My Burden

One thing that I’ve wrestled with being called somewhere in the United States is that the USA is reached. Yes, America has a need for solid holiness teaching.  Yes, America has lost many of the values it once held.  But while America has spiritual needs, most Americans have held the truth in their hands and have chosen to reject it.  Most of us Americans cannot even get to our own church on Sunday without passing at least another church — many of us pass several churches.  If someone truly wants the truth in America, they can find it.  The resources are at our fingertips:  in books, in churches, on websites, and ultimately, in the Word of God itself, which is available freely to us online, on mobile apps, and in print.  America has been reached with the Gospel. 

Meanwhile, there are millions of people across the world who are unreached.  People who have never even seen a church building.  Who have never seen a copy of God’s Word.  Who have never passed even just a “professing” Christian on the sidewalks.  There are millions of these people.  Lost.  Headed to eternity.  Going to be separated eternally from Jesus — a God whose name they never heard.

I still believe that Jesus calls some people to stay in America to minister.  And for the moment, I am one of those called to remain behind, and I gladly accept the responsibility for the souls He’s untrusted to me here.  But my heart aches to go reach those who have never heard the name of Jesus.  

And my heart aches even more at the reactions I receive when I say I’m teaching in Indiana.  Everyone in the room breathes a sigh of relief.  They’re so glad I’m staying in the United States where I’m safe, secure, and within their reach, but meanwhile, someone across the world is dying and headed for an eternity of torment, isolation, and separation.

Does anyone see what’s going on?  Can anyone understand how I feel?  The ache I carry that while Americans have the truth at their fingertips, some people are completely without any semblance of the Gospel?  Someone needs to go to them, and my heart sees this need and cries, “Oh God, pick me!”  But I’m praised for being safe.  People are thanking God that I’m staying here.  I am burdened that others are not burdened for the unreached people of the world.  Oh, that people were so burdened for the lost that they would rejoice for me to go rather than to stay! 

I thank God that He has called me to work for Him in the US, and I rejoice that He truly does know how to reach those unreached people.  He can do it without us if He chooses, but He did command us to go into all the world.  Oh that God would give us a love for the unreached that compels us to go, and a love that rejoices just as much at His sending our family and friends to the ‘unsafe’ places as to the ‘safe’ ones.

This is my burden.

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