The Wisdom of God in Movement

Recently I did three posts on responses that people have given to our leaving for the foreign mission field. Namely regarding: risk, sacrifice, and prayer. Having mulled over things, I’ve decided to add one final response. And while others have expressed the following sentiments, it is something that has elicited the strongest pushback from another source: my own heart.

There is an elderly lady in our church. She is in her nineties and has been housebound for several years now. Every Sunday one of the women in the church will go out to her and help her to Zoom in to the service. Some of them also meet with her weekly to pray and encourage. It is a wonderful ministry.

Despite her age, this lady is very sharp of mind and easily remembers items for prayer. This is a wonderful gift to the church. One who cannot be out to regular gatherings, yet in spirit is just as involved in the life of the saints. Nonetheless, I do have a (humourous) bone to pick with this dear sister. As we have chatted with the women who pray with her regularly, we have discovered the content of her prayers for our family. She prays that we wouldn’t leave.

Her reasoning is, “but there’s so much to do in Ireland! We need them in the church! There’s need of Bible teachers and church leaders here… why would they leave that need here…?” So, she prays that we would stay and minister on the home front. She is not alone in her sentiments either. Others have expressed the same, whether from sorrow, ignorance, or just plain incredulity. And I understand it. After all, as I mentioned above, the greatest proponent of this line of thinking is my own self!

Ireland is the most unreached country in the English-speaking world. It is willingly leaping into extreme liberalism, moral degradation abounds, and many people are returning to their pagan roots. It is a dark place, with incredibly stony ground. In general, the evangelical community consists of very sound churches, with no major heresies abounding. But still there are not many churches. And there is also a gaping hole in those churches, where few young men exist.

Daily, as we approach departure, these facts play on my mind. Not only are we involved with many ministries, but both Dee and I have seeds of thoughts in our hearts about where we would live, ministries we would begin etc., were we staying in Ireland. Our own small church will be left with one less Bible teacher, and with only one leader. I really don’t need to be given reasons to stay. Hudson Taylor declared:

“If I had a thousand pounds China should have it- if I had a thousand lives, China should have them. No! Not China, but Christ. Can we do too much for Him? Can we do enough for such a precious Saviour?”

– Hudson Taylor

I echo his passionate statement. A thousand lives to be given to Christ would be too small. He is worth every one of them. But practically, in the case of where to devote those thousand lives, I would have to say that I would split them 50/50 between Ireland and South Asia. It is true, the need is great here. I would not be sad to stay.

Why then, when the need is so great, we are well-placed for ministry, and our desire is for this land, would we leave to minister elsewhere?

1. It is for noble reasons

Wanderlust exists. Often it exists even in my own heart. Those who have travelled and come to love the variegated world that God has created, will inevitably long to experience more of its beauty and people. And certainly, God can use that, as he leads individuals with certain wiring to far-off lands with the gospel. It would be remiss of me to fail to recognise that my father’s emphasis on travel, culture and foreigners in my youth has undoubtedly knit the framework of my being. I am very comfortable in overseas environments, or around foreigners at home.

I am also aware that some missionaries out there probably move overseas due to wanderlust, and maybe God sometimes even uses that misplaced desire. I don’t know. What I do know is that all the missionaries I know are lovers of travel, new cultures, languages etc., but also, they are not motivated to missions by those same things. It is my experience that those who are willing to uproot their lives (and sometimes families), facing the shame and scorn of some, dealing with sadness at leaving others, often at great personal cost, are not doing it for selfish reasons. They have heard the call of Christ to go into all the world, they have seen and felt the need of many perishing without hope, and they are compelled to move for the sake of Christ’s name among the nations.

Not only that, but these same people are often the ones who love their own countries the best. They long for the same spiritual realities to be grasped at home and abroad, because their hearts are sensitive to the need everywhere, and they long to walk in obedience to Christ. It is not out of misplaced wanderlust that they go.

This is conversely true of many who stay. Those who stay because they have a calling to their own land are not selling out to an easier path. Those who stay because of the need at home, are usually the most sensitive to the need abroad also. The need worldwide has compelled them, and they stay to miister in the fields here.

2. The Need is Greater

“But they’re needed here!” the contention rises. Yes, it is true. In one sense we are needed at home. Not in a prideful sense, but merely that until Christ is proclaimed in every city, town, village, household, there is always a need. There will be a need for Christians, and especially those living on mission as all should be, until the day Christ returns. But here’s the thing, the need is greater elsewhere.

We’re all familiar with the long waits in the hospital emergency department. Why is it that they can’t come quickly to deal with my sprained ankle? I’m in agony! Well, once the nurses have collected the patient’s details, they will triage them. There is a need for the sprained ankle and the car-crash victim both. But one is a greater need.

