Marine Mindset

Well 'sup. I'm not Ariel or Courtney. I'm Ariel's younger brother Travis. I'm not really into the whole flashy, photo implementing, all over the place style like she is, so yeah. So, God kinda threw it in me to write this, and to write it about exactly what it's going to be about, and for you. And by you, I mean YOU! As in specifically, 100% you. Not the person I saw today while walking outside, or who I went to work with. It applies to them, but this is for YOU. Whether or not I know you. One of my favorite musicians, Aaron Weiss of mewithoutyou, told a story. “A farmer once had a horse. One day it ran away and when he told the neighbor, the neighbor retorted with 'Oh, that's terrible!' But the farmer said 'Who knows what's good and what's bad?' and remained content. The next day, the horse returned with a herd of horses. The neighbor said 'That's fantastic!' Again, the farmer responded with 'Who knows what's good and what's bad?' The next day the farmer’s son was out riding a horse and broke his leg. Again, the neighbor was sad over the misfortune, however the farmer, still, said 'Who knows what's good and what's bad?' and remained content. The next day, the military came with a draft, however due to the boys broken leg, they were unable to enlist him. As always, the farmer remained content.”

Everybody's had struggles in life. Every single stinkin person. Some worse than others, but never make the assumption that what you're going through has never happened before, that no one else has had it as bad as you, or that you're going through it alone. If you're anything like me, at some point every single one of those thoughts has passed through your mind. There are plenty of instances in the Bible where God places his disciples and other people in some of the hardest and most trying struggles imaginable, and He helped them every step of the way and even gave plenty of them GREAT rewards afterward. The best instance that comes to mind is Joseph. His brothers tried to kill him, he was thrown in jail even though he did nothing wrong, and after staying completely faithful to God, became the ruler of Egypt. Huh. Kinda did a 180 there.

 <<(Me saying goodbye to Ariel before I leave to for SOI in California)

“Joseph's master took him and put him in prison...But...the LORD was with him...and gave him success in whatever he did.”

Genesis 39:20-21,23 October 12(the date this was preached on in my devotional)

A few months ago I went through the toughest 2 months I have ever endured in my entire life: School of Infantry for the Marines. Beyond the hikes, the training, and the sleep deprivation, people didn't exactly answer my faith and Christian lifestyle with open minds. That last part was easily, and surprisingly the hardest part. Though they said they were Christians (who am I to judge, though) they made jokes about it that affected me more than they thought, and didn't exactly make my faith feel welcome. At one point, they even told me they hated me for wanting to go to church, throwing in a couple more cuss words, as well as telling me to perform some not so possible or favorable acts to myself. It just so happens, however, that immediately before I went to SOI (School of Infantry) my wonderful sister, Ariel, gave me one of the greatest gifts I have ever received: a Devotional with a passage for every day of the year that goes in depth on each. Through it, God has spoken to me more than I ever thought possible. I can't help but feel like that book was made for me. Without it, I would never have made it through SOI. I read it every single night, and almost every night's passage was about God helping us through turmoil. God was telling me every single day, as I was dying physically and losing all motivation, that He was with me, that He loved me, that He knew what I was going through, and that I would grow in faith from it. Always, always, always telling me, “Travis, keep your head high, show your faith with pride, and know that I am carrying you every step of the way, and with Me in your heart you will NEVER fall, and never experience more than you can endure.” 

“He guarded him...like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them on it pinions. The LORD alone led him; no foreign god was with him.” Deuteronomy 32:10-12 September 30.

I was constantly called a bible-thumping Christian, and at first I thought “heck, no!!” and took it as an insult. Turns out, the heck it is?! I WANT to have a resounding faith, and to be known as “that God obsessed Christian” in the group, because I am!! He carried me through SOI, meeting me halfway so that I'd have to work, and test my faith, and every day He reminded me that He's doing this for reasons unknown. On top of the fact that, in the end, my faith will become that much stronger (which it has) and I'll want to pursue Him that much more. So of course I love Him, and I want people to know that! I can't imagine what SOI would've been like without that devotional. I did my best to keep God in my heart, and my faith is twice what it was before I left.

