Faith/Inspiration – A Life Overseas |

Prayers feeling stale? Mine, too.

I’ve been on a mission to revitalize my prayer life. It’s not that I had stopped praying, it’s just that my prayers had started sounding rote. I’d confessed to a friend that my words and prayers were coming from the shallow surface of my mind—whatever I could scrape together there that sounded decent—rather than the depths of my heart in authentic conversation with my Father.

To be honest, I felt a bit like a fraud. Have you ever had anyone look at you in your position of leadership and thank you for praying for them because they just knew you were someone who really prayed? Except you weren’t. At least not the way they thought you were. Yeah, that was me.

And I had a choice: either carry on with what I knew to be a shallow, mediocre prayer life or dig in, change some habits, and plead with Jesus to give me a heart for prayer.

I’ve never been one to settle for mediocrity, so I’m digging in, friends, and it’s been oh so worth it.

I’m still very much in the middle of my journey, and I honestly hope I never stop growing in the depth and conviction of my prayer life, but I am learning. So I want to offer a couple of suggestions in case your prayers could use a wake-up, too.

It’s okay not to pray. I know that sounds terrible, but there’s nothing more deadly to an authentic prayer life than offering forced, performed words during a group prayer just because you think you should. Instead, just be silent. Listen for the Lord. Be humble. You don’t have to lead out in prayer even if you’re the leader in the group. Forcing it and faking it will be a poison to your prayers.
Find prayer inspiration. What moves you to pray? Nature, music, photos of loved ones? Start there. Read good books, listen to sermons on prayer, study Jesus’s prayer life. I’m currently inspired and challenged by Lead with Prayer: The Spiritual Habits of World-Changing Leaders by Ryan Skoog, Peter Greer, and Cameron Doolittle. In the introduction they quote pastor Christian Dawson who reminds us:

The people who followed Jesus first were all taken aback by Jesus’ prayer life. They were fascinated by it. Jesus woke up early to pray. When He was exhausted, He’d get alone to pray. When He was successful, He’d get away to pray. When He was in trial, He stayed up all night to pray. It’s as if the first work and the last work that Jesus was up to was always prayer. Our Rabbi lived something that’s so easy to forget: Prayer, more than anything else, fuels our love for God, His people, and His mission to the world.

Use prayer tools. If you want to strengthen your body, you might need some exercise equipment to get you going; if you want to strengthen your prayer life, you might need some prayer equipment to challenge and motivate you. There are currently quite a few prayer apps available if you don’t mind using your phone to help you pray. Walking, worshiping, and journaling are classic prayer tools. For many, having some sort of sensory reminder like a smooth cross or stone to hold while praying can aid their focus.

One tool that I’m finding particularly helpful in this season is the practice of praying Scripture, and not just scriptural prayers like the Psalms or Paul’s prayers (although those are great, too), but any Bible verse. I’m currently praying through the Sermon on the Mount, and turning Jesus’s words, like “don’t worry about tomorrow,” into personal repentance and petition has been powerful.

Share your desire to grow. I can almost guarantee that even your most on-fire, Jesus-loving friend is still growing in their prayer life. Tell them you want to grow, too. Tell any of your friends that you’re convicted about developing stronger prayer habits, and I bet they’ll be happy to join you in the challenge to grow. Satan loves to make us think we’re alone in our struggles—break his power over you by simply sharing with someone you trust.
Pray for your prayer life. Guess who would absolutely love to help you develop stronger prayer habits? Yep, the same Person who invented prayer, who designed you to converse with Him, who for some unfathomable reason chooses to listen to and answer our prayers. Ask Him for faith to pray, really pray, like you’ve never prayed before. He is always waiting, always eager to spend time with you.

Prayer isn’t just one of the spiritual practices we should be engaging in to be healthy; prayer is the lifeblood of everything we do. We can’t neglect it. We can’t settle. We can’t rely on our own strength, our amazing team or program, or what has always worked. We need Jesus—in our families, our missions context, our churches, our outreach programs, our schools, our businesses, our daily lives. Being with Him should be our first mission.

So, in light of that conviction, it seems fitting that I end with a prayer for you—for all of us:

Heavenly Father, our king and friend, please teach us to pray.
Teach us to be watchful in prayer, standing guard against temptation.
To be desperate, knowing nothing is accomplished apart from You.
To be hopeful, finding a mustard seed of faith for every request.
To be present, leaning on Your nearness.

Give us hearts that long to fellowship with You,
minds that turn quickly to conversation with YYu,
and bodies that respond in obedience to you.

As we learn to pray, may Your will become our will and Your ways become our ways.
May forgiveness come just a bit quicker and compassion rise from somewhere deeper.

Teach us to kneel in prayer,
to walk in prayer,
to rest in prayer,
and to battle in prayer.

May we see awakenings
and revivals
and Your kingdom come
in our day as we pray!

In the name of Jesus and for the name of Jesus,
teach us to pray.

Amen.

Missions and the Single Girl

by Rachel B.

We don’t talk about it. We’re trying to be content, to avoid comparison, or jealousy, or even covetousness. We’re trying to dodge comparison that dogs our steps, to avoid the ache that accompanies what can feel like a gaping hole.

We’re single women, serving the Lord.

We don’t want another sermon on singleness by someone who met their spouse before they even hit 25 years old. We don’t want platitudes about waiting on God, or how His plan is best, or how He’s getting us ready. I had the “letter from God” about how He would hold off marriage until I was ready to trust Him completely — and it stinks of fairytales. We’ve watched plenty of others get married who weren’t following God, who weren’t “Proverbs 31 women,” who weren’t even trying to do things God’s way.

We’ve watched single Christian men, who say they feel called to missions, make marriage decisions that block that path. And we wonder, “Why didn’t you look at us??” There are HUNDREDS of Christian women already serving, already going.

We’ve prayed for an as-yet-unknown husband — both to find him and also for his life and health and relationships. We’ve questioned a hundred times, “Is this the one??” . . . only to be disappointed again. The enemy whispers that we aren’t enough, or are too much, or intimidating, or in the wrong place. He whispers that there must be something wrong with us, else we too would have been chosen.

We joke that “our husbands died at birth” or that he must have “gotten lost.” We drag our focus and our minds and our hearts back to God’s faithfulness, to how He has promised to never leave us or forsake us. We remind ourselves that marriage is hard (in a way we just can’t understand) and that God has good plans for us and for those whose marriages we surely don’t envy. That things aren’t as glamourous as they look from the outside.

But our hearts ache to be held. Our arms ache for a baby to call our own. We see seemingly everyone sharing pictures of days and adventures with husbands and children, and we often feel left behind.

Because there might not be a “someday.” And while the loneliness of this moment will surely not be forever, just because we wrestle our hearts to be content doesn’t mean that we don’t still yearn.

