The Tale of Two Cities

Dickens began his famous work: "It was the best of times. It was the worst of times." From the best of times to the worst of times is a sense of what it felt like leaving the city of New Orleans to come to the city of Jakarta, Indonesia. These feelings were no reflection of the cities themselves but the comfort found in the city of New Orleans compared to the discomfort found in the the city of Jakarta.

Leaving New Orleans for ten days was not easy by any sense of the imagination. Waking early in the morning in an apartment filled with comfortable amenities, beside the love of my life who is the mother of my precious six-month old baby girl--who already has her daddy wrapped around her finger--and getting on a twenty-something hour flight that took me around the world away from these two precious girls should not be and was not easy. I praise God that He has blessed me with a wonderful wife and precious daughter who were difficult to leave. Even though our seminary apartment is small and not our dream home by any stretch of the imagination, I praise God that He has given us a place to live. I praise God for the school that I have been attending and the work that He has given me to do. God has blessed us tremendously.

However, I have noticed that it is easy to dismiss the call of God and work of God, excusing away His call with the very blessings He has bestowed. How many of His followers, including me, use His blessings (e.g. family, jobs, friends, finances, leisure activities, and many other good things that are His gifts) as excuses not to go and to serve? I know that I have been guilty of neglecting the work of God, citing His own blessings as excuses.

God has called me this next week to be out of my comfort zone. I am in a strange, foreign land, and it is noticeably uncomfortable in an incredibly tangible way. It is obvious to myself and everyone I come into contact with that I am a stranger. Moreover, I am supposed to serve and make an impact on this foreign land with the Gospel of Jesus, an incredibly difficult task given the disconnections I have with this country.

As I have been considering this, I have come to an eye-opening question: Isn't this how it is supposed to be for me anyway? Am I not, as a follower of Christ, supposed to be completely out of my comfort zone every day? Am I not to feel noticeably uncomfortable and out of place as a stranger in a foreign land opposed to Christ and His work? Am I not called to serve and make an impact in this foreign land with the Gospel of Jesus, which is an incredibly difficult task given the supposed disconnections I have with this foreign land?

The truth is I have been a little too comfortable lately in this world which is not my home. The comforts of this world have crowded out God too consistently, and this must not continue. We have been called by God and given a mission, to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to change the world. Not to grow comfortable in the world, but to change the world. This is a reality which we believers must remember. We must reclaim our God-called discomfort with the world. God has helped me to see that worldly comfort is a faith crippler and detriment to the work of the Great Commission.

Change must take place. What this change looks like remains to be seen. I think it looks different for different people. Brooke and I are excited about what it will look like for us in the coming weeks and months. What I know is that we must get serious about being strangers in a land not our own. We must get serious about the Great Commission and how we are to leverage all that we are and all that God has blessed us with in order to fulfill the Great Commission.