“People who are obsessed with Jesus aren’t concerned with
their personal safety and comfort above all else. Obsessed people care more
about God’s kingdom coming to this earth than their own lives being shielded
from pain or distress.”
Francis
Chan, Crazy Love
That’s a pretty terrifying thought when you really sit back
and ponder its implications for your life. A willingness to walk head long into
the darkness, checking your comforts and safety at the door, isn’t usually what
you think of when you give your life to Christ. It seems to almost directly
oppose our instinct for self-preservation.
God calls, and we’re like, ”Wait… for real?!”
You can’t say the idea isn’t biblical. The most common
commandment in all of Scripture is, “Do not fear.” The New Testament was
written almost completely by martyrs. And we worship a guy who got murdered.
Clearly, God knew some things might not go so great, at least by our standards.
God knew those who truly followed Him would be on the front
lines, running with reckless abandon into the Enemy’s line of fire. However, He
also knew there would NEVER be a bullet we couldn’t take. “To live is Christ
and to die is gain,” as the apostle Paul says in Philippians 1:21. Above all, He
wanted for God to take him to be with his Savior, but until that day, he would
fight with every ounce of strength in his weary body to make known the goodness
of his King. For him, death had indeed lost its sting, and how can it not when
you truly understand the glory that awaits us in Heaven and the joy that comes
from devoting our lives to being an agent of Christ?
On May 29, we (Nicole, Jana and Josh) leave to spend two and
a half months living in Northern Uganda, and
this has been our prayer through every step of preparation, to run headlong into
the darkness to see God’s kingdom come down.
God has been so gracious to give us a peace about it all,
and we are more than blessed to even get to be a part of what God wants to do
in this beautiful country. There’s many a day where I wake up and just don’t
get why He wants to use me. Other days, I wake up and wish He would just use
someone else, so I could lead a “normal” life. But His amazing grace keeps
beckoning me back…
God calls His church to be His hands and feet in this world,
to bring healing to the broken and to bring His kingdom down for all people to
experience now. He invites us into an uncontrollable, uninhibited love for
Himself and for others, knowing that this is the only thing that will truly set
us free. And when we really start to understand the gravity and mystery of that
truth, it almost becomes insane that we would ever trade in that kind of
invitation for the sake of normality.
This is what we want to see happen in Uganda and all over the world…
freedom in Christ Jesus. We can only hope that God will move us out of the way
and reach these people in a mighty and radical way. We obviously know that He
doesn’t need us to do this, but we are so thankful that He chooses to use us
for it. That He would allow sinners as unworthy as us to be a part of the most
beautiful love story ever told is, indeed, a miracle.
Keep checking back for updates and feel free to email us
thoughts and prayers…
Until then, Switchboard out…
