Once upon a time, many, many Sundays ago, I walked into the sanctuary just a few minutes before the service started, and sat down next to some friends of mine. They started joking, No, no, this will never work. We need to sit boy-girl-boy-girl. You know, because that’s how mature we all were in our 20’s. After a little bit of shuffling and rearranging, I ended up sitting next to the very guy that my friend had been wanting me to meet.
All summer and autumn, my friend had been telling me, You need to meet my fiancé’s roommate. I think you would really like him! My answer back to her was always the same: I don’t want you to introduce us or set us up or plan a blind date. If God wants me to meet him, we will meet.
And unbeknownst to me, my friend’s fiancé had been telling his roommate for months and months: You need to meet my fiancée’s friend. I think you would really like her! His roommate’s answer was always the same: I don’t want you to introduce us or set us up or plan a blind date. If God wants me to meet her, we will meet.
Well, there we were that Sunday in November, sitting right next to each other in church. Apparently, God did want us to meet!
He turned to me and introduced himself, shaking my hand, and then said probably the most original “pick-up line” that has ever been spoken: So, I hear you want to be a missionary! Yes, as a matter of fact, I did want to be a missionary. He had heard correctly!
That was my heart’s desire . . . to spend my life doing something amazing for God. To tell others about Jesus. To love and serve and give all of myself, no matter what, no matter where. And the thought of finding someone else who had the same passion in his heart? My friend and her fiancé were right . . . this guy and I would really like each other!
And the rest, as they say, is history. Only seven months later, on a warm day in the middle of June, I walked down the aisle, and that guy became my husband. We promised to love each other in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, for better or worse, until death parted us. We were excited to see what the future held for us. We were excited to see where God was going to ask us to go!
And now, 25 years later, we are sitting side by side in a different church in a different city on the other side of the country. As the service comes to an end, we watch as new believers walk forward to get baptized. It is a time of celebration! Friends cheering. Families weeping. All of us rejoicing in this, the most decisive moment of a person’s life. When they are dipped under the water and then come up again seconds later, it is such a beautiful picture of what has happened in their life! Just like me, and just like my husband, those who were once dead in their sins . . . here they are, standing here today, safe. Because of God’s great mercy, they have been made alive! (1)
Just before being immersed, the pastor, who is standing in the water with them, asks them two questions. The first one is Do you believe that Jesus has done everything necessary to save you. Yes, absolutely yes! It is only by grace that any of us are saved! (2)
The second question, one that I ponder long after the church service ends, is this: Do you promise to go wherever He asks you to go? My heart echoes the same answer as the people who are getting baptized today: Yes, absolutely, yes! It’s the same desire of my heart that I had all those years ago.To serve and love and give all of myself, no matter what, no matter where.
The image that immediately comes to mind when I hear that question, Do you promise to go wherever He asks you to go? may be the image of a special God-sized calling. A task that is daring and adventurous, and maybe even a little bit dangerous. Maybe He will ask me to go to a Third World country and rescue destitute children off the streets. Or maybe He will provide the opportunity for me to dig wells in a remote village in Africa. Or maybe He will equip me to translate God’s Word into a tribal language where they have never before heard the name of Jesus. What an amazing assignment that would be! What an honor to do something so significant! To make such an impact in the world! I think, Yes! Sign me up! I’m ready! I promise to go wherever God asks me to go!
I am by nature a do-er. I want to serve and help. I want to be busy. Give me a task, and I’m on it . . . lists and deadlines, budgets and checkmarks. Give me a special-needs baby, and I’m in my zone . . . schedules and medical attention, specialists and tender loving care. I want to do something. I want to make a difference in the world. I want to impact history. I want to have a front-row seat to the miraculous.
He may indeed ask some people to go to the ends of the earth. He may assign some people amazing, God-sized tasks. He asked Moses to lead an entire nation out of slavery in Egypt. He asked Nate Saint and Jim Elliot to go to a tribe in the jungles of Ecuador, to reach people who needed to hear about the love of Jesus. He asked a local family I know to go to Asia and literally rescue destitute children off the streets. (www.mercyhouseph.org) These, and many more throughout history and even today, have faithfully and obediently gone where He asked them to go.
