Are you Disturbed?

We had made many plans, prepared our stories, and tried to take everything we would need as our church mission team headed to Zambia Africa.  As we headed out after planning for several months, we were confident that God had every detail under control and He had His agenda.  He opened the door for new stories we’d not planned on and we discovered quickly that we had everything we needed as long as we had clothes on our back and His Spirit directing our steps. I have learned this is true in Africa or in Western Kentucky. 

While in Zambia, the people we served lived in what we would consider extremely poor, dirty conditions and in need of so many things.  Clothes, shoes, medicine, eyeglasses, toys for the children, balanced diets, vitamins, clean water, a building to worship in – so much we would have liked to provide for them but where do you start? 

As we talked one day about all they needed, at least by our way of thinking, one of the missionaries we were working with quoted David Livingstone’s father-in-law, Mr. Moffat, when he said, “On any given night I see the fires from 1,000 villages, all without the light of Jesus.”  We knew that we could take 200 shirts for the children, a few balls for the children to play with but what they needed was Jesus to give them hope.   That was the one thing we could share with them and that is what we tried to do.

This was not my first trip to Zambia so when this mission trip became available and I felt like it was something God wanted me to be a part of, I began to ask God just what He might have for me this time?  As we worked in Zambia and also once I returned home, I kept asking what God wanted me to see, to take away from this trip.  I knew I had learned a lot, I’d experienced the “bush” and I loved every minute of it.  I’d seen God at work, I saw Him answer prayer, I felt His presence, and I learned a lot about me.  Somehow though, I felt God still had something else for me.

The same week we returned I attended a Women’s Conference in a nearby town.  The speaker reminded us how God called Abraham to leave Ur and go to a place he would show him.  I’m sure you know the story.   However, the speaker went on to say that we all have our own Ur – you know our U. R. – Usual Routine and that God calls each of us to leave our Usual Routine and be obedient to Him.  Oh my!  Was that what God was saying to me?  Well okay, I had done that – I’d stepped out of my Usual Routine and gone to Africa hadn’t I. Okay - so I’m not in Africa now.  What now?

 

It was then I remembered the quote from Mr. Moffat.  It was as though I could see the 1,000 fires in the villages, and the thousands of homes in the Zambia towns we visited, all without the light and hope of Jesus.”  Then it was almost as if God said, “You’re not in Zambia now – you’re back home - look around you.  When you walk out of church tonight, or drive through this community or stand in your own yard, you can see the lights of many homes right here who need the hope of Jesus as well.” 

Kay Warren says in her book, Dangerous Surrender, that God is looking for some disturbed people – people who will allow Him to disturb them by making them truly see the world where we live – so disturbed they will be compelled to do something.

Kay also says, “If we aren’t disturbed by the world in which we live, we will be consumed with the trivial, insignificant and temporary.  We will spend days pursuing wrong goals – living by the wrong measurement of success, and evaluating our legacy by the wrong standards.”

I had grown comfortable with my Usual Routine – now I’m trying to be obedient to what God has for me and I am expecting God to interrupt that routine daily.  

I’d go back to Zambia in a minute, I love the people, the country, and I certainly know God is working there.   God has “disturbed” me about the people in Zambia.  I believe we should go to the ends of the earth, including Zambia, to tell others about Him and if it is God’s will, I’ll go again one day.  In the meantime, I believe God wants us all disturbed about the people whose lights we see from the church parking lot and from our front yards.      

Twice now, I’ve been blessed to have shared the lives of the Zambian people and I've seen how God is working there.  I have come to love these people who live on the other side of the world.  What an incredible experience!  As I returned from Africa the first time, my son who had been to Africa a few years before looked at me as he met me at the airport and said, “Kinda leaves a scar doesn’t it?”  A scar indeed – with an exclamation mark!

It is my prayer that you will go to Zambia or to wherever God is leading you. But if it is God's plan that you stay near home, I also pray that God will disturb you, as He has me, about those living around you who need the light of Jesus in their lives.


"And Jesus came and said to them, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.  And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.'" Matthew 28:18-20