Called to Go
I have many memories sitting in the large auditorium surrounded by more than a thousand college students. My friends and I were in high school, just 16 years old, but this had become our weekly tradition for Thursday nights. We would meet up at Dos Amigos for dinner and then head over to Grace, a weekly worship service targeting college students at the three Christian universities located in Abilene. While the target audience was older, it wasn’t uncommon for high school students to make their way to the service.
As a new believer but someone who had grown up in the church, Grace was instrumental in my early spiritual formation. I had never seen worship quite like this. It was comprised of songs that seemed to speak directly to my soul. Each week was an opportunity to hear a dynamic speaker who passionately and unapologetically proclaimed the text. Everything about the service was simple, and yet something I had never really experienced.
It was in this service that I first felt my call to missions. A call that began as an ember and would eventually be fanned into a flame that has consumed much of my life since. It was here that I really began to understand how following Jesus should ignite an unquenchable passion. I’m grateful for these life-shaping moments and look back on them with sincere gratitude.
One such moment stays with me. I can’t remember much else about the night. I don’t remember which songs we sang or what the message was about. I don’t remember who I was sitting next to or what time of year it was. All I remember is one simple line that was offered in the message.
“The generation that is going to change the world is the generation that decides to go unless God tells them to stay.”
That line landed so powerfully to me. I immediately embraced it and really haven’t departed from it since. Granted, I do think there are some disclaimers that need to accompany this challenge. First and foremost, there are indeed times when God calls us to stay. There are times when God calls us to wait. As we’ve been working through Acts 1:1-8 we’ve seen examples of both of these instructions. Jesus tells his disciples to stay in Jerusalem and wait for what God has promised. He has told them to wait for the Spirit to come so that they may be clothed in power. And in these instructions we should acknowledge the reality that there are times where our posture is one of staying and waiting.
That said, the staying and waiting that Jesus offered here was designed to prepare them. It was a moment of equipping. An equipping for something that was to come next. An equipping to go. It was not a staying and a waiting that allowed them to turn inward, unpack their bags and lounge in comfort. It was an eager and expectant waiting. It was a let’s pack our bags and get up and be ready to go because when it’s time, that’s exactly what we’ll do. We’ll go. It was a staying and a waiting that was shaped by a longing for God’s presence, a yearning for His Spirit, so that they could go.
Often times one of the greatest obstacles to living a life of courageous mission is the mentality that says, “I’m going to stay unless God tells me to go.” We insulate ourselves and create comfortable and predictable routines. Routines that, if we aren’t careful, will wall us off from God’s call. Yes, there are times when we are called to stay and wait but let us never forget that God has called us to go. The final instructions from Christ in Matthew 28 and Acts chapter 1 are very clear. “Go into all the world,” and “bear witness in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria and the ends of the earth.” Quite simply, we should be a people that know what it means to stay and wait, but in a posture of preparation. We should be a people on the move. We should be a people who know what it means to go.
We don’t have to sit around and wonder if God has sent us. He has. He has sent us to the nations. He has sent us to all peoples. Whether that means our going takes us across the street or across the world, let us never forget that God has called us to go. As image bearers tasked to fill the world with His glory, we have been given a tremendous task, we have been set on a courageous mission. Perhaps we should rephrase the goal. Perhaps it’s not so much to change the world as much as it is to fill the world. To fill the world with His glory, His love and His grace.
As you approach your day, let this be your task. Hear the Lord whisper to your heart or scream loudly to your soul. He is beckoning you to go. So, go where He is leading. Go to the neighbor and go to the nations. Go and fill the earth with His glory by proclaiming the incredible story of Christ. The one who came to earth, defeated death, offers resurrected life and compels his followers to go.