So please don’t write us off. Please don’t forget us. We have no one to bring us flowers. No reason to save and spend a kind-of-ridiculous amount for a birthday surprise. Or have that done for us. Too often, our holidays either slip through the cracks or are land-mined with well-intentioned but oh-so-painful questions — “When are you going to get married? Aren’t there any men there?” No, there aren’t.

“Well, you’re young,” changes to “Well, there’s still time.” The US culture is obsessed with relationships. We want someone to grow old with — the right one. We’ve seen the devastation of others who were desperate to get married.

We want someone to serve alongside. Someone to process with and laugh with and serve our great God with.

But more than all this, we want to please our Lord. So we stay, and we serve, and we desperately try to trust Him with it all.

~~~~~~~

Rachel B. is a cross-cultural ministry worker and medical professional currently serving in West Africa. With experience in ministry, healthcare, and team life, she is passionate about member care and helping missionaries and ministry leaders remain healthy and resilient as they follow God’s calling. She loves listening to people’s stories and finding practical ways to encourage and care for those serving Christ around the world

No Idea What You’re Doing? Girl, Join the Club

When my husband and I accepted the call to India, a man walked over to us and put a “mantle” around our shoulders: a yak wool shawl with red and blue woven trim.

“I’ve worn this every day for two years while I pray for the people,” he said. “It’s yours to carry now.” It was a fittingly cinematic moment at the end of a year of preparation that had felt divinely orchestrated, like watching our lives unfold in a film.

I hadn’t grown up hearing about Elizabeth Elliot or Mary Slessor or Amy Carmichael or Gladys Aylward. I didn’t have a clear idea in my mind of what a female missionary does. So I asked a few furloughing women.

“What do women in missions do?” “What do you feel is your role on your project as a woman?” “Do you have any advice for me?”

These women would get a far-away look, like their lives were flashing before their eyes. They would start talking and then get flustered and stop. Maybe they weren’t sure how to put such a huge topic into words. Maybe nobody had ever asked them to. Whatever the reason, most of the women I spoke with struggled to articulate their role in or approach to ministry.

One of them asked me how I pictured my future ministry.

“Um,” I began. “Maybe I’ll wash my clothes at the river with other women . . . and we’ll talk about Jesus by the water?” A dense fog descended upon me as the divine orchestration of the past few months was enveloped in uncertainty.

We launched to India that fall, newlyweds with backpacks disproportionately stuffed with books, to an area with no other foreigners. We were pregnant by Christmas.

For the next seven years, I tried hard to be a good mom while wondering what a good mom looks like. I tried to engage in ministry while wondering what faithful ministry looks like. I learned to wash my laundry like locals, alone in the bathroom with a bucket and a bar of soap, and I challenged myself to put aside what I wanted, for my kids and for the mission.

I felt my way along in life with the nagging feeling I was not doing anything quite right. I felt very much like the awkward labrador retriever who has grown too fast to know where her legs go.

After India, we moved to Africa and had the privilege of serving alongside other workers. I finally got to see how other women parent and do ministry and take care of their families and themselves.

One friend loves to paint. So she teaches painting classes, helped organize a community mural, and created some thought-provoking artwork to help her and others tell the gospel story. Another is gifted in conversation. She is socially savvy and loves to walk around meeting people and seeing if she can turn a conversation to spiritual topics.

There are women who are super organized and women who are free-spirited. There are bold, business-minded women and shy, hospitable ones. There are doctors and high school graduates and everyone in between. Each woman has a way to meet and minister to their community.

Shortly after meeting and getting to know all these incredible people, we went on a furlough and saw what the Bride of Christ is doing in our home country.

A small church started a free food truck ministry for the homeless. Another created a beautiful park on their church property where families can picnic. We saw stop-smoking classes, depression recovery seminars, MOPS groups, car shows, and a whole host of other creative ways to reach and bless communities.

Then I started reading to my kids about mission heroes like Mary Slessor and Gladys Aylward. These experiences began to gel in my mind. And suddenly I wanted to beam myself back to younger me and have a good heart-to-heart. But since I can’t do that, I’ll share my thoughts with you here:

Listen, girlfriend, nobody else knows what they’re doing, either. So don’t get discouraged thinking that the fog is your own personal Winnie-the-Pooh cloud, following you around to keep you confused and ineffective. As philosopher and theologian Søren Kierkegaard said, “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”

You’ve got gifts, interests, passions. Try something. Try anything. Give yourself permission to fall flat on your face and eat a mouthful of desert sand. Wait on God, yes, but don’t wait too much on yourself. Some of us just never feel ready.

So toss your kid in the baby backpack and get out into your community. Learn things. Invite people over. You know that great idea you have, the one that really scares you? Do that!

Here is what you need to know: You are still growing up. You will always be growing up. So don’t feel dumb when you don’t know what to do. You will always need wisdom like you need water, a fresh supply every day, every hour.

The only way to find your niche in ministry is to pay attention to the needs around you, say a prayer, try something, and honestly evaluate how it went. Do that over and over. And when you look back on your life, your motherhood, your ministry, it will finally make sense. It will look like the divinely orchestrated series of events that it really was. A life lived on purpose, with a niche only you could fill.

A cinematic masterpiece.

Finding Flickers of Light in the Darkness of Re-entry

One day I’ll write our looking back story — how I can see God’s hand was with me through the darkest valley and how He turned it all to good. One day, I’ll see how the prayers were answered for the best, and I’ll thank God for the ones that weren’t answered. One day.

But today is not that day. I have faith that God is faithful and will be faithful. But today I am in the midst of it, the darkest valley.

I quote the psalm to myself as a promise I’m clinging to: “Even in the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for I know that you are with me.” But it is my faith that prompts me to repeat these words each day, not my feelings.

I am in the smack-dab middle of re-entry. I am not looking ahead in planning mode or looking back triumphantly that I have finally gotten through. I am in the midst of it — the smack-dab middle.

Here is what the middle is actually like and what I would tell you if I could say how hard it’s been without being accused of being ungrateful or unfaithful (neither of which is true). In the smack-dab middle this is how it feels and how faith in what I cannot see is the only thing getting me through.

Some days and some weeks I have felt everything has gone wrong. Our whole family has been exhausted and sick. We’ve had mystery illnesses, staph infection boils, and tormenting lice caught at a summer camp. What we were really hoping would be a spiritual high ended up being a long, drawn-out physical and spiritual battle.

We are trying to enjoy the US, but it’s hard, and we miss so many things already. We miss our healthy food from our host country. We are sick of peanut butter and jelly, hotdogs, chicken strips, and French fries. But we’ve been so busy and transient for weeks that lots of days, that’s all we can manage. We miss unrushed meals together. We miss having a bed that’s ours and our favorite blankets. We miss our pets and our favorite yard tree. We miss routine and rest and family time. We miss life being familiar.

