NOTE: Rachel and her husband are long-time Frontline team members in East Asia. The three of us are also Tolkien fans, so receiving an article in which she draws on a scene from The Hobbit was not surprising to me. But what gripped me as I read it was the depth of its wisdom and the breadth of its application. Rachel wrote this with young adults in mind, but radical obedience is for all of us who take up our cross and follow the One who said, “Whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 16:25).
So whether you desire to take Good News to Gospel-destitute places or you are counseling someone who is considering going, whether you are parenting or grand-parenting with a passion for Christ and the nations, or if you are taking a prayerful look at “Gospel leveraging” of your time, energy, and resources, there’s something here to challenge you, as it has me.
Tim Keesee
[This article was divided into two parts and published in the Fall 2019 and Christmas 2019 Frontline Missions International newsletter. If you would like to sign up to get future newsletters, you can do so HERE.]
“Beware of Your Mother’s Doilies”
After a tumultuous disruption of his quiet evening by a bunch of unruly dwarves, Bilbo Baggins is called upon to join them on a journey of great importance—to rescue their people and their home. However, he also discovers that there is a risk, deadly risk—a fire-breathing dragon, to be specific. Furthermore, this grand quest would require upsetting his pleasant, predictable, and respectable life. After considering the magnitude of the offer, he briefly loses consciousness, following which he is seen sitting in his large, overstuffed chair and discussing the situation with Gandalf:
Gandalf: You’ve been sitting quietly for far too long. When did doilies and your mother’s dishes become so important to you? . . . The world is not in your books and maps . . . it’s out there!
Bilbo: I can’t just go running off into the blue . . . I’m a Baggins of Bag-End.
Gandalf: And you’re also a Took . . . You’ll have a tale or two of your own to tell when you come back.
Bilbo: Can you promise that I will come back?
Gandalf: No, but if you do you’ll not be the same.
Bilbo: That’s what I thought.
This scene haunts me. The grand but highly life-disrupting commands of Jesus inspire us in our 20s, but somehow by our 30s and 40s the cost of those commands makes us want to sink into a comfortable armchair and conjure up other less-costly paths of obedience. How does a 22-year-old so passionate about reaching the nations morph into a 48-year-old who cannot imagine living abroad for the King? With so many well-attended conferences, frequently-read blogs, and well-written books, why isn’t a higher percentage of the young Christian population actually going? And for those of us who end up overseas, why do we so rapidly become disenchanted with the work and begin to long for greener pastures?
At age 20, the world seems open and exciting. We’re eager to launch out and try anything, and we long to bring words of Good News where it has never been heard. There’s fresh zeal and joy, a willingness to be inconvenienced, and little care of the potential losses because of the joy of the potential gain for eternity.
In our mid-20s, our good desires meet their first roadblocks, and we begin to feel the weight of all that is working against us. We get our first real job, our first real bills, and start to feel the weight of survival in a world of broken health, car accidents, soaring insurance costs, and the uncertainties of raising children. Along with the new stressors come new joys—having a nicer car, a modest little house that we’ve painted and decorated, a few pieces of new furniture. Before long, we develop some hobbies, get a comfortable circle of friends, and fall into a predictable routine.
By the time we hit our 30s, we have quit dreaming and are just hanging on as we change diapers, put food on the table, and peel the mac-n-cheese off the floorboards. Our biggest life dream is simply to get one night of uninterrupted sleep. To make matters worse, we realize that we aren’t the super Christians we thought we were in college; so we get discouraged. And we see that we can stay busy in effective ministry right where we are (which may be true); so why inconvenience ourselves when we can serve Jesus right here at home? Maybe we even start to rationalize about all the problems of imperialistic mission work in the past and conclude that missionary work is better left entirely to locals. And so, Jesus’ command to go is suffocated by our logic.
The path out of the Shire is steep and treacherous.
As one who spent several years waiting to go and now has lived full-time overseas for a number of years, I’ve spent lots of time with folks preparing to go. This letter is a plea from my heart to those with desire to work overseas but who have a few more months or years ahead before that can become a reality. Below you will find some practical tips that I hope might guard you on this journey.
1. Fight against the desire to put down roots. Don’t buy your dream car. Don’t buy the nicest set of dishes. Buying stuff isn’t wrong, but you have to consider the strong and subtle power that stuff can have over your heart.
2. Anticipate that a day will come when what you feel so strongly and are utterly convinced of now may seem more like an overly-optimistic childhood dream. The real world is hard—bodies break down, financial stresses are great, and simply surviving in a real-world job can be all-consuming. People—good people—will try to talk you out of going. Or they’ll try to talk you into doing something else. You might feel guilty—there are people who need you here in the States. You might begin to question whether you really had a “call” in the first place.
3. Don’t become so intellectual about the whole process that you talk yourself out of obedience. We live in a generation of witty bloggers, inspiring authors, great conferences, and encouraging podcasts. It’s easy to feel good about all the information we are accumulating, the writing we are doing, the ideas and authors we can talk about—but never get around to obeying the very commands that we have exegeted ever so cleverly. The world doesn’t need more writers making radical comments about Jesus from the local Starbucks; the world needs people who humbly love and obey when it hurts.