So what I want, is for you to take that last sentence from the paragraph before last, the one where God spoke to me, and replace my name with yours. Because what He did with me, He WILL do with YOU! He's just that amazing, and loves you that much. Awesome, isn't it? Don't ever think for a second that He's not working with you, or that what you're going through is too much. I can tell you from first hand experience, NO. No. No. No. No. Whether you need this now or later, everyone needs to know this. I'll probably have to come back and read this at some point to remind myself.

God will test you, and He will put you through trials, and you will wonder where He is. Tell “lucy”(you know who that is) to “SHUT THE FRICK UP!!” and know that God is your Father, teaching you to ride a bike. You'll fall and get bruises and all that good stuff, but as long as you know God's with you, He'll pick you up, smile with pride as fathers do, and you'll become one of the best bike riders in the neighborhood. God loves you, and will absolutely, 100%, positively, no matter what, forsake you. Please, don't ever forget that.

Travis

“It was good for me to be afflicted.”

Psalm 119:71 October 1

“Who among you fears the LORD and obeys the word of His servant? Let him who walks in the dark, who has no light, trust in the name of the LORD and rely on his God.”

Isaiah 50:10 October 7

“...dying, and yet we live on.
2 Corinthians 6:9 October 11

 

“Not one word has failed of all the good promises he gave.”
1 Kings 8:56 October 23

 

    Yeah, just a couple of the AWESOME things from this book!!!

     And one of my favorite quotes from it...

 

“Said the Robin to the Sparrow
'I should really like to know

Why these anxious human beings

Rush about and worry so.'
Said the Sparrow to the Robin
'Friend, I think that it must be

That they have no Heavenly Father

Such as cares for you and me.”

Missional Mindset

Surprise!

I’m not Courtney OR Ariel (though I might enjoy using parentheses even more than she does), but I’m commandeering their blog! A long time friend of Courtney’s, and recent friend (and glad for it!) of Ariel’s, they
asked me to guest post for them this month. I am so flattered, excited, and nervous! A little bit about me: Jesus
lover, Entrepreneurship Major & German Minor at UNT (graduating in May!), music enthusiast, crazy cat lady, coffee addict. That about sums me up! You can check out my own ramblings here, where I’m currently blogging through my recent-ish mission trip to Germany… Which is a nice segway to the topic I landed on chatting with you about: grab a cup of coffee or tea, and let’s talk missions!

What is the first thing that comes into your mind on the topic of missions?

From my own experience, I feel that there are several common avenues of thought about missions and missionaries in America:

1) “Mission trips are just something youth groups do.”

2) “Mission trips are expensive, so only that’s why I don’t go/only the rich go…”

3) “I’m not ‘good’ enough to be a Missionary! It’s a noble thing, but not for me.”

4) “I don’t understand why one feels the need to move/travel across the world to share the Gospel when America is in such bad shape! We need Missionaries here!”

Have you heard any of these ideas? Or perhaps you've found yourself thinking these things, too, once or twice?

It’s my goal to touch on these potential misconceptions, challenge my own thinking, and hopefully challenge your perspective as well! I want to help you think about missions in a different way: Missions overall is part of God’s story for the world, and you have a part written in! Many of my thoughts are rooted from my participation in a class called Perspectives on the World Christian Movement (I highly recommend every believer to take this class, whether you feel you have an interest in missions or not!)

I’m not at all a biblical or missional expert, so I would love to hear your feedback and where you stand on the subject J

   1) Missions is biblical and part of God’s story for the world.

Let’s look at a few scriptures and their missional implications!

Genesis 12:1-3

“Now the Lord said to Abram,

‘Go forth from your country,
And from your relatives
And from your father’s house,
To the land which I will show you;
 And I will make you a great nation,
And I will bless you,
And make your name great;
And so you shall be a blessing;
And I will bless those who bless you,
And the one who curses you I will curse.
And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.’ ”

The last line, also phrased “all peoples on earth will be blessed through you,” shows God’s purpose to reach all nations. It demonstrates to me not only how timeless God is (a promise made years ago to Abraham is still valid today), but also how truly global His mandate is. A mandate is better than a command; with God’s promise, we become partners with Him to proclaim the gospel of salvation and bring glory to His name. Our responsibility and purpose as the church is to be a blessing to others by bringing the message of salvation to the nations. This is “missions” in its barest form!

Romans 10:14-15 

      “How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, 'How beautiful are the feet of those bring good news!'

