Quotes from the Heart: The Ones God Uses

How has your perception of a missionary & mission work changed as a result of this summer?

I always thought missions was for those with a specific skill set. They needed to be at a certain spiritual level, have some authority- the perfect Christian which obviously is non-existent. Now, I realize Christ calls the broken, the hurt, and the weak to lead, to be strong, to be the lights of the world.

-Jamie
P52 Detroit

From Religious to Follower

As we sit on the floor of Miram's home, I try to soak it all in.  I love every minute of this: drinking tea, pulling apart pita with my hands, eating the Arabic dishes (with our hands, of course), and talking with our Yemeni friends.  We came to teach English, but, today, we are pausing our schedule in order to eat breakfast together.  

I feel the Lord tugging at my heart, telling me to not let this moment go to waste.  I take a deep breath and plunge in.  I ask, "So, why do you celebrate Ramadan?"  My sweet friends begin to explain to me about fasting and our conversation evolves to an explanation of the Five Pillars of Islam.  Miram and her daughters tell me that, especially during Ramadan, they pray, fast, and give money to poor people so that Allah will have mercy on them and let them into jannah (heaven).  Again, I take a deep breath, and ask, "Oh, so if you died right now you would go to jannah?"  My heart breaks as they give a shy smile and shrug their shoulders, saying, "Enshallah (God willing), but we don't know.  We can't know.  Only God knows."

I want to hug them and cry out, "But you can know! Isa Al Masih came to us so that you can know that you can have a relationship with God, that He loves you, and that You can spend forever with Him!"  I think about when I was very young, how I spent hours and hours of my life trying to say the "right" words "enough" times, in hopes that at least one time it would "count" and God would accept me.  When I think about how I tried to pray the correct way, in the correct position, saying the correct words in hopes that I would earn God's favor, I realize how much I empathize with my sweet friends.

I pray that, as Jesus transformed me from a religious person to a true follower of Him, He would also transform the hearts of these friends from trying to do enough of the right things to trusting in Jesus.   

I Must Go

I never thought that reaching the unreached would be in my future or would become my future before this summer. I actually never thought I would want to leave Texas let alone America. However, this summer has broadened my horizons to the need to reach the nations. Who knew that remaining in the States would open my naive eyes to the truths of war-torn places, physically and spiritually, nationally and internationally, and their desperate need for the Living Water? Certainly not I.  For many years I had been praying that God would reveal to me an irresistible passion for something, anything. It wasn't until arriving in Dearborn that the Lord shook me to reality, telling me that all He wants me to do is go... go to the nations and share the gospel and love everyone in the name of His Son. After spending time with a different culture here, I feel led to be overseas, sharing the Good News with people unlikely to hear it or who lack in knowledge of it. My eyes have been open to the cruelties of this world and the need for the gospel; I feel like I must go to complete what God has called all of us to do, to do the Great Commission. -Jamie

Mosques & Burdened Hearts

I walk into the mosque.  It's late at night, the last call of prayer for the day.  The room for women is empty, but I hear men walking into the other room, going to join their friends who are already seated.  The imam begins the call to prayer, with each note piercing my heart.  It's an audible sign of lostness, focusing my heart even more on how these people are kept in chains by a false gospel.  The men begin their prayers and I am broken.  They are bowing and praying, trying to find their way to God because they don't realize that God has already made His way to us.  

The smell of incense envelops me.  The prayers led by the imam in the other room blare through speakers into the women's room.  I feel the spiritual warfare occurring in the room and focus my attention on praying for the power of Jesus to break the chains Satan has on this people group.  My heart burns with a desire to see many, many come to know Jesus.

"Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved.  For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.
For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness.  For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes." Romans 10:1-4

My feet sink into the carpet as I stand in a spot that so many women have stood in before me.  I begin to think... 

What if this was my life?
What if it was me who stood here and knelt here to pray, hoping that I could find my way to God?
What if it was me who was held captive by the false gospel of Islam?
What if I was the one without hope, without assurance of salvation, and without the understanding of how much God loves us, that He even sent His Son for us so that we could have a perfect relationship with Him again? 

I suddenly realize that, if I was the one without Jesus, I would want someone to tell me the good news about Jesus.  I wouldn't want people to pass me on the street, in the store, and at school, ignoring me and keeping their good news to themselves.  I would want someone to come to me, to invest in my life, to love me, and to repeatedly tell me and explain to me the good news of Jesus.  I would want someone to leave their way of life, their comforts, and their culture in order to enter my life and my community and share Jesus with me. 

"How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in?  And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard?  And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?" Romans 10:14 

Please pray that we would find favor with the Arab women we meet this summer, that their hearts would be open to the Gospel, and that we would be faithful witnesses in sharing the good news of Jesus and showing them His love in our words and actions.

The Cost

"Aiyah* (name changed for security purposes) is interested in the Lord.  She knows she needs Jesus, but she knows if she chooses to follow Jesus that her family will kill her."  

Those words have been echoing incessantly in my heart.  I woke up many times during the night, with my heart pierced and aching because of those words: "Her family will kill her."  I don't know how to do this.  I don't know how to tell my friends about Jesus, knowing there is a high probability many of them would lose all relationships with their family and, potentially, even their life if they chose to follow Jesus.  

When I say, "Jesus is worth my family," I mean that Jesus is worth being away from my family for two months, not that Jesus is worth actually having all of my family ties severed.  When I say, "Jesus is worth my life," I mean that Jesus is worth me losing my life choices, not that Jesus is worth actually losing my life.  This reality of family & separation, life & death has forced me to reevaluate my faith.  In the West, we like to take the words of Jesus and make them all figurative.  We like to soften the harshness of Jesus' commands and twist them into enabling us to "Christianize" what we're already doing.

In Luke 14:25-33, Jesus tells the large crowds following Him that, unless we hate our family & our own life and carry our cross & follow Him, we can't be His disciples.  He reminds us to count the cost of following Him.  Jesus tells us, "Those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be My disciples."  In Matthew 10:37-39, Jesus tells us that if we love our family more than Him, we are not worthy of Him.  Jesus tells us, "Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it."  What a far cry this is from walking down an aisle and passively accepting Jesus into our hearts while changing nothing about our lives.

What would happen if we believed Jesus actually meant the words He said?  How would we live our lives differently if we believed that Jesus seriously meant that many of us would literally die, losing our life for His sake?  I long to live like this is true.  The call of Jesus is not the call to riches and comfort, but the call to die.  Church, we must start living like this is true.  The ability to live our lives in a way that is for the glory of God and the good of the nations depends on it.  

I cannot look Aiyah* in the eyes and tell her that Jesus is worth losing her family and her life if I haven't also counted the cost of losing my family and my life and determined that Jesus is worth it.  If we do not love Jesus more than our family and if we do not take up our cross and follow Jesus, we are not worthy of Him.  May that truth penetrate our hearts, minds, and lives. May we truly follow Jesus, living and dying in a manner worthy of our resurrected Lord.