4. Choose your church wisely. It is right, good, and necessary to prepare yourself by being under excellent, Gospel-centered preaching. However, there is a subtle, addictive power that comes with being part of a thriving, large, well-developed assembly. You start to expect things to be done for you and get used to readily available childcare—and feel that all of these good things are necessary requirements for you to grow and thrive. There is a real benefit to being part of a small, struggling group. You learn to live with and love people who are not at all like you, get used to having all your heroic acts of service taken for granted, and learn how to love people through conflict and confusion. If you miss this opportunity, you may get overseas and feel that something is terribly wrong with the people you are working with because there is conflict or you find you can’t make it without all the props.
5. Prepare to go. Invest in it financially. Take a vision trip. If it’s going to be several years before you can go, take several vision trips. Tell people your plan—especially those who don’t agree with you. There’s nothing more helpful than verbalizing your desires and motivations to someone who thinks you are crazy.
6. Don’t wait for a final emotional revelation of God’s will. If you had a lightning bolt experience, your future confidence would rest in that experience rather than in the ultimate revelation of the risen Christ in the Word. If you wait on your emotions to coordinate well, you will never go. Or if you get there, you’ll never stay. Emotions change frequently—commands don’t.
7. Don’t wait until you’ve figured out the answer to all of your questions and what-ifs. I’ve had multiple people say to me, “I can’t imagine raising kids in a place like this.” You don’t have to imagine it. You have to follow Jesus. The stunning provisions He will make will not be in your plans or imaginations. You’ll only see them when you risk and move out in faith. There are facets of His glory that can only be viewed when you press into impossible situations. There is joy that you get to experience only when you jump into the messy places, not knowing what will come of it but knowing He’s there.
8. Get the education you need—but don’t let it become your confidence. Having marketable skills or theological training is often critical to establishing a sustainable platform. However, there is a subtle over-confidence that degrees can breed: “Now God can really use me because I’m so well prepared.” Humility is far more valuable on the field than a PhD. Furthermore, for many of us from the ME generation, there is an assumption that we should be able to be highly fulfilled in our jobs and have opportunities to use all of our skills—and we carry those assumptions with us overseas. When folks like us arrive on foreign soil, we feel a compulsion to use those skills that we worked so hard to develop for Him. It can be maddening to find that all of your supposed qualifications are not valued in that place or culture. And it really tests why you came in the first place. Is it to look impressive as you use your skills or to further His Kingdom, however and whenever He wants it done? The truth is we want Him to increase, but the reality is we want to increase, too.
9. Everything is going to fight against your going. It’s really hard to move a person overseas—and even harder to move a family. We are wired to stay in our hometowns with familiar places and people and language. So if you don’t have intentionality, you won’t go. And if you assume that obstacles and challenges mean His will for you has changed, you will not go.
10. It’s OK to lose your burden. Just keep obeying Jesus. He still has a burden. Jesus didn’t tell His disciples to wait for a burden—He told them to wait for the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit propelled Peter and the others out into Jerusalem and then to the uttermost parts of the earth—they didn’t have a missions conference or inspiring book or an engaging speaker. So why do you so often hear folks determining whether or not to go based on a burden? Where does the Bible talk about having a burden? Jesus has a burden for you. Obey Him. Go where there’s little light. Go where you see Him giving you preparation. Go to where there’s an open door. But GO!
My Bilbo Baggins allusion breaks down here. After that fateful fireside conversation, Bilbo’s mind and heart are captivated by this grand, exciting, deeply meaningful quest to rescue people. He is compelled by the glory of the work to get out of bed and join the journey. Don’t do what he did. Don’t attempt to sustain your soul on the cheese puff diet of the excitement and apparent glory of mission work. It won’t sustain you in the tough places. Look at Isaiah. As much as we dramatize his Isaiah 6 “missionary call” to go, that call is immediately followed by a description of apparent ministry failure. “Go . . . to people who will reject you and make their hearts harder and blinder.” “How long, Lord?” “Until everything is destroyed and devastated.” Inspiring, isn’t it? (There is a dearth of missionary songs about this portion of Scripture, by the way.)
God is clearly not attempting to recruit Isaiah based on the “wow” factor of the work. He compels him based on the “wow” factor of His holiness. He alone is truly holy, separate, unique, one-of-a-kind, utterly distinct in his beauty and perfections. The weight of His glory overflows and floods the earth with meaning. Yes, He offers Isaiah a life of shame and rejection; yet, He secures Isaiah in His love and lasting honor. Yes, God sets forth work that feels like waste and worthlessness; and yet, He brings Isaiah into His worthiness. Beneath and between every exhausting day ahead, there will be the exhilaration of the King’s unending grace and embrace.
Perhaps the most shocking thing about this whole passage is that Isaiah goes for it. We don’t know what he left behind, but the “dishes and doilies” Isaiah once held onto fell from view at the sight of his Savior. His vision of the Messiah and His world-wide work is still stunning. “Behold, you shall call a nation that you do not know, and a nation that did not know you shall run to you, because of the Lord your God, and of the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you” (Isaiah 55:5).
Blessings to you as you dream and prepare and follow Him!
Rachel