We’re over travel. We’ve driven too many hours to count and spent too much money on gas and car repairs to transport our family. Anxiety over a broken-down car is constantly lingering in my mind behind all the higher-priority anxieties — what will we do if it actually breaks down unrepairable?

It feels like we are living in our car, and it’s felt that way for weeks. We’ve packed and unpacked the car so many times, I am completely exhausted by it. I am almost paralyzed. I can barely bring myself to load and unload, to carry in another bag. But our travel isn’t over. We don’t yet have a home to call our own. And there’s nothing to do but lift the bags and do it again.

We needed a break from the constant travel, so we planned two stationary weeks at a free retreat center. We were hoping for rejuvenation — instead, the remote mountain gravel roads caused car damage and necessitated major repairs. All my previous anxieties confirmed. We had to leave early for repairs, we missed our debrief, and my spiritual renewal gauge went down rather than up. “God, why?” I asked in frustration.

I want to tell you some peoples’ words and encouragement and faith in our next steps have been exactly the cup of cold water we’ve needed in this barren land. But others’ hurtful comments have pierced so deep, it’s hard to imagine a time in the future when the wound could possibly fully heal.

Church member support has been the same mixed bag. Some have shown little or no interest; some have made hurtful comments; some have continued on so faithfully and generously, it brings me to tears thinking of their love and sacrifice. But I have so little to give in this season, I am not thanking them as I should.

In the darkest valley, I want to tell you that we’ve never had so much conflict or so many things go wrong. Yes, even in our life overseas. It’s been in every way a battle, fighting spiritually to hold on to all the beliefs and behaviors we’ve cultivated so many years. It’s taken just as much faith to return as it did to leave, maybe more.

I want to tell you it’s been so hard on our kids, even as they have been so eager and willing to participate in all the new experiences with such courage. They are worn out from the faster pace of life. They are sad that so many people are so busy with their own schedules they barely have time to spend with them. They miss the home they left, even as they want so badly to make a home in this new place, to fit in to this new, foreign world.

This was a planned re-entry for our family. We did plan, grieve, and say goodbye well. Yet, it’s been so hard just the same, and each of us has reacted differently, which has also added to the conflict and confusion and tension we’ve felt. Some of us pre-grieved and are jumping in to our new life with gusto; some of us are post-grieving, and every day we feel the emotional weight of loss.

Knowing all we did beforehand and how carefully we prepared to leave and yet how hard re-entry has still been is at best confusing. I am grateful for our own preparation, full of compassion for those who have no time to prepare their re-entry journeys, and trying to accept the reality that no matter how much anyone prepares, re-entry is still really hard.

We’ve seen light in this dark place, but it’s felt like the flicker of fireflies in a dark forest rather than a constant lighthouse beacon telling us clearly which direction to go. The firefly lights only appear as the sun fades and the darkness is taking over. Then a tiny light here or there appears. But just as quickly, it is gone. Darkness again.

In the darkest times, I haven’t questioned if God is real. An undeserved gift of faith makes me know He is. But I have questioned if He is good. If He will give good gifts, especially to me. If suffering is the only path. If joy will come in the morning.

If this all sounds like a big, faithless complaint, maybe you’ve never walked through your own dark valley. But this is what it feels like to be in the midst of it. My feelings aren’t getting me through; neither are my outward circumstances. I’m walking by faith, not by sight.

My faith tells me He is with me, even in this dark valley. And I’m clinging to that promise. I can’t see my path ahead clearly. The sun is gone. But in the darkness, I’m watching for the fireflies.

Insecurity and Expat Friendship

by Breanna Rudolph

We say we want community and friendship and ministry — but not if she’s prettier, bolder, holier, cleaner, fitter, smarter, or a better wife and mom in some way. On the mission field, comparison finds new ground: We may feel insecure around the one who adapts quickly, left behind by the one who speaks the language fluently, or envious of the one whose reports are full of the results we’re still praying for.

“Susan just isn’t a good fit because she makes me feel intimidated.” We say things like that as if Susan’s discipline and gifts are an attack on our worth. But Susan isn’t the problem. She’s just doing her best. It’s our own insecurity that turns someone else’s strengths into something we feel we have to defend ourselves against.

And so instead of learning, we label, and instead of growing, we gossip or “vent.” We need some way to justify our feelings and make them more palatable. So we make her faithfulness sound like control, or her wise strength sound like arrogance, or her clarity sound like harshness. We push her away or treat her like she’s less than because we’ve already decided she’s too much. But every time we do, we’re not really protecting ourselves — we’re only shrinking the circle of grace we get to live in and enjoy.

Then we wonder why community feels shallow, why friendships stay surface level, and why the good and stable people in our lives end up farther and farther away.

The fact is, sometimes we don’t truly want sisters. We want to be the one others look up to. In our own way, we want to be an “influencer” in an influencer-driven world. We want admiration and affirmation without accountability. And we want to keep everyone else confined within our standards so they never exceed our own. We end up missing the women who could sharpen and inspire us.

I think of my friends who are so generous and gracious in hospitality; those who are disciplined in health; the patient mom who keeps a lovely home; the many who are kingdom servants and love our kids so well; the one who tends a magnificent garden; the friend who teaches me to love beauty; the older women whose kind words and wisdom always lift me higher; and the one who knows all my faults and always tells me the truth.

My list could be far longer. Beside these women, I learn the shape of Jesus by the way He moves through these ordinary, glorious lives.

Sometimes we measure the wrong things. We only learn to see this when we stop trying to rank what we’re looking at. Some count obedience by achievements, ministry stats, or charisma; but the fruit of the Spirit is God’s proof in us, not the tallies we keep. We’re all learning from the same Teacher, and the table stays round.

God didn’t make us rivals; He made us reminders that He’s still shaping each of us, in different seasons, with different gifts. Comparison destroys this harmony.

We need each other. Because community can’t grow where insecurity rules. And jealousy will keep you lonely, even in a crowd of people. You can’t build sisterhood while secretly wishing to be the main one standing.

~~~~~~~

Breanna Rudolph is the wife of Michael and a mother of three. After serving in Haiti for over seven years, their family now lives in Tennessee, seeking to be faithful where God has them while waiting on His next steps. Her writing can be found at thinkingwithtruth.com.

The Sacred Keeping of People We Will Leave

My husband, our friend Liz, and I recently began watching Ted Lasso’s newest season. In the first episode, Ted is faced with a decision to return to England after several years of resettling in the U.S. Torn between his life in the U.S. and his desire to be a part of building something meaningful in the UK, Ted refuses the job offer, stating that Kansas City is his home. His former boss, Rebecca, nods her head and graciously responds with, “Sometimes, home is just a state of mind.”

