Staying Behind

I am part of a church that takes missions seriously. I haven't got statistics, but we seem to have a lot of commissioning services. We seem to send a lot of short-term missions teams overseas. We raise a lot of money for missions, and a large part of our church budget goes to supporting missions. Just this past Sunday, we had another commissioning service for a couple and their three young children, who are heading overseas to serve in medical missions. It's phenomenal. It's exciting. And . . . can I be honest? It's hard.

It's hard because I'm not going.

It is a hardness I feel every time someone goes. It is a difficulty I feel every time I attend a missions' conference, or speak to those who are passionate about going.

Because, you see, I am not going.

I am staying behind.

I believe wholeheartedly that I am exactly where I'm supposed to be, doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. There is no doubt in my mind that I am called to stay behind, just as certainly as those who are called to go feel their call to go. When I look at what I'm doing, I know it is serving to advance the Kingdom, one person at a time. It is what I am good at doing, what I love doing. I know it is good and God-honouring work, and I pray always that it brings glory to Him.

But then I look at this young couple heading over to a country where just a few weeks ago another medical missionary lost his life, and I think, Really, Marianne? They're literally risking life and limb, and the most you ever risk is having your Starbucks coffee get cold before you can finish drinking it. They are going to be blogging about their adventures, and you can just imagine the tales that will be told of snatching poor souls from the jaws of death, both physically and spiritually; of miraculous provision just in the nick of time; of edgy, exciting, almost other-worldly adventures . The most compelling stories you will have to tell are how you found cauliflower for a reasonable price and how you had to inch your way through thick fog to get to school this morning, and how you have a big stack of marking which you should be doing instead of blogging. They will be posting pictures of life-saving medical procedures, and hippos and elephants and deadly-poisonous snakes. You can post pictures of the foam on your latte and the squirrels in your backyard.

And suddenly, my called life looks so ordinary. So uninteresting. So boring. So . . . unspiritual. Like really, is what I am doing in my safe little "Christian bubble" so important?

I begin to doubt. Maybe I'm not really called. Maybe I should blow this popsicle stand and head off to the nether-regions of the world. Maybe the only reason why I feel "called" is because this life that I know is comfortable and safe and I'm too fat and lazy and spiritually soft to actually do hard things for Jesus.

Maybe.

But I don't really think so.

Because I don't really think that living passionately for Jesus in Canada is all that easy. Resisting the siren-call of culture isn't really all that easy. I am always stunned and saddened at how many people in the "Christian bubble" don't really know Jesus at all. They fear him. They question his love for him. They are living a salvation by works. They don't understand grace. I am heartbroken over how many people in the "Christian bubble" are in bondage to demonic forces like pornography, greed, gossip, sexual license, drugs, and alcohol, never mind things like sports, food, entertainment, or shopping. I am consistently grieved at the level of darkness that is found among those who are supposed to be light, and I am compelled to shine a light in the darkness inside that Christian bubble. Oh, do you see Jesus? Do you really see him? Do you see how recklessly in-love with you he is, right here, right now, in all your sin and brokenness? Do you really see him? Because so many who call themselves his disciples don't truly see him at all.

No, I don't really think that living passionately for Jesus in North America is all that easy. Or easy at all. It's just not all that glamourous. No one commissions the housewife or the auto mechanic or the IT guy or the nurse who changes bedpans in the local hospital or the many others who stay behind and grind it out, day in, day out, in a culture that does everything to overcome the light. No one reads their blogs or wants to hear their stories. Hardly anyone prays for them. They just do their thing in obscurity. It's not bad that it's like that. It's not wrong. It's just not easy. Staying behind, faithfully living for Jesus right here is hard.

And then there's the waiting. The letting go.

It's one thing to send "missionaries". But these people aren't "missionaries". They are our brothers, our sisters, our sons and daughters, our aunts and uncles and cousins and grandchildren. Our friends. Our best friends. And while the digital age has made the world smaller, the other side of the world is still a half a globe away. Skype may help a little, but it can't replace the flesh-and-blood, face-to-face relationships. True, our faith gives us the courage to step out and go to hard places. It gives us the courage to let go of those who do. But it doesn't turn us into emotionless automatons. We will still grieve. It will still be hard. We will miss our loved ones. Yes, Jesus said that he who gave up father and mother for his sake would receive back 100-fold, but he never said it would be easy, or without tears and heartache and missing those we love. Following Jesus by going, or by staying behind, demands sacrifice, and as right as the sacrifice may be, as much as Jesus is worth it, it still makes me sad.

That doesn't make me selfish. It doesn't make me weak. It doesn't mean I don't care enough about lost people. It doesn't mean I'm too ensconced in my comfort zone to do hard things for Jesus. Knowing the rightness of the call doesn't make the call easy or fun or without pain. The pain means I'm human. The pain means I love, and I'm willing to be sad and to grieve for the sake of the gospel. But going is hard. And so is staying behind.

I am staying behind. No one has commissioned me. No one wants to read my blog.  There's nothing glamourous about my life. Nothing particularly dangerous. It is just another an ordinary life lived in simple service, marked with ordinary happenings and lonely separations.

And yet . . .

It is my life. My story.

Lived for Him.