To Where Are You Called?

"It will not do to say that you have no special call to go to China. With these facts before you and with the command of the Lord Jesus to go and preach the gospel to every creature, you need to ascertain whether you have a special call to stay at home." 

-Hudson Taylor

Go read the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19). What is the first thing that comes to mind? To leave? To get away from wherever you are and go somewhere exotic to tell people about Jesus? That was me. I thought that the only way to proclaim the good news of Christ was to get up, hop on a plane to the middle of nowhere Spanish speaking country, and just start screaming JESUS LOVES YOU from the hill tops. Okay maybe not that ridiculous, but the thought may have crossed my mind once or twice. I didn't have a heart for my own country. I don't know if I thought that American was beyond help, or if I was just blind to our plight. In my eyes American didn't need me, they already had Jesus.

I'm not exactly sure when I realized how wrong I was, but the straw that broke the camel's back for me was a documentary that I had to watch for one of my classes, ironically. It was a Frontline special called Poor Kids, which chronicled the lives of 3 kids living in poverty in the US completely through their eyes. I sat with my hands on my head, my jaw dropped in astonishment, and tears running down my face. And for those of you that know me you know that if something makes me cry it's pretty freaking powerful because I don't cry.

I don't really know why this video was so powerful. I mean I lead WyldLife in a pretty rural area, a lot of the kids I know their get free lunches and are technically homeless. Poverty isn't a new phenomena to me. I'm very aware that it exists. I even knew before watching the video that 2 million people in our country went without dinner tonight because they couldn't afford it. But for some reason this struck a cord that is so tender and sensitive that I'm getting worked up just thinking about it.

We are so quick to leave America. I remember in middle and high school that staying in country for a summer mission trip was seen as "subpar" and definitely not as cool. If you went to Nicaragua for a week out of the summer you were like so super Christian doing the hardest of work. Middle and high school friends - that is a very large pile of cow manure, going to Nica is awesome, but so is going to Appalachia or Iowa.

(Don't get me wrong, international missions are still awesome and the Lord definitely calls people to that. I'm thinking of my friend Kate and how clearly the Lord has called her to Nicaragua to serve him there, that is incredibly sweet and very much for his kingdom. But I think that so many of us are so often quick to dismiss how desperately our own country is in need of the gospel and that we are in denial of the fact that the Lord is calling us to stay put and serve him recklessly here in America).

I am confident that Jesus is the solution. I don't know how exactly that he can draw millions of people out of poverty, or give them a permanent roof over their heads, or make sure that their stomachs are filled when they start to growl, but I have absolutely no doubt that he is able to accomplish all of that and then some. We as humans, as Americans - as privileged as we are - are incredibly insufficient (and greedy, let's be aware and seriously address this in ourselves. I know its a struggle for me), but God IS sufficient. As we discussed in Floyd leadership last night, shouldn't the knowledge of this encourage us to step into even more difficult situations confident in the fact that God is sufficient and powerful enough to accomplish all? In John 16 Jesus says, "In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world." He has overcome the world. All of it.

A few months ago I would've told you that I was going to hop on a plane to anywhere but here when I graduated from college, but my heart has never been so broken for my home. I have never felt so called, for the first and only time so far in my life, to stay home. Its weird and I don't know what it will look like but I have never been more confident that here is where I belong.