Missions: A Family Endeavor

Am I willing to trust God with the consequences of my obedience?

As a high school junior growing up in a Christian home, I watched my father ask himself that very question as he wrestled with the prospect of taking his family to Africa. A family physician with a thriving practice in Greenville, SC, he had been asked by a medical missionary to consider filling a critical need for a doctor during the summer months of 1994 at a small mission hospital in southern Togo, West Africa.

Almost as soon as he agreed to pray for God’s direction, he sensed God moving him to go. He was convinced, however, that he should not go alone. Nevertheless, fears and doubts crept in and gnawed at his heart and his sense of responsibility for his wife and seven children. What about malaria? What about snakes?

As these questions filled his mind, another question arose, unbidden, yet with a reality-centering gravity that lumped all his questions together into one, a question of trust: “Am I willing to trust God with the consequences of my obedience?” If God is in it, will He provide? Yes, the answer came. If God is in it, will He protect? Yes again.

Of course! An affirmative answer quieted my dad’s heart and instilled a confident assurance that even if unexpected or unwanted circumstances happened, God was working out His will for us. Like Abraham trusting God for the life of his son Isaac, my dad learned to trust God for everything, even if things didn’t make sense at the time.  And, again, like Abraham, little did he know how much his faith would be tested.

Not even a week had gone by after our arrival when my dad found himself performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on his own daughter! In a hot, humid treatment room with CPR equipment destroyed by jungle rot, my younger sister had stopped breathing. She had suffered a broken arm and had received intravenous sedation in order to set it straight and cast it. The young nurse had pushed the medicines too quickly, and as a result, my sister went into respiratory arrest. For almost 20 minutes, my dad breathed for her as this question again and again came to his mind, “Is this one of those consequences, Lord?” “Can I trust you for this, too?”

When my sister began to breathe spontaneously again, my dad felt waves of relief and gratitude wash over him. He was relieved that his daughter had survived and grateful to God for giving him a clear mind during the emergency and for answering his prayers. The knowledge that my dad was trusting the Lord for all things, even for the lives of his children and even in a moment of crisis, was an invaluable lesson for me, one that greatly impacted my heart and mind as a young man.

Perhaps the one thing I love most about my dad’s missionary service was the fact that he included his family. Sure, he was the one the mission hospital wanted (because of his skill set), but he understood his calling in life. He wasn’t called in isolation—he was already a husband and a father. He knew that his other duties and responsibilities didn’t put a hold on his essential, primary callings as a child of God. Obeying the Lord meant fulfilling those duties as well, and so we all went along! To this day, it is impossible to overstate the impact of his choices on me as his son. My own family and I are on the mission field today, 30 years later, in large part because my dad was obedient to the Lord’s leading, and my wife and I intentionally involve our children in what we do for the very same reason. It is our calling.

If you are a parent, it’s your calling too—wherever you are—to bring up your children to know and love God (Deut. 6:7, 10:12-13). In doing so, parents, remember that your actions influence your children more than your words. If you are a child or a teenager, you are never too young for the Lord to work in your hearts. Children, remember that your parents will answer to the Lord for their stewardship, and you will give an account for your responses as well (Eph. 6:4, Prov. 20:11).

At its most basic principle, missions is making disciples of Jesus. A missionary is essentially a disciple-maker who has been sent by the church across cultural boundaries. This is true (think of the Apostle Paul, who journeyed to Europe and Asia Minor), but in another sense, we all are called to make disciples (followers-learners) of Jesus wherever we are. It is our calling.

By God’s grace, I was discipled to follow Jesus. I’m thankful for the thousands of sermons I heard growing up, for the thousands of hours of Sunday school classes I attended, and for the Christian worldview I was taught in school. But watching my parents live it out had the effect of a magnifying glass concentrating the sun’s rays into a single point and starting a fire in my soul.

How are you doing? What is your life’s purpose? Are you living for God’s glory? Are you intentionally passing that mindset on to your children or other sphere of influence? If not, what is holding you back?

Are you willing to trust God with the consequences of your obedience?