      This one seems pretty straightforward to me: Matthew 24:14 (below) says the gospel will be preached everywhere and this excerpt from Romans follows up with the “how.” Someone has to go.

Matthew 24:14
“This gospel of the Kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, as a testimony to all nations; and then the end will come.”

     This verse speaks about worldwide evangelization until the end of the Age. It gives us a hope that it is possible to reach all the nations (meaning ethne, people groups or ethnicities defined by language and culture) of the world and a focus to concentrate on those who have not heard the good news of the gospel of the Kingdom.

Matthew 28:19-20

“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

We can gather that Christ expected the Church to finish the Great Commission, because it would not be

completed with the first disciples. We are also called to be on mission with Christ, just as Christ was on mission

with God (John 20:21). This means we aren’t to be “like” Jesus, but are literally to do as Jesus did. And Jesus

reconciled us, once lost, to the Father. Therefore, we, the Church, are to be part of His mission to

reconcile a lost world to God. When this task is finished, there will be a people within every people-group

who worship and confess God as the only One.

Selah.

Stop for a moment and just think about how mind blowing this really is: take away all the preconceived notions

and human constraints placed on missions and meditate on the fact the Holy, Almighty, Sovereign, Perfect, Loving

Father wants to use you to bring the lost back to Himself. He is totally and completely capable of reconciling them

without your help, but He wants to include you in the story, because just as Christ, you are His child! He wants to

bring glory to Himself by making much of you.

Selah.

It is important to realize that these are not isolated, individual verses calling some people to missions. These

verses are part of God’s bigger story for a world to be reconciled to Himself: the entire Bible is God’s plan; the

whole story is one of missions. Think big picture, and it should be virtually undeniable that as believers, our

purpose on this Earth is to further the Kingdom.

2. We are all called to be involved in missions (whether that is to go or to send).

Checkout this quick video by John Piper!

True, America is in bad shape, and though you probably don’t need proof aside from the sad, deteriorating moral

state our country is in, how’s this for eye-opening: Did you know that during the 1990’s the number of non

Western missionaries grew eight times faster than those from the West? Did you know that the number of non

Western cross-cultural missionaries surpassed those from the West sometime around 2005?

Some of us are called to stay and some of us are called to go. That doesn’t mean those who are called to go are

any more “good” or “holy” than those called to stay; God is simply choosing to use each person in a different way

to further the kingdom. However, if you are using the argument “we need missionaries here,” before you rain on

some missionary’s parade, ask yourself whether you are being a missionary here…I don’t say that in a

condescending manner, because so often I take a step back in conviction and think to myself, “I claim that I feel

the Lord leading me to Germany as a long-term missionary, but how am I living that out in my daily life here in

Denton, Texas?” There seems to be a large stigma in our minds that missions is “going on trips,” when it

should truly be a lifestyle (regardless of whether that missional living is domestic or abroad). If we all

lived like missionaries, wherever we are, the world would look much different. Checkout this mind-blowing,

convicting video for a visual representation of what I mean! Seriously, watch it.

“Wherever you are, be all there.” Jim Elliott, American Missionary and Martyr

   3. Missions is NOT the ultimate goal.

This point may seem counter-intuitive since I just spent the majority of this post expressing my belief that

missions is biblical & all believers are called to live a missional, discipleship-centered lifestyle. However, to show

what I mean, here is a quote from chapter 9 of John Piper’s book, Let the Nations be Glad:

“Missions is not the ultimate goal of the Church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever. Worship, therefore, is the fuel and goal of missions."

Here is my commission to you: there are lost, dying, broken souls everywhere that are desperately in need of

Christ. In some places, like Eastern Germany (called by several sources to be the Atheist Capital of the world) and

as America seems to be moving towards, the people are fully aware that they are apathetic toward religion and

God. In other places (about 40% of the  world's population, actually), the people are known as "unreached people

groups" and have little to absolutely no knowledge of the gospel of Christ, and they cannot know until someone

brings it to them (or until God chooses to reveal it to them through dreams or another means...). Only about 10%

of the world’s missionaries are working among these unreached people groups! Where He calls me I will go. Until

He tells me where to go, I have been called to reach the city of Denton and the University of North Texas.

What’s He telling you?