I came to the humbling realization tonight that I do not know many ‘big words’ like ‘liturgy.’ I mean I do, but I don’t. Tomorrow I am heading to Peru and so I don’t want to ramble. But I do feel I have something to share as God is preparing me to go.
The state of our Country in the present is quite unsettling as we know. It seems as though the mundane and normal comfortable ‘Christian’ life is catching up to us. In coming to Memphis God really gave me back a desire and a hunger to know Him and run after Him again. But even in the things I have been blessed to be part of I still felt as though there was more I am missing. That I need to be going deeper. I’m at a strange point in life and I honestly have no idea where God is taking me next. In my job search I feel like the disciples just casting my net over and over and for what I don’t know. Almost waiting for God to say cast it yet once more. All the while I have had several things come up to challenge my view on missions both here and abroad and the correct way to evangelize and or disciple. I know God is up to something because Satan has thrown some spiritual warfare at me that I didn’t see coming and God in His grace has allowed me to get my head back in time to leave for Peru.
So, there’s a brief overview of the what’s been going on up to this point. Tonight I went to my first Memphis CMDA chapter gathering. As is typical for me I sat in my truck outside the house for a while debating if it was worth facing my social anxiety to go in alone not knowing hardly anyone. Thanks be to God that He pushes us. I felt the awkwardness as all these well establish physicians who knew each other are chatting and I’m walking around trying to not seem so out of place. I finally sit and meet some other women physicians and of course it was lovely getting to know them. Then Dr. John Patrick spoke. A man I had no idea existed, but whom I wish I had known quite a while longer.
He hit at the root of my unrest: the problem of our country, our medical care and the developing world all in one talk. My mind is still grappling with all he said and the implications. Essentially, I am incredibly lazy. And, so is my generation and really our country. As a church we, I, have not taken the time to really know the Word of God. I haven’t taken the time to really know our history, not of my country nor that of the church. I know some arguments for and against abortion and homosexuality, but not to the extent I should. Just as the Israelites forgot their history and were doomed to repeat it over and over, just as a pharaoh arose in Egypt who did not remember Joseph . . .
I am lazy and I’m tired of it. We’ve gotten too enthralled by television and social media (being entertained) that our minds are going to mush and we remain ignorant people; “children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting” (Ephesians 4:14). I think God is calling me, and most likely many more people, to wake up and use these intellectual minds He has given us to make a difference. But we have to take the time to read and study from where we came and why we are here. And most importantly, we HAVE to KNOW His Word. “Hear O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And these words which I command you shall be in your heart. You shall teach them to diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up” Deuteronomy 6:4-7.
I am guilty of not doing as God has commanded. And I think He is calling me to take this seriously so that He can use me to stand against the immorality that is coming at high speed. How can we defend our faith if we do not truly know His Word? How can I defend against abortion or physician assisted suicide if I have not taken the time to study the subject and know what His Word says? I’m not a wise person in and of myself, but God has given us wise Believers and history to point us to something more than how we are wasting our lives.
I want to know how to better defend my faith, the right to life, and the deity of Christ, and so forth and so on. I want to be different in a way that is more than how I live on the surface. And, I suspect there are a few people out there who feel the same. I think God is calling us out, because now is the time. For such a time as this.
Tomorrow I head to the jungles of Peru just down river from where Jim Elliot and Nate Saint lost their lives. Yet the movement they and their families started lead to the salvation of the pastor I will be working with next week. How have we as a church lost that kind of passion for the Word of God? I want that. I want to be consumed with God in a way that allows me to really be used by Him for great and mighty things. We must “redeem the time for the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:16). And so, I have a lot of studying to do. Who’s with me?
