July 28, 2007

• Recklessness for God

  by Mary Ann Nguyen [This is an enews article about two years ago.] "Lord, I don't think I can make it.  There are still four more weeks.  I wish I was at home - Can you just take me home?"  Darkness spread all around me on the top bunk of the dorm room at the orientation site in Hong Kong.  The only sound I could hear was the dull hum of the air conditioning and the stiltedness of my own labored breathing.  I knew I should've stayed away from my roommate back in San Diego.  She had been sick all the week prior to my leaving for the trip, and now it was Day 3 of Orientation and all I felt was immobilizingly dizzy and nauseas.  And I was missing out.  How in the world will I make it through the rest of this mission trip?!  I'm going to *die* in China! Suffice it to say, I did not die.  A mere, minor cold and I was ready to quit.  What kind of meddle am I made of anyway?  Maybe something like brittle chalk which disintegrates into dust at the touch of the hand.  And yet, amazing, isn't it, how God can take soft-shelled nothings like me (and you) and make us into strength-filled somethings - important and useful to Him! I don't think I will ever forget Summer of 2004.  It will be forever recorded as my very first short term mission, a time where I met God and God met me in a foreign place... where I had hard moments of heartache and of being pushed to the edge of knowing I needed to cling to God and finding in that clinging that He had never let go of me in the first place... and where I had joyous moments of dreams coming true, of prayers being answered, and of being used by God in tangible ways... Maybe you can identify with the journey I went on as an echo of your own journey.  We are all too-often so keenly aware that we are "ordinary" with a multitude of weaknesses, flaws and deficiencies.  These limitations as well as other kinds of doubts and misgivings often encumber us from taking steps of faith to follow God.  But in the moments where we forgot about ourselves and only saw God and followed, what did we find but that God turned our ordinary nothing into an extraordinary something!  The summer you took a step of faith to go overseas or when you chose to stand for Jesus instead of sitting like everyone else, where you loved the unlovely while everyone wrinkled their noses and scoffed... something amazing happened - didn't it?  You are, in those moments, exactly who God created you to be.  A worshiper of God and a reckless lover of Jesus willing to do anything to make an impact on all eternity!  And something amazing happened...  So will you again commit to offering yourself to the Lord - to be that reckless lover of God who is willing to go anywhere and do anything for Him?  There’s no better life worth living than the one that forgets about self and thinks only of God.

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