If you're like me, there are many things that I fear. I am convinced that what I really fear is ME. If fear breeds fear, then faith and courage breed more faith and courage...who are you today? The fear filled fugitive or the courage filled champion? In a rough paraphrase from FDR The only thing we have to fear is me, myself!
There is nothing remotely passive about being part of the kingdom of God. Faithfulness is not holding the fort; it’s storming the gates of hell. A group of early 20th-century missionaries became known as “one-way missionaries” because they packed all their earthly belongings into coffins and purchased one-way tickets when they departed for the mission field.
They knew they’d never return home. One such missionary was named A.W. Milne. He felt called to a tribe of headhunters in the New Hebrides. All the other missionaries to this tribe had been martyred, but that didn’t keep Milne from chasing the Wild Goose. He lived among the tribe for thirty-five years and never returned home. When the tribe buried him, they wrote on his tombstone: “When he came there was no light. When he left there was no darkness.”
When did we start believing that God wants to send us to safe places to do easy things? God wants to send us to dangerous places to do difficult things. And if you chase the Wild Goose, He will lead you into the shadowlands, where light and darkness clash.
Read Joshua 1:1-9 today and see if you are ready to live courageously!
Peace, Chuck
