previous post<\/a> \u2013the one I dated at age 16, who confronted me about life-long relationships and\u00a0missions?\u00a0 Here\u2019s the rest of the story.<\/p>\nShe had this mission\u2019s thing in her head since she was about eight years of age.\u00a0 Matter of fact, back then she wanted to be a missionary nurse.\u00a0 But she heard about the gory stuff with blood & needles and open wounds so she dropped the nurse part and kept the missionary idea.<\/p>\n
Fast forward a half-dozen years and you would find us married and both in relationship with the Lord.\u00a0 But the missionary idea wasn\u2019t exactly affirmed between us.\u00a0 You see, we were involved in ministry; we had a new baby, I had a good job, and lots of stuff.\u00a0 Little did I realize how comfortable I made life for my family until God prompted my heart about missions.\u00a0 Suddenly the tables were turned.<\/p>\n
Up until this point we had an effective ministry of evangelism & discipleship, but something was missing.\u00a0 We\u2019d been praying for months about what more we could do in serving the Lord.\u00a0 It was during these months that God affirmed to my heart the truth of Romans 15:20 –that we should focus our evangelism efforts in making disciples among the nations.<\/p>\n
I announced this new-found purpose to my wife, thinking she would be excited in realizing the dream of her youth.\u00a0 She thought I was crazy.\u00a0 \u201cYou\u2019re crazy,\u201d she said.\u00a0 I looked at her in disbelief.<\/p>\n
She wasn\u2019t flippin\u2019 tables but she certainly wasn\u2019t buying into the notion that we should forsake all and move to some remote part of the world where people lived beyond the reach of the gospel.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy not?\u201d, I asked, to which she reasoned that we could do ministry here.\u00a0 Mind you, this was \u2018that girl\u2019 who confronted me not too many years earlier that we needed to be involved in missions.<\/p>\n
She wasn\u2019t budging now, and that was a problem.\u00a0 She wanted to \u2018stay with the stuff\u2019 rather than risking it all for sake of going where the gospel was never declared.<\/p>\n
Now what???<\/p>\n
I couldn\u2019t go it alone and I wasn\u2019t about to leave on my own.\u00a0 I rationalized that either God\u2019s gonna\u2019 haffta\u2019 change His Word or else He would have to change her heart.\u00a0 \u2026So I waited and I prayed.\u00a0 \u2026And I waited some more and I prayed some more.\u00a0 It went on for around four months until I saw the answer to that prayer.<\/p>\n
One evening when I came home from work I found my wife weeping as she rocked our baby.\u00a0 At first I thought something had happened to one or both of them but I quickly learned that nothing at all had happened to them.\u00a0 Now you just don\u2019t sit around and cry for nothing, do you?\u00a0 Well, maybe women do!<\/p>\n
I asked if there was something wrong.\u00a0 My wife began telling me the experience of her day.\u00a0 She was sitting there rocking the baby and looking at all the nice things we had accumulated over the years.\u00a0 We had a nice home with nice furnishings, we had a few motor toys, we had the baby, and our collections of fine things.\u00a0 She said the thought came to her that in light of eternity it\u2019s all gonna\u2019 burn someday.<\/p>\n
So I questioned, \u201cWhat does that mean?\u201d<\/p>\n
She went on to say that when it\u2019s all said and done, the only thing she would have left to lay at the feet of Jesus would be a big pile of ashes.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2026And what does that mean?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell,\u201d she said, \u201clet\u2019s go get the souls of lost people.\u201d<\/p>\n
LOST PEOPLE\u2026 that\u2019s exactly what Jesus saw when he looked upon the crowds in Matthew chapter nine.\u00a0 There\u2019s a fine line between chapter nine and ten.\u00a0 That fine line has to do with having compassion on those outside the hearing of the gospel and doing something about it.<\/p>\n
The encouraging part of the story is that God moved us out when the time was right.\u00a0 I\u2019m glad about the choices we made to step on faith to trust God in this journey.<\/p>\n
Has it been easy?\u00a0 \u2026No!<\/p>\n
Would we do it again, given the chance earlier on in life?\u00a0 Perhaps.<\/p>\n
More importantly, we knew we needed to do more than hear the command to make disciples; we HAD to go\u2026 or we could disobey.\u00a0 We\u2019re bringing that life challenge to everyone we meet.<\/p>\n
I met a man recently who said he has worked 28 years as an engineer.\u00a0 He said he is forty-nine years of age and has nothing to show of eternal value for his efforts and that he is looking to change that situation by investing his life for God\u2019s glory.\u00a0 You see, obedience to God\u2019s Word has no age limit \u2013we\u2019re never too old to impact someone for Christ.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know where you are in the journey of glorifying God by your vocation but I do believe each of us have something to give in making disciples among the nations.\u00a0 It just might be time we consider flippin’ tables and contribute our time and talents as Jesus commands us to do.\u00a0 Whatcha\u2019 think???<\/p>\n
We\u2019re here to help you discover this journey through a closer look into the Word and to help you discover what God intends for you to do about lost people\u2026 those around you, those in your community, and most of all are those living beyond the reach of the gospel.\u00a0 How will they ever hear if we don\u2019t go?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
*We Knew We Wanted Nothing More\u2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"That\u00a0girl I mentioned in my *previous post \u2013the one I dated at age 16, who confronted me about life-long relationships and\u00a0missions?\u00a0 Here\u2019s the rest of the story. She had this mission\u2019s thing in her head since she was about eight years of age.\u00a0 Matter of fact, back then she wanted to be a missionary nurse.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":276,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[448,3312,5,637],"class_list":["post-200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-ministry","tag-ethnos360","tag-missionary-call","tag-missions","tag-new-tribes-mission","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/david-hilt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/david-hilt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/david-hilt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/david-hilt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/276"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/david-hilt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/david-hilt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/david-hilt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/david-hilt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/david-hilt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Flippin\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/david-hilt\/files\/2016\/08\/Flippin-600x232.jpg\")
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