by: Paul Kelly

This post is me being open and honest about how I view Mission in my life right now. I am going to try to explain the best I can what I feel the Lord has been revealing to me. I am always amazed at how God continues to patiently steer me in the right direction. It all started with a simple verse in the book of Psalms.

Rivers of water run down from my eyes, because men do not keep Your law-Psalm 119:136.

This verse impacted me in a big way. As I read it over and over in its context I began to understand the author and what he was feeling. It was the cry of the author that others would see, others would understand the fullness that he had in living his life for God. He wants others to be able to share in this and it comes out in such an emotional way it moves him to tears. This made me really start to think about why I was feeling so emotionless about Mission. I began to ask  myself what was driving me?

I heard a man preach once about having a heart for those who don't know what it is like to have a personal relationship with God. For lack of a better word lets call them "The Lost". I don't like these words for some reason. Maybe because it is so often used in Christian circles and I feel it has lost its meaning but for lack of a better word we will call them "The Lost". Getting back to the topic at hand I felt when I listened to him he understood something that I did not. He spoke with passion, with emotion, with great fervor. He was not saying anything I had not heard before but you could tell he understood it. He understood why he reached out to lost people. I feel I have lost that passion, that emotion, that fervor to reach out to the lost. I do not represent what Paul wrote in Romans 9:1-3. With Christ as my witness, I speak with utter truthfulness. My conscience and the Holy Spirit confirm it. My heart is filled with bitter sorrow and unending grief for my people, my Jewish brothers and sisters. I would be willing to be forever cursed—cut off from Christ!—if that would save them.

Honestly I feel terrible saying it but some where in this last year something in me switched from reaching out to lost people out of a genuine heart, to it being something I knew I was supposed to do. It turned from me asking God what He wanted to do, to me having brainstorming sessions and planing events. If you were to ask me when this happened I don't think I could tell you the exact moment it switched for me. I feel like it has been a progressing thing in my life. It wasn't until just recently have I noticed that something with this is very wrong. The Lord has been revealing things to me that I have tried to ignore because they didn't make sense to me. Like God wanting me to slow down when I feel we are gaining momentum. That is when you add more...Right??? That is what I thought. So what do you do with this voice that you feel is telling you to slow down? To spend time with Him? You listen to it!

You see the Lord wants me to continue to walk with Him, not run ahead of Him. Maybe I have not done anything stupid yet, but I have started reaching out to people with a message that is my own and not the Lord's. This is a scary place to be in because what substance can I give people if it is of my own power. People need a message from God, they need something that will sustain them, fill them up. My light has been fading. My light is dim because it is being lit by the fuel of my own being and not the fuel of the Holy Spirit, the fuel of the living God. This is my own wrong. I see it now and I am grateful the Lord has begun to reveal this wrong in my life. Now it is my job to correct it!

So how do I do that?

In listening to this man preach about having a heart for the lost. I remember a short story he shared but it impacted me in a big way. He shared a story about how you teach people to build a ship. He stated that if you want people to build a ship you DON'T first organize people to buy wood, gather the proper tools, assign jobs and work. You first must teach them the yearning for the wide boundless ocean. It was such a short yet powerful example of what I am feeling right now. I feel the Lord now is calling me to experience his heart for these people who do not know Him. He is giving me the yearning for the Ocean. I will not fully understand why I am organizing, building, gathering until I yearn for the Ocean. Until I experience God's heart for people. His heart for the Lost.