Missions
Take Courage, Stand up! He is Calling for You
(Part 1 of 2)
When I was a child, my family took numerous vacations in Mexico. I’ve explored the architecture of the historic city of Guadalajara, got spooked at the sight of 400 mummies in the little town of Guanajuato, found myself corned in a bathroom by a giant crab in Puerto Vallarta, body surfed the massive waves of Zihuatanejo (and did a face plant into the bottom of the ocean), scampered up the Mayan temple at Chichen Itza, and scuba-dived off the island of Cozumel to swim with beautiful parrot fish—I LOVE MEXICO!
About 15 years ago, when my church announced that it was doing a mission trip to Mexico in October, I was beyond excited. For me, going to Mexico was like going to Disneyland.
I eagerly went to the first orientation meeting for the mission trip and took in all the information. But when I got home that night, it began: the mockery inside my head…
“You can’t go on a mission trip! You can’t even converse with people about the weather. Do you think you can share the gospel with strangers? In another language? Who are you fooling? And you don’t have any money, and you don’t make enough to save anything! There’s no way you could get enough to go! You? A missionary? God can’t use you! You don’t have what it takes.”
At the time, my faith was no bigger than my bank account (which was empty.) And I didn’t know how to “take my thoughts captive.” My enemy held me captive and kept me frozen in fear.
That Fall, the Mexico Mission Team left without me.
When they returned from the trip, I heard all the remarkable stories of God’s faithfulness and how He had used ALL of them. I felt ashamed. I wanted to be used by God. A few of my friends had gone on the trip and returned energized and filled with the Holy Spirit. Their faces were beaming, almost glowing—as if they had been in the presence of God Himself. And I was jealous and kicking myself in the pants for not going.
If only I had their faith!
After hearing their reports, I talked privately to one of my friends who had gone on the trip. I confessed my desire to go and my lack of faith and money. He reminded me that this is an ANNUAL mission to Mexico and that I could go next year. He encouraged my faith, saying that God can work through anybody. He wants hearts willing to serve Him. What we lack in skills or strength or resources—God will provide.
“Take courage, stand up! He is calling for you.” ~ Mark 10:49 (NASB)
My friend challenged me to open a new savings account, dedicate it to the Lord, and commit to making a small monthly deposit. Any “surplus” funds that God might send my way should also be deposited into the account.
I had a whole year to save the $750 needed to go to Mexico next October. “You can do it!” he insisted. I prayed about it and felt it was the right thing to do. I promptly planned on opening a savings account just for this mission trip with $50 from my next paycheck.
About a week later, out of the blue, before I even got paid, I received a “kicker check”—a tax refund of about $70, something I’d never heard of. So I marched down to the bank and opened a new savings account with that, plus $50. I prayed over the account and said, “This money is yours, Lord. I want to serve you with it. I would like to go to Mexico, but whatever you want me to do with this money—I will do.” Within another week or two, I received a $130 refund from my car insurance company—also unheard of.
Come Christmas, I received an unexpected bonus check from work, so it went directly into the savings account! Whenever I received funds above and beyond my paycheck, I funneled them into this new account. The money kept trickling in, and in just two months, I had over $500 saved for the mission trip that was still ten months away!
As the new year rolled around, a guest speaker named George Bryson came to my church. George was the director of the Calvary Chapel Church Planting Mission organization. This ministry sends mission teams from the United States over to Russia to plant and grow new churches there.
Now, George is a real character. A great joker, storyteller, and Bible scholar with a passion for missions. He spoke about God’s calling on our lives and how God calls people onto the mission field. He also said that when God calls us to do something, we need to obey immediately, not second guess him, argue with him, or try to negotiate better terms and conditions.
During his teaching, he said something that I will never forget:
“When God calls you, what part of GO don’t you understand?”
Yeah! I chuckled nervously in agreement.
As I was listening to him, I was utterly convinced I was going on a mission trip! But as he talked about taking teams to Russia, I applied everything he said about missions to our church’s next trip to Mexico. He got me pumped up and ready to go. I was in complete agreement, saying, “YES, LORD, I’m going! I’m ready. Let’s do this!” I was ready to run out there and hop on the next plane to Mexico.
