About Being “Called” to Missions

Wanting to do missions is such a normal, obvious thing to me, that sometimes it catches me off guard when people respond to me admitting this with some sort of admiration or surprise - as if what I want to do is so extraordinary or rare. Because to me, it doesn’t feel that way at all. It just feels right, like the most clear and worthwhile thing I could ever do with my life.

I find it funny how being called to missions has become such an over-spiritualized subject in the church. As if it requires extra-level sacrifice and selflessness, or an audible call from God himself to sell all your possessions and take up residence in a village halfway across the world. Because that's not how it’s ever been for me. While there are stories like that, I don’t think the majority of mission callings are that “dramatic” at all. Making it seem like they are - like they must be - can cause damage I think, because it can make people second guess their callings for no good reason.

See to me, missions isn’t necessarily about sacrifice. That comes with the territory, sure, but surrender and sacrifice are supposed to be a part of every Christian’s life, no matter what they find themselves doing. Besides, being a missionary might require giving up some things that we’re used to in our comfortable first-world living, but it also means gaining others that we don’t find here as often.

Part of the reason I fell in love with my mission trips to Kenya is because the pace of life is so much slower there. There is time for rest and singing and laughter. Meetings and schedules rarely take precedence over community, as they so often do here in America. And I think a part of my soul was hard wired to need a little peace and quiet everyday. A way to get out from the busy city life and relax in front of the ocean, a mountain, or underneath a tree. That is so much easier in some of the beautiful third-world countries of the world. I'd trade reliable wifi any day for that. ;)

But the main reason I love missions is because it has always been in mission-environments that I have most fully and tangibly felt God’s love. In Kenya, walking through a special needs school that radiated so thickly with His presence. In Honduras, with little kids who taught me so much more about love and trust than I could ever teach them. In Los Angeles, when I surrendered my hesitations to God and felt His deep love for the homeless man we were praying for.

If there's anything I've learned through missions, it's that God loves the broken. His heart is so near to the hurting and the sick and the poor. He loves drawing near to the outcasts and the ones who have been unloved and rejected by society and remind them they are not alone (after all, isn’t that what he does with all of us, since we have all been forgotten and broken and poor in some way?). That's what missions really is. It's not about a specific place, but about dedicating ourselves to spread God's love and join Him where He is already at work.

So that’s where I want to be, too. Where His love is so tangible, and so deep and so simple. God's love is wild and all-consuming, but it’s also simple. So much simpler than we sometimes make it. It's life changing and powerful, but tender enough to be found in the smile of a little child.

The “call to missions” for me has shown up in my life in several ways. In a dream once, yes, though it wasn’t as dramatic or “spiritual” as people sometimes think it’s supposed to be. But it's also so clear to me just in the fact that something in my heart leaps whenever any missions-related video is played at church (I'm already an easy crier so you can imagine what this does to me...). And at the end of the day, it’s just about peace. A peace that comes in knowing that this is what I was created to do.

I don’t know exactly how, and I don’t know exactly when I’ll find myself on the mission field (or if my mission field will even be overseas at all), but I know God puts dreams in our hearts for a reason. So I trust Him with mine.

And I know you can always trust Him with yours, too.

#christian #2016