Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Loss & Gain

Today has been a hard day.  It's hard to say goodbye, and it's hard to see people, including family, struggling and hurting because of our decision to become missionaries.  Some of the words said to me today got me thinking, honestly, about the choices that we're making at this time in our lives:


It's stupid to be leaving behind my job! I've been blessed for 8 1/2 years to work at a great church, with people who love us, families that support us, and youth who respond to the Word of God when they hear it.  In a country where the average length of stay at a church for a youth minister is 9 months, it's stupid to imagine leaving this church after so long.


We're crazy to sell off our possessions!  We've been married almost 9 years, and we haven't gathered a TON of things, by any means, but we've managed to get a few nice things.  A great dining room table, some nice couches that a wonderful family we love gave to us, a nice bedroom set, a lot of things that were great for the kids.  Now, it's all gone, sold in the last 8 weeks, belonging to other people and we're left with almost no possessions... we must be crazy!


We're heartless to be leaving our family and friends!  We've never been very far from Casper, and we know so many people here that we love, and who love us.  I can go to the store, and run into 10 people who genuinely care about me.  We can walk through a neighborhood and meet people that we went to school with, who we're always blessed to see.  Our families are almost all here, or are nearby.  We have children who have friends and family here, and they love our kids, and have been blessed to see them grow.  How could we possibly consider taking our children, and ourselves, away from this?


We're idiots to leave America!  Sure, this country may be struggling the past few years, but this is still the land of the free and the home of the brave, the birthplace of the American dream.  People are dying to live here, work here, raise their families here.  Instead, we would move to a country with a culture that we don't know, a language we don't understand, to live with people that we don't know and have never met.  We will have to learn every anew.  Our kids will have to figure everything out from scratch.  All of this will be done for less pay, in a less safe country, thousands of miles away from everything and everyone we've ever known.  What in the world could we be thinking?


The fact is, what we're doing doesn't make sense, when you look at it.  There's no reasonable reason to do what we're about to do, except for Christ.  As the Bible says, "whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ." (Ph. 3:7) We've been so blessed in Casper, and the Lord has given us more than we've ever deserved: a family who loves us, a church who blesses us, all the things we need for every comfort. But, we believe that God desires all men to be saved (1 Tim 2:3-5).  We believe that there is only one Way, one Truth, and one Life, and that no one comes to the Father God except through Jesus Christ (John 14:6).  And we believe that God still has children in Mexico that He wants to come to a saving knowledge of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  He hasn't called everyone to move there and serve there, but He's called us, and we believe that, in light of the sacrifice of Christ, in light of salvation and eternity, how could we say no?

Will it be hard to go?  Yes, it already has been, and it will continue to be so.  There will be hard days and long nights ahead of us as we struggle to learn the language, as we miss our family and friends, as we seek to adjust to this place in our lives that God has called us to.  But, while we will be without many of the things that we've had all these years while we serve in Mexico, we will never be without God.  It hasn't been our church that has kept us going all these years.  It hasn't been our families who have sustained us in all things.  It hasn't been our possessions that have blessed us.  All these things have come from the Lord, and will continue to come from Him.  We leave many things behind, but we go with Christ, so we do not go empty, nor do we go broken or defeated.  As Paul went on to say, "Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ." (Ph 3:8).  We are leaving much behind, but we aren't losing anything; no, we gain when we follow, when we go, when we serve.  Pray for us and miss us, but be excited for us as well, because we are blessed to follow our great God across the face of His earth and among His beloved children!
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