THOUGHT: A New Understanding

I like to learn. There are sometimes I don't even mind learning that I just did not get it before; which is good, cuz it happens frequently. That has happened to me, again. I learned something. Well maybe it is just a new understanding, but I'm going to call it an enlightenment.

For years I have heard about missionaries, heck, I even like some of them. And as I looked at them there was always this sense of martyrdom. These people are ready and willing to suffer and perhaps even die for their beliefs. I thought that they believed more than I did. My new understanding? My enlightenment? I never thought about the role that God played and plays in their story.

I never thought that God might actually transform them and change them for their call. Looking back now I just feel kind of stupid. It seems so obvious. Of course the Spirit equips and empowers. He will give us whatever we need to do whatever He has called us to do. Just never thought it through though.

Here is the part that really hit me. I looked at missionaries as people with a higher than average tolerance for suffering. Why did I do this? Well, it is obvious isn't it? They left here to go there. And there is never as good as here, right? I used to understand missionary furlough as a break, kind of like a vacation. They get to come back here and leave there. How nice for them. I never ever thought that God worked in them, changing their hearts and bonding them together with the people and country that they ministered in. Why did I never see this? I have worked at multiple churches and I know that God has always brought my heart to love the people where I am. Why did that seem so impossible for missionaries? I don't know. Spiritual blindness? Fear? Selfishness? All of them?

Whatever the reason I have Derek & Bonnie Burnett & family to thank for my recent enlightenment. They actually like living and working in Thailand! Can you believe it? They are eager to go back "home." God works to transform us in ways that we would like and in ways that we need to live in freedom and in joy wherever we are as long as we are within His plan for us. How freeing is that? So even if you are nervous now or repulsed now or whatever you feel...all of those things can change as we simply remain obedient to the One who calls us forward. That is good news because I certainly know that I have made some of my own choices that I did not like. I stayed not liking them. But with God and the submission of our free will to His perfect will those things that deter may very well be wonderfully removed or transformed into things that compel! Who knew?

Oh, all of you? You all knew that? Oh. Well I am slow to catch up, but I am glad I have arrived this far now.

Who knows what tomorrow holds? And now I can be reminded, yet again, that I need not fear it. I can walk in it boldly with my eyes fixed on my transformer.

g-ram