I love my country, oh, I love it dearly. I long for it to turn to Christ again as in the days of Patrick. I mourn its slide (leap?) into sin. But for all that I love it, it is post-Christian. Ireland has had the gospel given to it. It has rejected the good news message, and the fruits of a Christian society. Few though they be, there are evangelical churches in most major cities and towns, Christian Unions on college campuses, street evangelists in city centres, poster campaigns on public transport across the country, and Christian religious education curricula in many schools. To be sure, many of these are becoming harder, more workers are required, and different modes of sharing the message are necessary in some instances. But they exist. The gospel is present in Ireland, regardless of how the general population responds to it.

Compare this to the country where we are hoping to move to. 0.1% of the population is evangelical Christian. One city that we know of has about 300-350 believers spread out across a population of over a million. One missionary family minister in that city at the moment. This city hass the same population as Dublin, yet there are individual churches in Dublin that would have about 200-300 members on the books, even if not all attend. The need exists in Ireland, but the need is far greater in other places.

Triage must take place. There is need everywhere. Every nation is broken, every country needs freedom from sin. But some needs are greater than others. I long for the people of Dublin to respond to the gospel. And the gospel is in front of them to respond to it. There are people in South Asia who have never heard the name of Jesus, never heard the good news even once. When we triage the situation, more people need to go. There are more labourers needed for the harvest, so pray to the Lord of the harvest for such. And given that many will not be able/qualified/willing to go for a variety of reasons, those that are should be sent willingly, as our hearts are touched by the need abroad. We should be disturbed by the fact that 42% of the world is still unreached. It should unsettle us and push us to want to send more people overseas rather than keep them where the gospel has already come. We need to triage well.

3. God is Wise

This point was the impetus for this post. The reality is that despite the need, more people will stay put than go. Not for bad reasons necessarily. Some will be called to minister full-time in their homeland. Some will live “normal” Christian lives, witnessing at work, at the school gate etc. Some will desire to go abroad, but be unable, and support in other ways. And yet another bizarre reality occurs. People will leave their homes in other countries and move to places where missionaries are going from. In Ireland I know many American missionaries, who have left the US to minister in Ireland. Now, that might be cause for head-scratching. Why would Irish people leave Ireland to minister in unreached nations, while an American comes to Ireland to minister there? Why not cut out the middle-man and just send the Americans to South Asia instead?

This is where I think we must trust the wisdom of God in the movement of people. God’s means of reaching the world have never made sense from a worldly point of view. Christ’s incarnation was hardly the pinnacle of human wisdom, and yet it was God’s wise and sovereign design that he might dwell with man and bring man to dwell with him.

Sometimes we get to see how this wisdom works in people movement. Both in the Scriptures and in history we see God use evil purposes for good. Persecution, famine, or hardship has led to Christians being scattered across the world like dandelion seeds blown from the stem; moved to a new location to witness to Christ there. These same factors have led to non-believers fleeing restricted access nations to arrive in places where the gospel is freely preached, bringing them into an encounter with the living God that would not have easily happened in their home country.

In terms of missions, there are some ways in which nationals reaching nationals is the ideal. Those who are one with the culture, language, community, can speak into the lives of their country-men with natural winsomeness. It means the gospel doesn’t come with a perceived stamp of “Western-ness” on it, breaking down the perception that many have of Christians being a Hollywood version of American life. Nationals reaching nationals is necessary in every nation. The gospel will never truly take root and thrive while it relies on foreign (not necessarily western) missionaries to propagate it.

However, there are many benefits to cross-cultural exchanges too. A willingness to learn about a foreign culture leads to an openness to hear about beliefs. “A prophet has honour everywhere except at home”, after all. Inquisitive minds want to hear about life outside of their own circle, and where they would not give a hearing to their local new-believing friend who “always had a wild streak anyway…”, there may be an openness to receive a foreigner’s words. Especially when the foreigner contrasts with their expectations of what a Christian/westerner should be.

I have seen all of the above benefits of people movement/lack of movement take place. Yet that is only the tip of the iceberg. Should we be surprised that God has designed different people not just for different ministries within the church, but also for different spheres of service in his world? As Paul reminds the Athenians:

“And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. ”

– Acts 17: 26-27

It is God’s world. He knows where to put people in the beginning, the ideal circumstances in which to bring growth. Just as a gardener knows which plants do well outside, or in a greenhouse, in more acidic soil or more basic soil, so the heavenly gardener knows where best to have people that they might grow to find him.

It should not surprise us then, that God also knows where best to send different people. There are those whom he wants overseas, and those he wants at home. There are those he wants to return home from overseas, and those that will come to the places that they are leaving. Somehow, in his vast wisdom, it is better for people to leave, even needy places, for the sake of his glory reaching elsewhere.

It is the Lord’s harvest after all. And we are to pray to him for labourers to work in it. He knows which fields need worked on at each point in history. Who knows; maybe in a coming day the Lord will send waves of workers from South Asia to Ireland to reignite gospel hope here.

In the meantime, Father, Lord of the harvest, would you raise up a generation who will serve their own people with blood, sweat, tears and prayers sowing the gospel of Christ without ever leaving their homeland, and also for a generation who are willing to go to the ends of the earth that have never once heard the name of Jesus. Amen.