All three of us watching had relocated back to the U.S. within the last few years, from the same area in Africa. We have walked this road of repatriation — some of it apart, some together — and it’s been a deep gift to be near to each other again now.

That question of what is home or where is home has not ceased to feel complicated. I watch my daughters struggle with it when well-meaning people ask. My husband, an adult TCK, answers differently depending on the context of the conversation. For our family, so much of this past year has been about our physical settling — finding a house, furnishing the house, unpacking all the things, finding our new places to shop and swim and run. There was a good bit of processing for us around leaving a home we loved and learning to love a new place, of building home in a completely new part of the world.

For all we think about home as a physical place, however, there is the very real part of our lives done in proximity to other people. What does it mean to spend most of a decade learning to love people, to then just . . . leave?

I think back to the summer before we moved to South Africa. It was filled with travel, many tearful goodbyes, and a sending party. It was a painful kind of leaving, and yet, we knew we would see all of these people we loved again. On home assignments, we would make the circuit to each of our churches, visit our friends, and spend meaningful time with our families.

We sent regular newsletters and kept up communication with many as a part of partnership. Being a twenty-first century cross-cultural worker meant, even in those hard goodbyes, there was not the finality of generations past; there was potential for many on-going relationships, and visits were to be (comparatively) more frequent.

Leaving this time, however, felt strangely different. There was no plan to return within the next few years. We do not have a newsletter for all of those people we built life with for the last nine years. There was investment in friendship, in discipleship, in formation. We built community with our church, our homeschool group, our Bible school campus, and within our small town. By the time we actually left, our networks were vast and overlapping. Though we have kept up with some people, the majority we have not had contact with since we left over a year ago.

What is the significance of pouring our lives into others, just to leave? What does it mean to hold friendships dear, even if we cannot maintain them? Is our discipleship significant, even after we’re gone?

To be honest, our new life has required so much relational energy and pouring into new relationships that these questions are only now surfacing for me. We have all felt the loss of our closest friends, our dearest neighbors. Some days, the completeness of the relational starting over has been suffocating. Where are those lovely people who just knew me, with whom I had built so much relational capital and felt understood?

But these questions of purpose and meaning in the pouring in, and then the leaving, these remain, some days haunting over my shoulder as we pour out again in a new context. The faces of hundreds swim in my mind — and the completeness of leaving these dear people takes my breath away.

What must it have been like for Jesus, who poured His life into relationships, who truly poured Himself out completely for people? Did He, in His humanity, wrestle with questions of His investment in others? Did He wonder how His leaving would affect those He’d become close to? How did He embody his self-identified purpose that “the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45)?

Perhaps He, too, felt the futility at times. After all, His time physically with people was short too. In His presence, He offered compassion, friendship, healing, forgiveness, dignity, and love; and in His leaving, He sent His Spirit to remain in His absence. What have we left behind in our leaving?

By God’s grace, I can think back on dozens of good goodbyes before we left South Africa — tearful, poignant reflections on years of relationship with many dear people. And by God’s grace, we knew that we have eternity to share with many of these dear friends. But not all. Oh God, may your Spirit continue to be alive and active in our absence. And of course, He will.

He is the sacred keeper of people. And perhaps here is the goodness, the hope: in our absence, God is present. By necessity of circumstance, our tangible doing of life with these people has come to an end, and yes, it is painful. And yet, we entrust all of those we love and who loved us back into His care, into His hands. Our presence was only ever going to be fleeting, but His is eternal.

Read the companion piece from earlier this year, The Sacred Keeping of Places We Will Leave.

Riding the Tides of Cross-cultural Life

Rwanda, the country I’ve called home for the last ten years, is known as the “land of a thousand hills.” It’s become common amongst my expat friends to extend the name to fit our experience: “the land of a thousand hills and a thousand emotions.” It often seems that the stunning highs and paralyzing lows of this life echo the landscape around us, sometimes even in the course of a day. The tide-like quality of frustration and favor can disorient even the most steadfast amongst us.

This experience is far from unique. Life is unpredictable and dramatic in its range; life in Christ can make that spectrum even more pronounced. The life of following Christ to serve in a culture that isn’t your own? Buckle up, buttercup.

In my work as a spiritual director, I am always on the lookout for metaphors that help me (and my directees) give language to the ways we relate to God and one another. A few years ago, I was stopped in my tracks by a beautiful poem on Instagram, and it has called me back periodically ever since:

Until I Thought of Myself as the Sea

“I used to separate good days from bad until
I thought of myself as an ocean. I used to
split times I felt strong from when I felt weak
until I imagined myself as the sea. Calm and
rocky, wild and soft, still and powerful and vast
and more than any one thing. In the ocean it’s
hard to divorce one mood from another, one wave
from the next. Now on my worst days, I think
of how good life is too, how I can still greet joy
while swimming through grief. How fragile
strength feels. How I’m not any one thing in any
one moment in any one day. I’m all of it and
All of it is me.”

-Hannah Rosenberg, Instagram Post

While not expressly Christian, Hannah’s words invite the reader into a sacred level of introspection and awareness through the metaphor of the sea. We can ask ourselves: Do I see myself this way? Do I afford myself this grace? Do I allow for the coming and going of the tides, as the Lord sees fit? Can life contain all of this, at once, and still be blessed?

Rosenberg’s poem has invited me to allow space for all of this to be a part of the life I’ve been called to: good days and bad days, greeting joy while swimming through grief. Days when I feel strong and days when I feel weak. Days when I feel like I am really making a difference for the Kingdom and days when I can barely get out of bed. Calm, rocky, wild, soft. When I think of myself as the sea, I can be all of these things, I can experience them fully, and they can all be sacred.

A few weeks ago, I was once again left breathless by a short poem I found on Threads — and reading the two together leaves me deeply encouraged.

The caption reads: I don’t name the ocean anymore. I just know the water is holy.

“My relationship with God
Is the tide
High. Then low.
Sometimes a dolphin shows up
Sometimes a shark
And yet — the water is always holy.”

-John Roedel on Threads

I’ll be vulnerable here: these days, I feel like I’m swimming in waters with sharks and dolphins. It can sometimes be difficult to tell which is which. One distracts me from the other. Joy and sorrow, grief and gratitude, all swirling about in water that sometimes feels murky and other times feels crystal clear. Is the water always holy? On my best, most steady days, I think so. On other days, I am disoriented and overwhelmed by it all.

But this language, of sea and tides and dolphins and sharks and swimming through the contradictions, has become very dear to me.

