Out in the unwalled places, far away from the church doors, there are hearts that pray for the souls of the children, big and small, who never hear Jesus’ name except when used to defame His or someone else’s character. They never know of a Man that died for them, so they may have life and have it more abundantly. But, for them, there is someone praying, so someone must go.
Long ago I answered a call to ministry. I educated myself in appropriate Bible classes and studied the ways of the faithful that had gone before me. My legacy included both my paternal grandparents and my own mom and dad. While in high school, a young man in our youth group also felt a call to ministry but he was a pest and I avoided him like a plague. Oddly, we wound up at the same private fine arts college and suddenly those qualities I found so aggravating in our high school setting, became endearing in the context of my more enlightened and mature collegiate mindset. I married that guy, but it was many years before we actually began a journey into evangelism.
I have long been frustrated by people that need Jesus, know they need Jesus, but just won’t go to church. Everything they need is inside those walls, but they won’t come in! Then one day I was in a town with no Wal Mart. Oh! The horror!!! I made myself enter into a department store I was not familiar with. I was very uncomfortable and distracted. I didn’t know where anything was, and no one offered to assist me. They didn’t have exactly what I was looking for, but I got a similar product to meet my need and I left, determined never to return.
Not long after, I realized much is the same with those that don’t go to church. No one volunteers for an unknown that has a dress code, behavior protocols (know to us a liturgy), strange faces and music you don’t know the words to. I wouldn’t go either if I hadn’t begun when I was too young to remember. I also began to understand that for every person on the planet there is a mother, or grandmother, a neighbor, teacher, someone, that longs for that being to find a loving world of hope and prosperity. So, my husband and I went into the mission field in our own back yard.
One afternoon Keith met a friend of a friend. This person knew he was ministering and witnessing regularly to their common acquaintance. The friend shook his hand and said, “His momma’s been prayin’ God would send somebody. That somebody is you.”
There is not a more sacred, higher calling and no greater blessing than to be an answer to someone’s prayer.
And then I heard the voice of the LORD saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”
Isaiah 6:8
Someone is praying so someone must go. Perhaps it will be you.
Love,
Gretchen