasn’t ready to trade in my carriage and pretty dress for the rags.  I wasn’t willing to pay the price.  I didn’t care that Jesus said, “and everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life.”  (Matthew 19:29)  I didn’t care that I had often prayed to God in my youth, “Send me Lord!  Use me Lord!  Yes Lord whatever You say, YES!”  None of that mattered anymore.  It didn’t even matter that I actually did love what we were doing and that these kids were such a part of my life that leaving them behind would have been a near impossibility. 

The only thing I could see was that my beloved daddy was sick, he could have died, and I wasn’t there.  

My favorite chapter in the Bible is Romans 8.  It has been for so many years that I have almost every verse underlined or highlighted.   When I am feeling the most vulnerable or scared or confused, I always go back there and read those words that I have etched on my heart over and over again until they are like a soothing balm over my wounds.  So this situation was no different than any other.  The only thing that changed was that instead of staying in Romans 8, I kept on reading in Romans 9. 

Paul says in verses 1 through 3, “I am speaking the truth in Christ –I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit – that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.”  He goes on to talk more about why, but in that moment, reading those words, I could do nothing more than weep.  Paul was willing to be cut off ETERNALLY for the sake of his brothers, for them to know Christ. 

Now it was no longer an issue of giving up earthly possession or sacrificing time or the ability to live close to those I love most.  It wasn’t about whether I had sacrificed enough and “deserved a break.”  It all came into focus.

It was about eternity and not just my eternity but that of my family and my friends and anyone that God has placed in my circle.   I said, “Yes Lord” all those years ago because I believed that my yes could have eternal consequences.  I believed God could use my little life in a way that would bring Him glory and would show others His beautiful and great worth.  I was willing to be “poured out as a drink offering” because I knew that my relationship with Jesus was so valuable and so wonderful and so indispensable that I wanted every single person to have this relationship too.

God as always was so gentle and loving with me, though, because in the midst of my spiritual crisis and battle with Him about having taken away these years with my family, He gave me the most incredible gift.  In the most unexpected and surprising of ways, He provided the opportunity for me to still be able to go and spend a week with my daddy all by myself.  It was a surprise for my family too.  They had no idea I was coming until I was literally standing right there in the room with them.  It was sweet and wonderful and unexpected and beautiful, and it filled my heart with so much joy.  God saw my pain and He provided. 

It won’t always be that way, though.  Sometimes I am just going to have to walk through the pain and there won’t be a sweet little surprise at the end of it.  Sometimes I will just have to cling to Him and help Him lead me through the darkness.  There is a very real possibility that I could lose someone again while I am here and not be able to get back in time.  I will face more loss. I will face more pain.  There will be more goodbyes. And it is going to hurt.

But as I read Paul’s words, I am reminded over and over again that it is a cost I am willing to pay.  I may not always like it and it may hurt, but the eternity of those I love most matters so much more than whether or not I am comfortable or even safe or even happy.  Yes, I said that too.  Being happy isn’t everything friends.  We are a culture obsessed with happily ever after’s, and we will trade jobs or degrees or even spouses until we find it.  But it isn’t everything. 

Church, Christians, friends, we need to wake up.  The harvest is plentiful and the workers are few.  All the things you are doing, all the money you are making, all the vacations you are taking, all the fun you are having, all the trophies you are winning, and even all the memories you are making with your family…all of it will someday be gone.  You can’t take any of it with you to eternity.  It is all good. I am not against any of those things. Money isn’t the enemy and we all need it to live.  Vacations are some of my most favorite things in this world.  I am a big fan of fun, and I love winning trophies because I am more competitive than I would like to admit.  And the memories…oh those memories are so good and so sweet and are leaving seeds and planting a legacy far beyond what we can even imagine.  But even those only last as long as a person is on earth and can remember them. 

We were made for more.  God called us for more.  There is a reason Paul wrote most of the New Testament.  He was fully man but also fully aware that his home was not this earth.  His home was the one God prepared for him.  His home was with Jesus.  And he was not going to give up or stop or give in until God took him home.  He wanted all his brothers near and far to know and to share in this good news. 

Are we willing?  Are we willing to follow Paul’s and ultimately Christ’s example of obedience no matter the cost?  Is Jesus worth that for us?  Or do we claim to belong to him in name only? 

Paul writes in Philippians 3:17 – 21,

“Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us.  For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things.  But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.”

Our citizenship is in heaven.  It isn’t here.  Love hard.  Work hard.  Play hard.  Grieve hard even.  We can and I believe should feel deeply and passionately.  Our relationships should be deep.  But we just can’t forget that this, here on earth, isn’t the end.  And if we live as if it is the end, the consequences will in fact have eternal repercussions.