Church messed me up on Sunday.

I overslept because I got home really late Saturday night/Sunday morning from a conference. My husband left early for work and my kids never woke me because TV puts them in a time warp. So when I finally arose from my slumber we rushed around like crazy people to get to church semi-on-time. I think one of my kids may have eaten gummie snacks for breakfast.

After I dropped them off at their classes — finally noticing that none of them had actually brushed their hair and hoping desperately that they had brushed their teeth — I hurried to my own classroom where a dear sister-friend was already sharing about her recent trip to Africa. I settled into a seat and slowed my breathing from the sprint up the stairs.

And in seconds I sunk deep into her stories.

I could tell you everything that the team did in that desolate place or try to paint a picture of those sweet, orphan, HIV faces, but it wouldn’t do any of it justice. So I’ll just tell you what her testimony stirred in me.

 

 

I sat with tears running down my face and a conversation with God in my spirit. “Lord, I want to be used by You to do big things on this planet. I want to honor You with my life in big ways — going overseas and speaking more and writing books (faster). I just want my life to make a deep mark on this world for Your glory in this short breath of time You’ve granted me.”

Her testifying ended but my tears continued whenever I imagined the faces of those sweet kids. And my conversation lingered in me throughout the day. Until eventually, God clearly spoke. Not audibly because I might have completely freaked.

I was sitting in my favorite morning chair, telling God again how I wanted to be used by Him to do big stuff, like change the world. Because I’m a dreamer. And it was as if He placed His hand on my restless spirit and whispered with a smile, “I have you exactly where I want you, doing wildly powerful, eternal things even in this day, in these things, with these people that I place in your moments.”

And with that He graced me with perspective. Wanting to go and see exotic places or pray over foreign lands or feed hungry, sick children isn’t wrong. Lord, forgive us for static feet. I truly believe He put this passionate, take-me-wherever spirit in me, and it makes Him smile. He tells us to go, and by His grace He will lead us at different times in our lives to walk on unfamiliar ground seeing unfamiliar worlds. And being willing to go wherever He leads honors our Lord.

But most of us, most of the time, are just “here”. We’re in the midst of what seems to be mundane, unromantic living. Yet there’s something really important about “here”. You ready for this? Wherever our “here” is, it’s where God has us…with purpose.

 

For we are (God’s) workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
Ephesians 2:10

 

I don’t always like that reality, because it’s hard to see the eternal impact that comes through a cup of juice given in kindness to my child or a visit to the nursing home or a word of encouragement to a friend. But love fleshed out in the dailiness of life is exactly what changes the world, one moment, one soul at a time.

 

“Love fleshed out in the dailiness of life is exactly what changes the world.”

 

Wanting to “go big or go home” has it’s place. God puts dreams and desires in us as we seek after Him. And often, those dreams are too huge for paper. But more often, our mission field isn’t as glamorous. It’s in our homes and on our street and…in Wal-mart. Lord help us.

In Christ, God has good things, big things, eternal things for us to do. And though that may mean time in Africa, it absolutely, unquestionably means today in our “here”.

 
Fill me, Lord…

How have you wrestled with accepting your “here” as your mission field?