Behind the Fog

Alright alright so its time to get down to it.

Today’s inspiration:

    “Simon says 'pat your head', we pat our heads.

         Jesus says, ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,’

    we memorize that verse.”

-Francis Chan

This popped up on my facebook just an hour ago (see wasting time on the internet isn’t all bad)

and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.  How in the world are we more obedient to a game than we are our Savior? I ask this and yet I am the biggest failure in following this out.

Let me start by what I’ve been called to do this summer, and that is go to London on missions.  Now when you hear mission to London, don’t lie to yourself you say “oh that’s great and sounds fun, but why does London need missions?  It is after all one of the oldest and wealthiest cities in the world and has a history of Christianity.”  

I’m going to be honest with you, when I was first challenged to London I felt pure joy (that was the Spirit) and then as it began to set in I thought of it as the ‘lesser’ challenge since it is an established and open place.  That being on a team rather than leading a team was somehow less, that I was insufficient and not good enough. Were they just shipping me off to where it was easy so I couldn’t mess things up?

Man was I missing the point.

I was trying to plan out my future in the steps that I thought were necessary to get there: go on project 3 summers in a row, disciple, disciple leader, team leader. When you are asked to do those things you are definitely someone important.  Matthew 28:18-20 I had memorized, but I had chosen the nation I wanted to go to. 

Blog:My God Is Personal by Sheri Edwards

In that entire planning where in the freaking world was God in it? There was a lot of ‘I’ in there but not trusting God. The verse Francis Chan is referring to is Matthew 28:18-20 and I forgot the beginning of verse 18 as do a lot of us. “And Jesus came and said to them ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.’  My authority was shot, my control gone and realizing how selfish I had been in my planning.  It was Jesus’s authority that sent me oversees not my own to keep me here, it is Jesus’s authority that decides my future job and it is Jesus who is going to get it all done and get me there.

With this renewed mindset I'm following God whole heartedly to London.  I was excited before about the place itself but now I’m excited to have God reveal to me the need there more and more each day and how I get to be exposed to it and be a light to it for an extended period of time.  How many people get to go out in faith like this?
And it gets me thinking, what else have I memorized but have not yet mobilized?
As I dive into my sins on that last note hopefully you can ask the same thing for yourself and realize you were redeemed for a purpose and empowered to do it by the authority of Christ.

Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
Hebrews 13:20-21