Lately I’ve been thinking about the Hillsong United song, Oceans. Even though it’s several years old, it remains a very popular song. I heard it a few times recently, on the radio. It’s circulated over and over again on the internet, especially in memes where lyrics from it are placed on ocean-themed backgrounds. It’s a pretty song, calming and quiet, and very popular. When it starts to play, the emotional responses build as people cry…for exactly what reason? Is it because the song is pretty? Does it it remind us of days gone by, of things we want to do, or is it conviction? Is it an emotional response or is it a spiritual one? Are we hearing its challenge to cross borders as part of our Christian faith?
God keeps bringing to my attention the line, “Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders, Let me walk upon the waters, Wherever You would call me.” All of a sudden, I realized that we sing that line and have no idea what we are asking God to do.
A “crossing borders” story
Several years ago, I lived in the Raleigh, North Carolina area. While living there, my church, Sanctuary, got its primitive start. In those days, our first priority was finding a building. We looked on and off for a few months, looking first in Durham, and then in Raleigh. The best lead we had wound up not working out. The temptation to grow discouraged and frustrated was real. To avoid this, I started doing virtual tours, using Google Maps, of the downtown Raleigh area. I hoped to see available buildings to give the opportunity to learn more about the city. From this, I’d learn where we wanted to be and what might be available in different neighborhoods.
In the process, I learned how the city was laid out and where the common “boundaries” were found. Northeast Raleigh was considered well-to-do, downtown was the tourist area, and southeast Raleigh was, almost universally by reputation and association, considered the “low-income” area. It astonished me to learn the ways in which parts of Raleigh were classified by race. On one street, it was, in those days, still divided across these traditional southern lines.
It was even more awakening to me that most of the ministry work I’d done in that city was across the lines or borders I was not, according to popular society, supposed to cross. I never thought about it. When I went into ministry, the point was to make a difference for all people, including crossing traditional boundaries. I just didn’t know the way God would do it.
Are you really “called to the nations?
Every time I scroll down my feed on social media, I see repeated references to individuals pronouncing themselves as “called to the nations.” When asking them about this call, there are a few things that always happens:
- They can’t expound on which nations they are called to go to
- They don’t know what they are going to do when they get to “the nations”
- They can’t communicate with anyone when they get to “the nations” because they don’t speak their language
- Regardless, they insist they are called…elsewhere
It’s an awesome thing to have an international call. But I can’t help but notice that many of these people don’t walk across the street to help someone who is there, or cross town to visit a different church or engage in outreach. They might know “church” and the inside of a pulpit, but they don’t understand the important way we are called to crossing borders as Christians.
Being “called to the nations”
In Biblical times, being “called to the nations” meant being called to minister beyond the borders of Biblical Israel. In the instance of the prophets, many of them had what we might classify as “mixed ministries.” Their primary focus was often either the northern kingdom of Israel or the southern kingdom of Judah, but they also received prophetic words and insights for groups surrounding Israel. For example, the Prophet Jonah was a well-known prophet among the people of Israel. God shook his world by calling him to preach beyond the comfortable borders of Israel; he was sent to Nineveh.
Imagine that! God didn’t send him to a politically correct nation. It wasn’t about going somewhere to evangelize the “right kind of people.” Being sent to the very group that oppressed the Israelites was appalling to Jonah. It certainly wasn’t a call that was trendy or easy. In response, Jonah went in the opposite direction from Nineveh. What sounds exotic and glamorous to us is really a work that challenges us as people. We must address our biases and bigotries head on so we can be about crossing borders for our faith.
Moving past what’s comfortable
When we ask the Spirit to lead us to a place where our trust is without borders, that means that we are asking the Spirit to take us beyond what is comfortable for us. We are asking to cross the lines that society, our churches, our denominations, our families, and our own minds have established. We are asking that our call may take us wherever God wills it to go, wherever we are led. Walking upon the waters is about more than just literally walking on water – it is believing that, no matter where God calls you, He will take you there, and carry you back.
Being “called to the nations” sounds awesome, but that call to walk on water, wherever He calls starts in a different way. Just like Jonah, our call challenges us in ways we never thought possible. If you are truly called to ministry, you don’t need to go across the world to make a difference right now. Cross borders wherever you are. Go across the street, go next door, go down or up the street, go across your city, go across the country, go visit someone somewhere else. Prove that you aren’t afraid to cross the borders created by men. If you can’t go across town, there is no way you can go cross “borders” somewhere else. After all, the “nations” are all divided by borders that you can’t be afraid to cross because some man put them there.
A prayer for crossing borders
Lord, let it be my prayer that my trust may be without borders…and that I will walk wherever You call me…to crossing borders, as you require…in Jesus’ Name. Amen.
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