There has been this storm brewing in my heart now for almost five years, and I am finally able to verbalize this chemical change that has happened in my heart and in our family. For these past five years God has led my husband and I down an unexpected path. For years we have been troubled by the oppression and injustice in our world, but like most western believers, we had no idea how to do anything about it. We would have those sad discussions about children being sold in the sex slave trade or about the overwhelming numbers of orphans on this earth, or about kids starving to death in Africa, or the AIDS epidemic....and well, none of those things personally affected our family. But beyond that, we cared. We just didn't know what to do about that caring. We could offer meager amounts of money towards people out there trying to make a difference, but somehow that never felt like enough. We reached a place where we had all the things we thought we ever wanted...and yet, we still found ourselves lacking. I owe so much of my ability to verbalize all of this to Gary Haugen, President of International Justice Mission, who writes in his book, Just Courage:
"Now what? Indeed, there comes a time in the life of every believer and of every church where a voice inside us simply asks, Now what? After we have been introduced to Jesus and have found peace with God through him. After we have been following Christ and have gradually been surrendering the compartments of our life to him. After we have asked him to redeem our past, to heal our wounds, to reconcile our marriages and safeguard our children. After we have asked him to purify our thought life, to sanctify our ambitions, to soften our hearts, to comfort us in tragedy, to lead us in wisdom through confusion at work, at home, and in our hearts. After he has filled our minds with the Scriptures, and taught us his Word, his songs, his ways and his love for us.
After all of that, there is a voice that remains and simply asks, Now what?"
Would you consider walking this path with us? This path leads to unknown, scary places that aren't "safe". I'm asking the hard questions here, and I want to try to answer them with others whose hearts are struggling with the "Now what?" question. To answer this question, I believe we have to answer so many other questions first. Questions like, "Can I really live a brave life for Christ and still be safe and know that my children will be safe?", "What can I really do about the terrible injustice that consumes our earth that we live in?", "Why was I the one born in the land of plenty, and what is my responsibility to others that is implied in scripture based on the abundance I live in?" (Hint: It is not because God likes me better than that precious mom on the other side of the ocean from me who is dying of AIDS while watching her children starve and wondering what will become of them when she passes.), "What do Jesus and the Father think about my church?", and other hard questions. Hard....but worth asking if they can lead us to find the calling and purposes stored deep in our hearts, placed there by a loving Father when he was forming us for such a time as this.
