Being on the mission field is a lot different than people think it is. You face struggles just as you do at home on top of struggles that you had never imagined. Having lived the life of a missionary, this book spoke to me on a level I never thought it would. The title is perfect "The CHALLENGE of Missions". What a great challenge it is too. Jesus wont actually come back to the earth until all have heard the gospel. I never really realized that. If we don't do our part, He wont come back. We must step up to the plate. For the sake of soul's, to fulfill the plan of the Lord, and also to see eternity. If we want Jesus to reign over this earth, we must go to the outermost parts of it. "God's vision is a world vision". Not just a vision of Huntsville, or Texas, or even the US. I am so thankful that we are a group of believers that goes on missions trips. That stretches people's minds beyond the realm of Huntsville, of SAM, of Texas. That we go into those parts of the word and experience it, that we get a burning passion to return to those places, and that God gives us the desire and calls so many young college students to the field just because of the trips they have gone on in the past.
That is the task at hand. That is what Jesus calls us to do when He tells us to GO! He doesn't say, "If you feel like it go.". In a monotone type of voice that isn't excited or on fire for anything. He simply says GO! William Booth once said "'Not called!' did you say? 'Not heard the call,' I think you should say. Put your ear down to the Bible, and hear Him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin. Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for help. Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father's house and bid their brothers and sisters and servants and masters not to come there. Then look Christ in the face -- whose mercy you have professed to obey -- and tell Him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish His mercy to the world." Now, if that doesn't get a fire started in you, I don't know what will! The truth is, we are all called. We have just not all heard the call.
If we do not do everything we can to advance the mission field, we aren't trying enough. And if we aren't trying enough, then we are putting something else before it. And if we are putting something else before it, then we are failing at that command to GO! I am a college student second; i am a missionary first. I am a member of Chi-Alpha second, I am a missionary first. I am an employee at AT&T second, I am a missionary first. This is the mentality we should have. If not, then something else is coming first in our lives, and by that happening, we are putting something else before the advancement of Christ's kingdom, and we are not fulfilling that Great Commission.
If there is someone in Huntsville working the field, then why should there be 50 of us working here? We should be branching out. Just as Oswald Smith spoke about in the book, when laborers go out into a field, they don't all just work that same corner of it. How else is the rest of the field going to produce harvest? If we all stay in Huntsville, or in Texas, or in the United States, then how will the rest of the world hear about the everlasting love of a Savior. The everlasting love of THE Savior? How will that small child in Nepal ever hear if someone does not tell them? And how will Christ return if that small child never hears? We should all be as much like Oswald Smith as possible. To anyone who reads this book, he should be a hero. A man that I would love to be more like. A man who almost died more than once trying to GO! Why cant we be more like that? Why cant we see beyond the boundaries of this town, this state, and this country and see what is really out there? See that little child who is crying and wanting to be loved. That mother who thinks she cant do it alone and only needs to know that a Savior is always with her. A man who can be freed from addictions and can walk the streets with his head held high. Why cant we be that person who goes beyond those boundaries?
God had only one Son and He made Him a missionary. Can we do less?
