A Heart for the Nations

Dear Lord,

I know You are calling me to write about this tonight, especially after the conversations I’ve had in the past two days with Shelley and John, but I don’t even know where to begin. I pray You will speak through me and lead me, letting all words flow from the Spirit.

I was talking with each John and Shelley about the fact that it seems like so many people are being called to international missions in some way, including me. We were discussing where these callings are coming from and how You are leading us in it. And I must look back on this summer, search my heart, and see where You have led me in it.

In October at Crusade is when You first revealed to me You were calling me into international missions at and for some point of my life. There were a few other things You gave me in that, but were somewhat vague at the time and I knew You were to continue to develop them in Your timing. In this, You confirmed it with Your word, expressing the desire I felt and had in Romans 8.

Throughout this year I have known the call but I hadn’t truly felt it. In a lot of ways You continued to pull me from my earthly ties and show me how I am a stranger on earth, and am only a citizen of You. Because of being born and growing up in the same town for 18 years, I am used to having very strong roots. Yet, through college and Summer Project and the time I have here in Hollywood, You are showing me that I am only to put down roots in You, and also leading me to what I believe is going to be a life of much transition. That is completely different than anything I have ever known, and through that, O Lord, I know that I will have to rely solely on You and not on my own strength, because my own strength will not carry me through.

Shortly after speaking to me about my missions call, You were beckoning me to apply for summer project. Santa Monica was the last place I picked; I picked it as an afterthought, but through all of the circumstances regarding my application and recommendation, that is where You led me, and now I so beautifully see why.

From the beginning of project, I was met with a diversity of people that I have never been around in one place before. To say that Santa Monica is a melting pot of sorts seems to be an understatement. Never before had I walked among peoples from every nation and tongue and state of life imaginable it seemed. In the first week I talked to people from probably 6 or 7 different countries, and that boggled my mind! Needless to say, Colorado Springs and SLO aren’t exactly the most diverse of places. So what a change it was to see and be confronted with all of these people.

And from the beginning when we went out sharing, quickly You broke my heart for the lost. As I was writing about the other night, I finally saw that we are all united as Your people, in the fact that we all need You so desperately, regardless of who we are.

Yet as I continued to talk with these international people over the course of the first few weeks, I found myself fascinated with their beliefs and the roots of such from their countries. I think in other countries one finds roots, systems, practices, and rituals in such a structure that you would never find here in the United States. For example, I talked to so many Catholics from Europe and Mexico for the most part, and yet they didn’t understand or grasp the Gospel. So often the reason why they were “Catholics” is because that was the church of the country or the practice of the family.

With people from the United States, I think I saw the most new-age and post-modernists beliefs, in general anyway. But I think a large majority of the international people I talked to, when asking their spiritual background, answered with the name of a current religion, whether it be Islam, Judaism, Catholicism, Buddhism, etc. Yet so often I also found that these people had very little idea of their own religious belief systems or why they “believed” it.

One girl I talked to on the SMC campus with Kathryn stands out in my mind right now. Such a sweet girl…we talked to her and she said she was Muslim but not practicing. That is her family’s belief system though they’re not practicing either. We talked with her about why she says she is Muslim when she doesn’t believe it or isn’t practicing it, and got into a good discussion about that.

I think I am seeing that it seems like there are two extremes with international people. The first being that there is a belief system in place, they profess to follow a religion, but know little about it. It’s about the practice of religion, and the relationship with You is missing. The second, which I wasn’t directly acquainted with this summer, being that they have never heard of the Gospel and don’t really have any form of religion, and the relationship with You is also missing.

Regardless of what these are, it comes back to the fact the relationship with You is missing. What a blessing it was to share that with these people this summer, and I found them more open to having spiritual conversation and hearing the gospel than people from the United States were.

I think we have so much information and input being thrust in our faces constantly in the United States that this new information is losing its appeal…it seems like it’s something we’ve heard of before or something that has happened before or something someone else has done before. Needless to say in sharing with them, I didn’t see quite the same response with the gospel as I did with international people.

