Forever a Foreigner

When I was seven years old, my dad got sick.

He never got better. I remember one day, years later, I was sitting upstairs in our house when a memory struck me. Daddy, healthy and strong, playing with me. Startled, I realized that my siblings (all younger than me), could have few, if any, memories of my dad before the illness. In that moment, it hit me, for the first time, just how long my dad had been sick.

I had to take a moment to cry.

As the years passed, I watched my father in his illness. And I saw what God did.

I saw my father change, and God work sanctification in him through his weakness. I saw others—many, many others—encouraged and impacted by my father’s testimony and his example. I saw how the people around us on the mission field found it easier to relate to us. We were humanized in their eyes, and they found it easier to listen to the gospel.

I firmly believe that my dad has been a more effective servant for God because of his illness, more so than he ever could have been if his body was healthy and strong.

It wasn’t just my dad, either. I had only to look around to see dozens of examples of God working through suffering and weakness: faithful servants of God in ministry dealing with severe health problems, tragedies that caused others to look to Christ, people who had to sacrifice things that were once important to them.

God works through suffering. There is a cost in following Christ.  

This lesson about God and the nature of his work through his servants went deep into my theology as a young person. As I approached adulthood, I faced the important question: was I willing to give my life to God?

I could not answer it. I faced the question, tongue-tied.

I was afraid.

I knew with perfect certainty that if I “threw in my lot” with God, I would have to face some kind of suffering. That is how God works through his people. I was terrified. Would it be a crippling illness? A physical handicap? Persecution? Death of loved ones? My own death?

I held back from God for nearly three years, afraid of pain, afraid of the cost, yet knowing that this was what God was asking of me. I could not forsake my faith, and yet I was frozen, unable to move forward.

Finally, one night before I entered college, I broke down in tears.

I gave it to God. My life, everything. He could have it. My health. My comfort. My possessions. My family. My death. He could send me anywhere, and I would go. Anything. Anywhere.

It was a point of no return in my life, deadly serious, an oath of fealty to the King of kings.

I have not experienced the kinds of costs I anticipated those years before—yet. But there have been small ones. I do not regret it. My God is worth everything I can give him, and more.

If you have not yet done so, and you are a child of God, count the cost! And then with God’s help, put your hand to the plow and never look back.

Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

Luke 9:62

“So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.”

Luke 14:33