When I feel lost in a wave of culture stress and lack of clarity in my calling and career trajectory, I can take a moment and remember that this is but a wave, and it will recede.

When a prayer is finally answered in a way that feels nothing short of miraculous, I can gaze in awe at this “dolphin” and praise what the Lord has done. I can embrace the playfulness and relish this fleeting gift.

When I feel attacks coming from all sides, and I know the enemy is seeking to destroy the good the Lord is doing, I can name the shark and punch it in the nose. (And ask others to help me!)

When I find myself in a season that seems too good, too sweet, too blessed to last, I can take some time to float on my back and enjoy it all before the next wave comes in and knocks me off balance.

How we experience God, how we move through this cross-cultural life, is rarely static or predictable. But, as John Roedel says, the water is always holy. Our Lord is working all things for our good.

So friend, I invite you: take some time this week to pray about your life through this lens. Ask the Lord to teach you how to navigate the tides you are facing. Ask Him to show you the dolphins and sharks.

Spend some time floating on your back in the graces and gifts you find present in this season. And if the water feels treacherous and you can’t find the shore, remember: the tide will eventually change, and the Lord is always with you.

Holy Disorientation: Partnering with God as He Transforms Us through Cross-Cultural Transitions

Reflecting on over two decades of cross-cultural transitions as a mission worker has shown me that whilst my family and I can endure complex moves across cultures, we thrive most in the settled season that follows them. We are well-versed in the all-consuming planning and packing for a cross-cultural move, the stress and anxiety of leaving behind the familiar, the uprooting from established relationships and rhythms, the upheaval to our house and hearts, and the complex logistics of flights and arrivals — in addition to various other cross-cultural changes and events that are equally disruptive and disorienting.

Cross-cultural transitions mean living in the ambivalence of both grieving and celebrating, endings and beginnings, living in hope in the midst of chaos, and rebuilding whilst in a state of holy disorientation. We endure transitions as a necessary evil, longing for the routines and stability that come months, or even years, later as we finally make the new life and culture our home.

Writing with another cross-cultural transition on the horizon, I acknowledge that it is often only on the other end of the upheaval and disorientation of transition seasons that I notice that the Lord has been at work in me. It is in the chaos and disorientation of transition that I have drawn closest to him.

Reframing Transition as God’s Instrument for Christlikeness

Rather than viewing cross-cultural transitions merely as a burden or a tiring journey to navigate as quickly and smoothly as possible, let’s also recognise their potential as sanctifying seasons. The Lord often uses cross-cultural transitions to grow us and shape our character to be more like Jesus in our everyday lives. Through transitions we are ‘being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory’ (2 Corinthians 3:18). Instead of willing the transition to end as quickly and painlessly as possible, let us name and accept the season we are in and seek to encounter Christ in it.

This grating iron-sharpening-iron of transitions can be God’s instrument in forging us into Christ-shaped new creations. Like other suffering or difficulties, transition friction can serve to refine our characters. In stripping away our self-sufficiency, transitions give opportunity for us to grow in dependence on Christ and others. In seasons of transition we are often required to surrender our preferences, desires, and knowledge as we integrate into a new culture. They require an emptying of ourselves, humility, and a teachable heart, making us open to His work. In the vulnerability of our transition grief, as with other times of suffering, we can be drawn into dependency and closer intimacy with Christ.

Just as the Israelites grumbled against God in the desert—romanticising their time in Egypt and rejecting His daily provision—we often look back at the familiarity and stability of non-transition seasons through rose-tinted glasses. In our desperation to escape the upheaval and heat of times of transition, we miss the blessings of our current season. The forty-year wilderness journey was God’s instrument in preparing the community to trust in Him as they entered the Promised Land. As you navigate your current transition, what old habits, mindsets, or securities is God stripping away from you, and how are you learning to depend on His daily provision?

The Spirit is at work, moulding us throughout the transition journey; our role is to posture ourselves with a receptive heart, ready to collaborate with Him.

Posturing Ourselves to be Shaped by God during Transitions

Spiritual practices for cross-cultural transition are the intentional holy habits, or spiritual disciplines we adopt, as rhythms that orient us towards Christ. When we think about spiritual practices for cross-cultural workers, what often comes to mind are Bible reading, prayer, and church attendance. Some might include fasting, hospitality, evangelism, serving, lament and fellowship, although there are many more.

We can seek to co-operate with the Spirit’s work in us by practising these spiritual habits—and new ones. These habits have the added benefit of anchoring us in times of transition, offering routine and structure to a disorienting time of chaos. Their impact on our transition season, and beyond, as well as in sculpting our faith, depends on the spiritual exercises being practised regularly (daily, weekly, every time that…), intentionally, and consistently. Sometimes the encouragement and accountability of a church group, or a family member, can help us persevere.

I also want to suggest a few lesser-known spiritual practices for cross-cultural transition:

Examen: A daily prayer of reflection to look back, review the good and difficult of the day, and give thanks. In his book How to Pray: A Simple Guide for Normal People, Pete Greig suggests four steps to this prayer (with my clarifications added in brackets): Replay [review your day]; Rejoice [give thanks for its blessings]; Repent [confess sins and failings]; Reboot [learn from it as you step into tomorrow]. Writing these down in a journal, processing and looking for patterns over the transition season can reveal a lot about ourselves and help us to see God at work in the midst of the chaos of transition. Families and couples can also share the Examen together.

Another way to practise Examen is to ask the same questions of ourselves each day over the transition period, such as: Where was God at work today? What brought me closer to God today? Where or when did God seem distant? What can I thank God for today? Asking these questions of our todays helps us to know how and where to re-orient ourselves towards Christ in our tomorrows, whatever phase we are at in the transition.

Simplicity: When making decisions about what to pack, what to leave behind or gift to others, and the way we want to live, we can choose to live simply, perhaps below our means. This is not only as a way of identifying with local believers, reducing our environmental footprint, resisting consumerism, or for incarnational living—although these are all very important to consider—but also as a spiritual practice of limiting ourselves. This could mean living simply and travelling lightly, buying local rather than filling up more suitcases, being content with an uncluttered house and lifestyle, and limiting ourselves as a practice in abstinence and self-control.

Celebration: It is a choice to recognise, remember, and rejoice in the fullness of all that God has done. Throughout the Old Testament the Israelites were commanded to celebrate as an expression of their faith and a way of keeping community (Leviticus 23:4). Thanksgiving services, celebrating milestones, and leaving parties are all important throughout missionary life and especially in ending well. We might feel embarrassed to draw attention to ourselves or our own achievements publicly. However, the spiritual practice of celebration is about magnifying the God who sustained us and His work through us. Teams can even help keep track of important dates and arrange celebrations.