A lot of this is me thinking out loud, O Lord, and I pray You continue to lead this…

I’m reminded of the Great Commission: Matthew 28:19-20: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”

I’m also reminded of Acts 1:8: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." And a sidenote with this: Jerusalem is the birthplace of the church, the hometown in a sense. Judea and Samaria are the neighboring lands of Jerusalem. The ends of the earth is self-explanatory. In speaking through this O Lord, You are calling us to first be Your witnesses in our “hometowns,” and then in our “neighboring lands” and then to the ends of the earth. I think this is a model I need to follow.

The scripture that was key this summer O Lord was Matthew 24:14: “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”

Jamie explained this so well, in stating that the condition for the end to come is that the Gospel will first be preached to all the nations in the whole world. This fascinated me, O Lord, and as I continued to meditate on this, what You did in my heart…

The night of the international dinner, I was not assigned to a country to go and eat their food and practice their customs; but rather, You placed me in the 10-40 window group. How You were there with me in such an amazingly profound way…there were many things You were doing at that present time as for choices I needed to make, but You brought this choice above them all: will I choose to accept the calling You have for me in international missions, and all that comes with it, or would I not accept it and go the other way? For two hours we sat in silence in a hot, cramped room, and during that time we read all about the 10-40 window, from general information to specific profiles of different countries. We prayed and meditated on this in silence, and how You moved my heart in a way that You never have before with all of this…

I was for the first time being confronted with all of the statistics and nature of what these countries were like. I read of their government, the demographics, the religious environment, so on and so forth. A majority of this was rather grim. Yet You swelled in my heart that these people have never heard of You…never heard that You love them, have never heard the gospel…and I found and still find myself heartbroken at that. Oh that these people have never experienced the joy, hope, salvation, purpose, and redemption that I have in You! Oh how they are missing out on the source of life itself…

And I can’t not go…I must tell these people of You…I must. They need to hear of the One whom I love more than anyone or anything that could ever exist…YOU. You enabled me to accept all that comes with this calling and realize that all that I count as loss for the sake of glorifying and preaching Your name…to the nations, O Lord. And how I will be able to participate in the end to come, for I will go and preach the gospel to the nations, O Lord.

How graciously You are providing in that aspect, and have so much in store for it. I eagerly await Your leading in it, and know Your timing is best…

And also, how scared and timid I am about this, but I know You are so much greater and stronger, for You have overcome the world. You are the rock I cling to and my trust will remain in You.

Tonight You’re speaking to me about how we are led as to where to go. I think I finally see something…I think often times we can have a heart for a region and place for missions, but with that, and foremost, we need to have a heart for the people there. We are not going to preach to mountains and sea, to buildings and farms, to cars, buses, or trains, but we are going to preach and show Your love to the people. In having a heart for missions, I think we need to have a heart for the people above all else, and ask You for that first and foremost. I pray that You will continue to break mine and others hearts for the lost people of this world, and then lead us to those people that break ours the most, whom we are compelled to share with.

I know for me, You led me a bit with this aspect this summer. I planned the outreach for Chinatown with Ben, and went sharing there with Derek. There weren’t just Chinese people there; it was largely the Asian population. In the conversations we had, I found a common thing…that people were largely Buddhist because of family ties, because that is how they have been raised. Granted there are other factors such as government, but that surprisingly wasn’t brought up, probably because we were in America. I still don’t know what the true nature is like in Asia with freedom of religion and all. But through these conversations, I found myself thinking back to my own background and seeing how You put Your grip on my life regardless of what my family religion and beliefs were. I think so often people feel confined to believe what their family does, and accepts that without seeking on their own. Lord, it was beautiful in that time to be able to communicate how You are a personal God who desires a relationship with every person, and that it doesn’t have to be decided by family, just a choice to seek after You personally. And Lord, how I desire to communicate this to people…that You are a personal God who changes lives through a relationship with you…and seeing how the Asian culture in large part has strong family ties, I see these lining up.

And obviously, there will be the most leading in how You lead me with my husband…because I know I am called to serve alongside him in international missions; that is a huge portion of what You spoke to me about in the initial missions call.

This is kind of a lot of different things within the theme of a heart for the nations, but Lord, I praise You in how You began to foster that with me in a huge way this summer and will continue to. Lord how I desire to see all peoples of the world enter into a relationship with You, and in order for that to happen, “this gospel of the kingdom will be [and must be] preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”