FAQs: “How Do You Do It? (I Never Could…)”

I distinctly remember long, slow runs around the Abilene Christian University campus around eleven o’clock at night when I was twenty years old. They were the kind of runs you take on a break from a research paper or because your roommate’s boyfriend is still over or because you slept until noon and you’re not tired yet. The kind of quiet runs that tend to drift into prayer. Not well-articulated or particularly deep prayers, but – as your blood is pumping and the darkness is pushing adrenaline through your body – the kind of raw, wordless prayers that come straight from your gut. I remember in these times having a very real sense of giving God my whole life for his use and telling him earnestly, “Anything. Tell me where to go and what to do and I will do it. Anywhere. Anything. I’m all in.”

And if in those moments God had laid it all out for me clearly – what was ahead for his sake, where I was going to end up and what all I would be asked to do – I have not a doubt in my mind I would have said….

No.

Absolutely not. It’s too hard. It’s too much. I can’t. I’m scared. Ask something else of me.

No.  

Of course, in his wisdom, God didn’t lay it all out for me then. Nor has he ever before or since. And yet, somehow, between those bold and yet clueless first steps of faith, the disillusioned crush of reality somewhere in the middle, and now a grounded, ever-so-slightly jaded but joyful present, I am grateful for the calling. And what’s more, I wouldn’t change a thing.

“How do you guys do it?” people sometimes ask us when they hear our story, laced as it is with words like refugees, evacuation, snakes, looters, dirt. “I could never live and minister in a place like that!”

They mean well. It’s an attempt at a compliment, meant to affirm that we are more resilient and faithful than crazy and weird. Which I appreciate (because there are times I have my doubts). But really, what I think is actually happening in those uncomfortable moments is not just about honoring me. I think that the space they put between my family and theirs is more of a buffer than a pedestal, whether they realize it or not. Because when we put people who do hard stuff in a different category than ourselves, it’s much easier to forget the truth: that we are all called to do crazy stuff for Jesus.

That 20 year old jogging around ACU loved Ephesians 4:1, “Therefore I, a prisoner for serving the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling, for you have been called by God.” I longed to live a life worthy of my calling and spent inordinate amounts of time and energy trying to discern just exactly what that calling was.

These days I am not convinced that I have been called to work among refugees in war-torn North Africa any more than I was called to work among minority peoples in Western China or with the homeless in inner-city Chicago. In some ways, making sure I get all the details just right doesn’t matter so much to me anymore, (maybe in part because many of the details have had a tendency to change). But what I do know with absolute certainty is that I have been called. And not by just anyone. By God himself.

And so have you.

We are all asked to do hard things for the sake of the Kingdom, things that require risk and loss and pain and fear. And when we signed up for a life of following Jesus, we said yes.

Nowadays, in the wild world of life outside of those early dreams and hopes for the future, I find so much more significance in the verses right before Ephesians 4:1. The end of chapter 3 reads “I pray that from his glorious unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow deep into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen.”

Therein lies the good news. We are called to do crazy things, but as we accept the invitation, we are given a gift. The power of Christ works in us to do these things, pulling off acts of love and faithfulness we could never be capable of on our own. God does the heavy lifting. We just have to position ourselves into the wind of his Spirit and get ready for the most terrifying and amazing ride of our lives. And as we do so we will experience all the love and fullness of life we can imagine.

I invite you today to think about what crazy things you are doing in your life because of Jesus. Things more specific and more gut-wrenching than “I try to love everybody,” which of course is always a good idea but can be a get-out-of-jail-free card that actually keeps us from getting our hands covered in the filthy mess that is real love.

It might be fostering or adopting someone who is towards the bottom of most people’s waiting lists. Or living in a much smaller house than you really have to, or in a bigger house than you need to and giving an extra room to a friend or relative (or stranger) who could really use some home in their life. Maybe it’s living in a neighborhood where most people don’t look like you and making some really deep, intentional friendships. Maybe it’s growing a garden and feeding others out of it. Maybe it’s moving to Siberia to translate the Bible for people groups there.

Fredrick Buechner says “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” That could be one of a million places. But we have to find one (at least). Because when we say yes to Jesus, there isn’t a checkbox that lets us opt out of the Jesus-crazy.

Russell and I are getting ready to go visit our friends Kyle and Jenn who live in Tennessee with their four little boys. A few weeks back we got an email from Kyle in which he told us how we are still welcome to crash with them when we pass through town but we should know that their house was going to be a bit more crowded than usual. Why? Well, because they have decided to adopt a sibling set of four little girls. Bringing their total number of children to eight.

Do you know what I said to Russell when we got that email? Before I could quite catch myself the words were on their way out. “I could never do something like that.”

But as much as it terrifies me to admit, that’s not true.

Kyle and Jenn are stark raving mad, but it’s the kind of Jesus-centered insanity that inspires and challenges me. I want to always be in community with people who remind me of my calling and motivate me to work it out in radical ways no matter where I am in the world. Because we are all in this together.

May God bless each of us as we wrestle out what kind of things we could never do that we will do for his Kingdom. May we learn to trust ever more the one who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. Amen.