Finding a Spiritual Accompanier (Director): Meeting through a time of discernment ahead of a cross-cultural transition with a Christian trained to listen and help us pay attention to God’s presence, discern the Holy Spirit’s leading, and grow in intimacy with Christ. Cross-cultural transition can stir a ‘holy disorientation’ in us by dismantling long-held understandings of our faith and challenging cultural assumptions about ourselves and God, as well as our role in what He is doing in the world.

A Spiritual accompanier can help us reflect on a transition season by drawing out our responses to the following: When job titles, ministry successes, and cultural familiarity are stripped away, have I/am I truly placing my identity in Christ? Do I find my home and satisfaction in Christ, even when I am not in transition? Is my theology of suffering robust enough to sustain me when the initial excitement fades and grief, disorientation, and deep loneliness set in? While deeply disorienting, asking questions like these when reflecting on transition seasons forges Christlikeness in us by exposing our desire for self-reliance, revealing hidden weakness and sin, and leading us to see our need for absolute dependence on Christ.

By practicing holy habits, we choose to look for God amidst the chaos of transition, posturing our hearts to receive from Him. When we intentionally seek his presence in the disorientation, we are drawn closer to His heart and likeness — and transition transforms from a dreaded cross-cultural shift into a sanctifying season to sit with and grow from.

Embracing New Chapters, Trusting the Same Author

Hidden under a canopy of outstretched branches, I pause for a moment to take in the view before me. Layers of green intermingle as they nestle the banks of a gurgling creek. The rhythm is steady and reassuring as the cool water rushes over smooth stones on its way downstream. This is the first moment I have felt a sense of calm flood my thoughts and body in a while.

This week, my husband is the missions speaker at a summer camp he attended as a child and worked at as a teenager. He’s taken us for a walk to see the wooden bridge he helped his grandfather build when he was a boy and has shared many memories of his time growing up here. Our own boys are attending as junior high campers, and it’s been a stark reminder that a lot has changed in our lives.

It’s been over five years since I’ve been able to travel back to Pennsylvania and the first time our family has traveled back together. Spending the majority of the past decade ministering in Northern Uganda and journeying through a lengthy adoption process is where most of our story has been lived. And now that we are back “home” on our first furlough, embracing this space of unsettledness has been very overwhelming at times.

I have known the Lord and experienced His faithfulness in the wilderness of waiting, but in this season of transition I’m learning to trust Him in new ways. So, while enjoying an unexpected moment of quiet, a quote by Aljean Anthony dances around my mind as the water ripples along its merry way: “He’s carried you this far, hasn’t He? Don’t you think He could carry you even further? Trust in Him.”

It’s as if it has been bookmarked in my thoughts, a reminder for moments when I feel the unsteadiness of this land in between. I wasn’t expecting such a chaotic re-entry after spending so many challenging years abroad. My bucket list did not include three unexpected trips to the emergency room or a mad search for medication to treat a tropical parasite that’s not available in the USA. Then there were two weeks of sickness that hit our whole family, travel plans derailed, and the celebration of homecoming delayed.

After all I’ve experienced living a life overseas, I should be more accustomed to life not going according to my plan, but here I am again, wondering why.

I can list every time the Lord faithfully provided and carried us in our waiting season just as the Lord provided for the Israelites in theirs. He led them through the wilderness with manna, quail, sandals that didn’t wear out, water spilling from rocks, a pillar of fire, and the covering of a cloud. Yet, the story of the Israelites crossing the Jordan River in Joshua 3:15-17 offers encouragement to me right now.

The crossing of the Jordan River represented the transition from wilderness into the Promised Land. I’ve watched the Lord dry up the rising floodwaters in our life and allow us to walk through to the other side. But that doesn’t mean the next season will be perfect to make up for the former one.

For the Israelites there would be more battles to overcome, with plenty of challenges awaiting and numerous adjustments made for a new lifestyle — for their dependence on the Lord still needed to deepen. Yet even though the manna stopped falling as the Israelites entered a new land, the Lord’s presence, guidance, comfort, provision, and love never did. It just looked different.

The Lord promises to continue the journey with us, just as He declared to the Israelites in Isaiah 43:2, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze” (ESV).

Maybe you are walking through your own Jordan River or standing at the edge of your “Promised Land” — whether it’s preparing move to a new country, transitioning back “home,” experiencing a big life change, celebrating ministry goals met, overcoming obstacles, or straddling a new wilderness of uncertainty. God’s presence is steadfast even when we waver in the challenges that come our way.

On the fourth morning of summer camp, we awake to a thick layer of smoke hiding everything, the blue skies overcome with heavy haze from fires burning elsewhere. It’s another reminder that while we may not know what’s coming or can’t see through the unknown, the Lord remains the unchanged, and the story He is writing is a good one. I can have peace as I enter this new chapter because I know the author.

Recently, I’ve been leafing through the stack of journals I’ve lugged back across the ocean. These journals hold the struggle, the worries, the laments, the prayers, the joys, and the praises over the past number of years. But mostly they declare the Lord’s faithfulness in my life. They serve as a reminder of how the Lord has provided in seasons of hardship and struggle.

How He restores what has been lost.

How He revives what is hopeless.

How He redeems what is broken.

How He rewrites our pain into His promise of an abundant life.

God’s glory is in the gold lettering of our story, chapter by chapter. And oh, how He has written and woven such a testimony of His goodness and grace into our lives. His purpose was penned long before I was born, and when I don’t understand or when all seems lost, still I believe that the Author of Life is at work redeeming my story and yours.

In each and every delay.

In each and every disappointment.

In each and every heartache.

The battle may be great, but God is far greater. All these years of wild words planted, hopes deferred, dreams surrendered, and in the promises restored, the Lord is faithful. I’m slowly beginning to make peace with the understanding that I may not feel as rooted during the next few months as I had hoped.

But in acknowledging that, I know that I am rooting deeper in the One who steadies my heart when everything seems unsteady. I am tethered to an anchor far more secure than any house, or person, or thing that brings comfort. He has indeed carried me this far, and He will surely carry me further.

Your Labor Is Not in Vain

Your labor is not in vain
Though the ground underneath you is cursed and stained
Your planting and reaping are never the same
Your labor is not in vain

There is a story in our family about my dad. He and my mom were on a home leave, having just finished their second four-year term in Pakistan. They were at a Christian retreat center where my dad studied during the day, taking required linguistic and Bible courses, and my mom took care of five children aged one to eleven. It was a lot.

My dad was tired and deeply discouraged. He and my mom had been living in Pakistan for ten years. They had come with one child and now had five. The toll of life in a remote area of a Muslim-majority country had caught up with him. The heat in the summer, living in what was at the time the hottest recorded area in South Asia; the absence of family and an English-speaking church to be a part of; the sense that no matter how hard you tried, you would never truly belong. There were team conflicts and cultural misunderstandings, dysentery, and children with broken bones.