But here is an equally challenging question . . . what if He doesn’t ask me to go anywhere? What if He never calls me to do something daring and adventurous? What if His plan for me does not involve anything significant or world-changing? What then?
For my husband and me, our 25 years together (so far!) hasn’t exactly turned out as we thought it would. We are still holding fast to our promise to love each other until death parts us. That has not changed. However, besides a few short-term service trips a couple of summers ago, when we had an opportunity to serve together in a foreign country, we never did become the missionaries that we thought we would become. God never did ask us to leave it all behind and move to the other side of the world.
Instead, we have spent 23 of our years together providing love and care and safety to the most broken and the most vulnerable children right here in our own community. We didn’t go to the mission field after all. The mission field came to us!
I hear the question, Do you promise to go wherever He asks you to go? And that implies that I have a choice. What if He is not asking me to go to a different location? Or to a specific God-sized task? What if He is asking me to go somewhere else entirely? To a place that, given the option, I never would have chosen to go?
Maybe He is asking me to follow Him into a place of brokenness and isolation and grief. A dark and invisible place where no one sees. Maybe to a place of rocking a baby who will never remember me. Or to a place of loving a child who will never love me back. Maybe He is asking me to go to a place of watching a child struggle with a chronic illness, always wondering if the next hospitalization could mean the end of his life. Or to a place of silently, patiently waiting for the return of a prodigal son who has chosen a path of self-destruction. To a place where my prayers, the deepest longings of my heart, remain unanswered.
Or maybe He is asking me to go to a place of choosing, today, to simply love and serve and give all of myself, not to a stranger on the other side of the world, but to the one in front of me. And then tomorrow, choosing to do it again. Maybe He is asking me to go to a place where I will never see the miracle. Where I will never become a part of the amazing.
Perhaps He is asking me to go, not to a different location or to a specific task. Perhaps He is asking me to go to a place of faith. To a place where He is asking me to simply believe. To a place where all I can do is wait. Will I follow Him there? Do I still promise to go wherever He asks me to go?
Here’s the thing about promises . . . I can promise to love my husband in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, for better or worse, until death parts us. And I can promise to go wherever He asks me to go, even to a place of obscurity and solitude. But those are human promises. Those are promises made from a heart that might fail. From a faith that might waver. (3)
But, God’s promises? They will never fail. They will never waver. Never!
Jesus did not say, Promise Me you will go. He said, Go . . . and I am with you always.(4) He may ask me to go to a strategic location with a specific world-changing assignment. How wonderful that would be!! Or He may, instead, ask me to go to a desert place, to a place that, if I had my preference, I never would have chosen to go. Either way, I will go. And I know that I will go, not because of anything special within me. Not because of my fierce determination or perfect loyalty. I can go anywhere He asks me to go only because I know that He promises to go with me!
If He asks me to go somewhere daring and adventurous, dangerous even, He promises to go there with me. If He gives me an amazing assignment that could impact the world, He promises to go there with me. And yes, if He asks me to go to a place of darkness and brokenness and anonymity right where I am, to a place where the only thing I can do is pray and believe and wait . . . even then He promises to go there with me. I am with you always!
When I am alone in the desert place, the place where no one else sees, do I still believe that He is with me always? That He is near to me when I call? (5)
When nothing makes sense, and everything seems to be crumbling around me, and the future seems terrifying, do I still believe that His plans for me are good? (6)
When He seems to be silent, when the waiting turns into months and then years, maybe even a lifetime . . . do I still believe that He is working all things together for His purposes? (7)
When the situation is utterly hopeless, and I am tempted to despair, to give in to the overwhelming grief, do I still believe that Jesus is able to make the impossible . . . possible? (8)
Go . . . and I am with you always.
The question is so much more than, Do I promise? It is not about my promises at all.
The more important question is, Do I believe HIS promise?
1. “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved.” (Ephesians 2:4-5)
2. “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)
3. “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” (Psalm 73:25)
4. “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 8:19-20)
5. “The Lord is near to all who call on Him.” (Psalm 145:18)
6. “The Lord will fulfill His purpose for me. Your steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever.” (Psalm 138:8)
7. “I know that You can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.” (Job 42:2).
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