A few days later, I decided to figure out my taxes and see if I had a tax refund coming my way so I could add it to my Mexico fund. I did! And it was over $600—I never get refunds that big! In only three months, I now had MORE MONEY than I needed to go to Mexico. I was ecstatic!
Lord, you are so generous my cup runneth over! You are awesome!
I praised Him as I began dreaming of all the fun gifts I would bring back from Mexico for all my friends and family.
But with God, everything has a purpose—even extra money.
A month or so after George visited, my pastor announced that my church was putting together a mission team to Russia, and I thought, “Great! You people have fun with George! I’m going to Mexico. ”
At this point, my bank account was now up to $1,300.
As I was trying to fall asleep that night, a still, quiet voice kept me awake, asking me annoying questions like: “Why do you suppose it is you have twice as much money than you need to go to Mexico? Do you think perhaps the Lord might have another purpose for it?”
Oh Yeah! I don’t need all that money. I can bless someone with it! I can pay for someone else to go on the mission trip! What a great idea!
I roll over in bed, trying to ignore the inquisition.
The voice continues in my head:
“Maybe God has given you more money than you need for Mexico because he wants you to go elsewhere else?
Perhaps, someplace that may cost more?
Someplace like… Russia?”
Russia!
Oh Noooo!
No way! I’m going to Mexico! In Russia, it’s cold, and you have to wait in line for toilet paper; everyone looks depressed and angry or drunk, and there are KGB spies on every corner. I don’t know the language, and their alphabet is crazy. I could never read it. I would be so lost, I don’t want to go there!
I love Mexico! Vaya con Dios!
“That money has a better purpose than buying souvenirs.”
Oh no! I can’t. Baby steps. I need baby steps. God, please give me baby steps! First, let me go to Mexico. The fact that I’d even go on ANY mission trip is an excellent first step for me, right God?
For the next three nights as, I tried to convince God that I was better suited to go to Mexico. I wasn’t afraid of going to Mexico. But Russia, now THAT was more than my faith could handle. It has to be Mexico, or so I wanted to believe.
Now, God is a pretty persistent deity, and I, in my spiritual deafness, was slowly beginning to hear the challenge set before me:
“Are you going to go where I want you to go or where you are most comfortable?"
Now that I knew I had the money to go, I began to realize that my going to Mexico took little faith because I was completely comfortable going there. But as I was to learn, God wanted to stretch me and take me out of my comfort zone, to a foreign country where I couldn’t read the street signs. He wanted my faith to grow and my relationship with him to deepen. God wanted me to learn to fully depend on him for my every move and need.
He wanted me to go to Russia, but I clung to my dreams of revisiting the adventure land of my youth.
Then I finally heard Him loud and clear, and He sounded a lot like George Bryson:
What part of “GO” don’t you understand??
Okay. Russia, it is!
My excitement for a mission trip suddenly gave way to panic:
Eeeeek! What have I just agreed to?
After about a week of being humbled and on my knees before God, I started embracing the thought of going to Russia. I became solidly convinced that this was where God wanted me to go and even began to like the idea of a big, albeit scary, adventure in faith.
I asked for and was granted the time off from work for the Russia mission trip in July. Meanwhile, money kept pouring in from pleasantly unexpected places, further convincing me that Russia was where I was supposed to go.
In February, the REAL test of faith came:
Another larger bank had recently taken over the bank I worked for. In the merger process, our computer system needed to be converted to the new bank’s system, and all the employees had to be trained how to use it. Training was scheduled for the first two weeks of June.
In early February, news came from the mission trip organizers: our trip had been rescheduled to early June! Upon hearing this, I asked my boss if I could change my vacation days to this time. “No. No one, not even management, gets time off in early June because of the mandatory computer training.”
Umm, but I’m supposed to go to Russia!
How can this happen now?
Did I hear God wrong?
——————————————————-
Stay tuned for Part 2….“Running into Closed Doors”, the conclusion of this TRUE STORY!
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