But more than all this were the overriding questions in his mind: Does this matter? Are we here for nothing? What is the point of all this? Of missionary service? Of leaving all that is familiar? At heart, perhaps, he was asking, “Do I matter?”

My dad was ever the optimist. He was a stick-to-it, big-hearted, generous man. But his optimism had failed him. It was dead, somewhat like the desert ground where we lived in the Sindh region of Pakistan, brown and barren where nothing could grow. His heart felt the same.

It was during a morning study time while deep into examining the book of Acts that he experienced a breakthrough in his heart, soul, and mind. As he was reading about those missionary journeys so long ago, the ones that ended in shipwreck, hunger, and letters to tell about it, he suddenly saw himself as part of a bigger story, a story that began thousands of years before and would end in something so impossibly wonderful that no human could begin to describe it.

Yes, he was small. Yes, from the world’s perspective he was woefully insignificant. But his labor was not in vain. More than that, small as his work might be on the world stage, he knew without a doubt that he was beloved by a God who knew him.

Your labor is not unknown
Though the rocks they cry out and the sea it may groan
The place of your toil may not seem like a home
But your labor is not unknown

It’s this that comes to mind as I think of all of you. Sure, there are a few of you who might claim the word “influencer,” but overall, you are laboring without a lot of recognition. You may feel recognized at the occasional church while on home leave. For a brief hour you might feel famous even — your picture on the bulletin board with your kids looking halfway decent. Maybe you occasionally speak during the service when a pastor magnanimously gives up his spot, talking about the work, calling to mind God’s faithfulness even as you doubt all that you once knew.

Your work in Kuala Lumpur, Bangalore, Chittagong, Karachi, Bangkok, Shanghai, Jakarta, or a thousand other places may be filled with small, irritating difficulties or with major challenges. Divisions in your team, open hostility in your workplace, and insurmountable cultural differences may have you defeated. You may, like my dad, be thinking, “Why does any of this matter?”

Wherever you are, you are a small part of a massive universe.

Yet this is truth: you are a small part infinitely loved by God, and your labor is not in vain. Maybe your work is in Bible translation, and for weeks you’ve been stuck on three sentences as you translate from English to Greek to Brahui. Maybe you are a mom raising five kids, your hard-earned master’s degree languishing on a shelf while you pour yourself out trying to keep bugs out of the flour, humidity out of the house, and kids out of the hospital. Maybe you are a nurse working in the developing world wondering how on earth you can continue to function with so few resources. Whatever your situation, know this: your work matters, you matter. Your labor is not in vain.

The houses you labored to build
Will finally with laughter and joy be filled
The serpent that hurts and destroys will be killed
And all that is broken be healed

I write this piece from a place of transition — one of the many I have had through the years. My work in the Middle East ended abruptly with little warning, leaving me with dead dreams and deep grief. Since that time, amidst family crises and a global pandemic, I have slowly built a new career and a new place. All of that is now changing with budget cuts and family needs.

But whether in my passport country or overseas, throughout my life, there are times when I, like my dad, wonder if any of these matter. When doubt over the goodness and presence of God overwhelms me, threatening to control all I do and think. Yet, repeatedly, I have seen His goodness, His mercy, His grace in unexpected ways. In the dark, I have come to know it as God’s quiet whisper reminding me that nothing is wasted, that what I do, and more importantly who I am, matters.

So, as we wait for all to be made right, for our broken world to be restored, Christ at its center and evil defeated, may we know that the God who called us by name is with us, that our labor is not in vain.

For I have called you, called you by name
Your labor is not in vain

Humility Is Not a Doormat

“Apology not accepted.”

It was the dumbest, most unreasonable email I’ve ever sent. It was 2010, and I hardly remember what happened, but I know I was fuming. The National French Exam hadn’t mailed my tests on time, and my students were at risk of losing something they’d worked so hard to achieve. Every year, they’d placed in the top ten regionally, and twice nationally, for French. Hence my venomous three-word email to whichever customer service representative had been assigned to Anna Danforth that day.

There is no way forward with “apology not accepted” people. Conflict resolution becomes a dead end, and hope for forward movement dims. That day, I was the problem.

That email is a window into the beast that comes alive in us when we feel cornered. It’s when that fearful question creeps in, “What happens to me if this doesn’t go my way?” Maybe you’re not fuming at a customer rep—maybe it’s your teammate who took credit for your work, your organization that increased your fundraising needs (again), or your director’s endless conflict avoidance.

The instruction to “live charitably” is a truth God knew that we needed spelled out. Whether in three-word emails, cold shoulders, or unexplained relational disruptions, He knew the arrogance we’d battle in our hearts. He knew the way we would destroy each other when the things we hold dear are threatened.

Why is it so hard to live charitably when the direction of your program is on the line? To live in unity when your teammate is causing friction? To assign best motive to the person who pulled from your donor team? To let love cover a multitude of sins—not abuse, but annoyance—when that person interrupts you in every single meeting? Humility goes hand in hand with unity (Ephesians 4:1-7), but how do we get there in a broken world, in a broken church?

I was confronted with the why last week as I prepared for a Bible study on Philippians 2. Words I’d memorized in high school suddenly became distasteful. Have one mind? Count others more significant than yourself? Paul’s call to humility and unity grated on me, and for good reason.

What if the person demanding my humility is the one abusing power?

I have my own scars from misuse of power by several in positions of authority in the church or Christian organizations. I know the feeling of being told not to “gossip” about leadership when addressing concerns and of cowering at the thought of losing someone’s support for speaking up when people in their care were being wronged. Before I knew how to be “innocent as doves and wise as serpents,” I worked hard to maintain humility, peace, and harmony at high costs—staying long past the point of harm to myself and others.

What, biblically, am I called to do in these situations? I had to know the answer. If you’re bracing yourself because you’ve been told that your resistance is a spiritual problem, here is what I learned.

Humility does not call me to ignore evil (Ephesians 5:11, Isaiah 1:17).
Humility does not call me to be a doormat (Matthew 23, John 7:1-10, Luke 4:30, Acts 9:23-25).
Humility does not call me to trust without discernment (Proverbs 26:24-25, Proverbs 25:19).
Humility does not call me to preserve false peace (Galatians 2:11-14).
Humility does not call me to stay in abusive relationships (John 10:39, 2 Timothy 3:1-5). Dear missionary, this applies even if you’ll lose your entire ministry or half your support.
Humility does not call me to enable manipulation (John 2:23-25, Titus 3:10-11).
Humility does not call me to accept spiritual coercion (Matthew 23:4, 1 Peter 5:1-3, Galatians 2:4-5).

