A Paradoxical God and East Asia

It's kind of funny how blogging eliminates all concept of time. I started writing this blog 3 weeks ago, but you'll read it in a matter of minutes. There are thoughts you'll read about that I had weeks part, but you'll read as a consecutive thought in one sentence. This intro was written last, but you'll read it first. This also has nothing to do with the rest of the blog. Sorry! Anyway....

I am pretty famous for not being able to commit to the decisions I make because I try so hard to make sure it's the "right" decision. For me, East Asia always plays into this decision-making process because it always comes back down to if/when I'll ever be back. If you've known me for 10 minutes, you've heard me talk about East Asia. For the last 3 years, I have watched my friends be sent to this nation and watched them bring the Gospel to a harvest so beautiful; so desperate; so devastating and so oblivious to their pain and suffering. I have watched people go and come back and tell me incredible stories about how hearts of these people are changing, and people are responding to Jesus. I've heard stories about discouraging conversations from hopeful servants. I am constantly reminded that this nation is being reached. But I am also reminded that I still haven't been back and ask the Lord time and time again why. I don't know why. I have my inklings, but I don't know for sure.

My heart beats for a country that I spent a week in almost three years ago. I don't get it. I just don't get it. How in the world can 7 days in a foreign country change the course of my life? When I think about it, I really only spent 6 days there because of the long flights. Along with that, it wasn't until mid way through the week that I realized the whole point of me being there. I had shallow reasons for deciding to go but came back with a transformed heart. It was almost a reluctant transformed heart. The moment I realized that the Lord bound my heart with to this nation, I said (out loud in somewhat of a shout standing in the middle of a street alley with people around me) "NO. No freaking way. Not here." But at the end of the week when I sat on the bus to go back to the airport, my friend Shanti asked me how I felt about leaving. I didn't want to leave. This was both unexpected and terrifying. (funny story: I asked Shanti the same thing and she said something about knowing she wasn't supposed to come back. She did a year-long STINT there two years later!)

In November, I will be going back for one week (Lord willing!). The country I remember is not the country it is today so I am returning with hopes of gaining a refreshed and renewed vision. I believe that doing overseas missions is a specific part of the Lord’s calling or purpose for my life to live that abundant life Jesus calls us to in John 10:10. But I have this [perhaps irrational] fear that the Lord is bringing me back to let me say goodbye. That in itself is a whole new conversation. But when I stop to think about all of this...it's not about me. I don't have to be sent. God doesn't need me to go to East Asia. In the end, it's always about Him. Even if I am going in November to "say goodbye," it's never going to be about me because God will not abandon this nation. If I stop to think about how much my heart beats for East Asia...how much more does God's heart beat for it?

There are days where I wish I had never gone. I feel like without that week there, my life would be much simpler. I would be able to make decisions about my future without wondering if East Asia is in the picture or not. There are days where the pain is unbearable. Like right now. Like many days throughout the last 3 years. There are also days where I think I'm crazy about it completely and it's all in my head; that I'm just so programmed to want to go that I'm just saying these things. For so long, I just wanted the beating to stop (metaphorically!) so I can get on with my life. The organ in my chest that gives me life continues to beat like it always does. But my heart...my heart...beats wildly and uncontrollably for this nation. Up until recently, I would always say that it was East Asia that made my heart beat, but it's God who makes it beat. He makes it beat through so many things. But God chooses to use East Asia in my life to remind me of the Gospel. East Asia reminds me that Jesus "for the joy set before him" died in order to give us life. Paradox. It reminds me that it is the blood of the Savior that makes me clean. Paradox. It is this beating heart that reminds me that I must die to myself in order to live the abundant life Jesus came for us to live (John 10:10). Paradox. Only God can make such nonsense things make sense. I've come to understand that the Gospel is not a way to avoid death, but a way to choose life. It's the only way to choose life. I have the way to life and my heart beats because I have life. I want to continue to give it life rather than deprive it of what makes it beat: Jesus. God over all the universe, whose heart beats wildly for this nation also beats wildly for me. Sometimes, we forget that this is truly enough. God is it. He is the Alpha and the Omega. He has always been and always will be.

"...all things have been created through him and for him.
He is before all things, and in him...

ALL THINGS HOLD TOGETHER" (Colossians 1:16-17)