Through the Gates of pearly splendour...

I just finished reading "Through the Gates of Splendour" by Elisabeth Elliot. Perhaps not the wisest use of time with all the things I have to write, but it was helpful.

Last night I thought that this bit by Roger Youderian was interesting.

A missionary plods through the first year or two, thinking that things will be different when he speaks the language. He is baffled to find, frequently, that they are not. He is stripped of all that may be called "romance". Life has fallen more or less into a pattern. Day follows day in unbroken succession; there are no crises, no mass conversions, sometimes not even one or two to whom he can point and say: "There is a transformed life. If I had not come, he would never have known Christ." There will be those among the Indians who say they accept Christ, but what of the forsaking of heathen custom and turning from sin to a life of holiness? The missionary watches, and longs, and his heart sickens.

At this point he was pretty ready to pack up and head home.

The reason it struck me was because I think that this is how most Christians (western at least) live. The exception is that we don't have the one to two year period to learn the language. We long for the same results but without the hope that in two years we will speak in a language they will understand.

And I guess there is a couple of encouragements from this example.

1. Overseas mission is not different from home ministry. Missionaries feel the same, and sinners respond the same. Do not seek it if all you want is to see "better" results. The beginning of the book clearly presents the missionaries as people who were perfectly suited for ministry at home, but their driving force was that they could not stay home when other places needed to hear the gospel. We have a lot of spiritual resources at our fingertips, and overseas mission should spring from the desire to see the "gospel poor" have access to the same.

2. If you are seeking to live for Jesus and speak to others about Jesus, there is NO truth in thinking that others would know Christ if you had not come. I was encouraged at Scripture this week to remember that we are God's mouth piece. The very fact that I am here is a sign from God that he is not silent to you. I don't feel any different, but feelings are unhelpful when they distract us from the truth. The truth is 2 Corinthians 5:17-21 "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God."