Wrestling with what humility is not became a crucial step to understanding what humility is.

Humility is reasonable. Paul goes on to say, “Let your reasonableness be known to everyone” (Philippians 4:5). It’s the mark of someone rooted—someone who trusts in their core that God will supply all our needs (Philippians 4:9).

Reasonable people aren’t easily threatened. They still face threats and loss, but differently. Their peace is staked on something bigger than a customer service rep’s reply or the appeasement of a self-preserving leader.

Humility is caring. The patient unity we’re called to creates space for growth, for grace, and for mirroring our Father to each other. Caring people are patient with mistakes. They understand life is full of the curveballs—the twists and turns that shake us but also grow us.

Humility is confident. It’s remaining firm on core truths and holding things in tension. Confident people don’t need center stage. Their worth isn’t set in specific outcomes but in being grounded in truth while considering new angles and being curious about different approaches.

Humility is discerning. That’s something I lacked both in my email and in every fight for false peace. The customer service rep who missed a deadline isn’t the same thing as your leader silencing your concerns. You may be fuming at both. But one deserves grace. The other deserves directness.

That’s the humility I’m after—not a doormat, but a balance of grace and truth in the sticky situations of our lives.

Beggar to Beggar: Finding Food and Walking Alongside . . . More Slowly

“Writers,” said David Brooks in a recent interview, “are beggars who tell other beggars where they found bread.” Brooks, a best-selling author, American political pundit, and staff writer for The Atlantic, called this his “favorite saying about writers.”

But wait up. I’ve heard a version of that phrase before, and I don’t remember it being about writers. Isn’t it about preachers, or missionaries, or just gospel-sharers in general? A quick internet search led me to the original:

Evangelism . . . is one beggar telling another beggar where to get food.

I was glad to find the actual quotation but was even more glad to find out its source. It wasn’t Elizabeth Elliot or Billy Graham or some other Christian from my American neighborhood. Instead, it was an evangelist and theologian from Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), D. T. Niles. Here is what Niles wrote in 1951 in That They May Have Life:

Evangelism is witness. It is one beggar telling another beggar where to get food. The Christian does not offer out of his bounty. He has no bounty. He is simply guest at his Master’s table and, as evangelist, he calls others too. The evangelistic relation is to be “alongside of” not “over-against.” The Christian stands alongside the non-Christian and points to the Gospel, the holy action of God. It is not his knowledge of God that he shares, it is to God Himself that he points.

It’s a great reminder to me that Christian wisdom doesn’t always flow from the West to the rest of the world—though it is so easy for me to get locked into a bubble of influence made up of people like me, where we are the givers of wisdom, and they are the receivers.

No, we are all beggars. We cross-cultural workers are beggars when we first arrive in a new country and have to ask where we can find chocolate chips or Jello (or good substitutes) or the best place to buy tea. We are beggars who need to be able to receive encouragement and motivation from our brothers and sisters around the globe. We are beggars who need to learn from others how better to come “alongside” them, to see the world through their eyes, to speak their language, to slow down and walk with them side by side.

In another book, The Preacher’s Calling to Be Servant (1959), Niles writes about how our habits of hurry have caused us to lose “the art of charity.” This is unlike Jesus, who, he says, though his ministry lasted only three years, always had time for the people around him. Niles shares a lesson from a missionary friend:

The Rev. Middleton Weaver, said to me, “When I first came to Ceylon, we travelled in bullock carts, now we travel in motor-cars, and the substitution of the one for the other has even ruined our evangelistic work. Now I rush down to a meeting and then get back home; when I used to travel in a bullock cart I really met people.” Yes, hurry means that we gather impressions but have no experiences, that we collect acquaintances but make no friends, that we attend meetings but experience no encounter. We must recover eternity if we are to find time, and eternity is what Jesus came to restore. For without it, there can be no charity.

The transition from bullock carts to motor-cars seems rather quaint to us today, but what more-modern inventions have given us the ability to hurry even more? Fast food? Microwaves and Instapots? High-speed trains? Immediate answers from High-speed internet? Immediate creativity from AI?

How can we not rush to take advantage of all these things?

Japanese-born theologian and missiologist Kosuke Koyama picks up this theme of slowing down to better serve those around us in Three Mile an Hour God (1980). The title is based on man’s average walking speed. It is the speed of the Israelites, he writes, who for forty years walked in the desert, learning that “man does not live by bread alone, but that man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.” And it is the speed of Jesus, traveling between Galilee and Jerusalem, bringing the “bread of life.” Koyama says,

Jesus Christ came. He walked towards the ‘full stop’. He lost his mobility. He was nailed down! He is not even at three miles an hour as we walk. He is not moving. ‘Full stop’! What can be slower than ‘full stop’—’nailed down’? At this point of ‘full stop’, the apostolic church proclaims that the love of God to man is ultimately and fully revealed. God walks ‘slowly’ because he is love. If he is not love he would have gone much faster. Love has its speed. It is an inner speed. It is a spiritual speed. It is a different kind of speed from the technological speed to which we are accustomed. . . . It is the speed we walk and therefore it is the speed the love of God walks.

British New Testament scholar and author N. T. Wright refers to this idea from Koyama in the short documentary Godspeed: The Pace of Being Known (2017). Wright says if we slow down, “we might actually be able, paradoxically and finally, to catch God up.” (We in the States would phrase it “to catch up to God.”)

Godspeed follows Matt Canlis, an American-born Anglican seminary student, on his quest to become a pastor whose vocation is patterned after the life of Jesus. While at Regent University, Canlis studied under Eugene Peterson, of The Message fame, who told him that he may need to leave America to learn how to minister like Jesus. Canlis and his wife later continued their studies at St. Andrews University in Scotland, where Wright teaches. While there, he also learned outside the classroom, serving the residents of Pitlochry Parish.

Canlis had some pretty impressive teachers in Peterson and Wright. And we can add to that company Alan Torrance. In this case, I’m not referring to Alan Torrance, professor at St. Andrews, though Canlis may well have learned from him. Instead, I’m talking about Alan Torrance, bushy-red-haired, kilt-wearing resident of Pitlochry. Canlis helped Torrance overcome his skepticism about Jesus, while Torrance helped Canlis understand how to “walk” more like Jesus in the community.

Torrance opens the video describing Canlis when he first arrived. “He meant well,” he says with a grin, “but he didn’t know quite what he was doing. . . . I think we helped.”

Callis responds, “I think they did help. I’d been running for most of my life, running through life to get somewhere else. But the thing about running is that you miss things, many things. And if I kept running, I was going to miss everything.”

You can watch Godspeed here. If you can take the time—it’s around 30 minutes long—please do.

[photo: “Bread,” by St. Blaize, used under a Creative Commons license]