by Gene Daniels
I have a good friend who lives on the West Coast; we have known each other for more than a decade. The funny thing is, we have only actually seen each other one or two times. The problem is, I have spent most of these years physically living in Central Asia, but for my friend, it’s only her heart that lives in that faraway place of steppe and high mountains passes.
Though she has only once visited the peoples of the ancient Silk Road, this saint spends hours on her face before God asking for their souls. She does this because she has seen something of the eternal off in the distance, and it changed her life’s priorities. Yet this vision has also caused her a great deal of discouragement and misunderstanding because most of her brothers and sisters in Christendom do not understand the things that stir her soul.
For me it’s easy. For many years I lived and spoke of Jesus in a foreign land; therefore I am a missionary. But what do you call my friend? A “support person?” Not quite right. A “missions mobilizer?” Not really. “Absolutely essential” would be closer to the truth, although she really doesn’t fit into any of the boxes we have so neatly drawn around the concept of world missions.
I have another good friend—actually she’s become more like a big sister. I have learned a lot from her over the years, mostly about sacrifice and perseverance. She has taught me these lessons because she has poured out her entire adult life in hard and difficult places―places where people have never heard the name of Jesus.
This big sister of mine spends hours and hours in dirty bazaars and other grimy places, anywhere she might find precious souls to be snatched from the fire. She considers no soil off limits to her evangelistic calling, but her roots have grown deep into strange and challenging fields―places most people would be unwilling to visit, much less live.
Like my first friend, she also does such things because years ago she saw something of the eternal off in the distance, and it changed her life’s priorities. Unfortunately, these are priorities that few understand and even fewer share.
What is the burden these two women have in common? What is it that causes each of them, in their own way, to face the uphill struggle they have chosen as a way of life? What kind of burden can be stronger and more real than the empty stare of family and friends who don’t seem to get it?
The best way I can describe this passion is to call it a “missions heart.” It is a heart that has been deeply touched by something so far off in the distance that most others won’t ever see it. And this encounter changes our life priorities. This is a soul who has heard the voice of eternity crying out to faraway peoples who have yet to hear the great shepherd’s voice.
I understand the wrestling that goes on in both missions hearts. At different points of my own journey, I have lived in both of their worlds.
For years, I was sure of a calling to the ends of the earth but found no outlet other than on my knees. I’ve felt that sense of being “out of place” which gnaws at those who stay home, yet live everyday thinking about the nations. In retrospect, I can see that what felt like forever was, in fact, only a season which God used to fill my heart with His passion. It was a time through which He taught me how to struggle with one of life’s many paradoxes.
Then, for several years I had the privilege of serving the Lord in some of those places of which I used to only dream. But I have also found that those glorious daydreams can morph into nightmares of discouragement—flood waters that leave muddy stains on your heart. And just as before, God had to teach me to live out His purposes in my life and family, even when it involves the realities of living far from our homeland.
Through these experiences, I have come to appreciate an important truth. There is a missions heart that gives itself away in unknown places with unpronounceable names. And there is also a missions heart, just as sure, just as unknown, that cries out to God in full view of a church on every corner. The heart-level struggles of these two are very much the same; only their roles in the kingdom differ. Both make sacrifices in a silent war that most of the Christian world seems to know nothing about. They both must wage a daily battle to maintain vision; only by listening with their heart can they press on.
So, it is to strengthen these people, these missions hearts, that I wrote Meditations for the Missions Heart: A 40-Day Journey to Renew Your Vision. Some of these thoughts will perhaps speak more to the one who is struggling on the home front, while others may speak more deeply to those facing the discouragement of life in foreign lands. Nevertheless, the need of both to nourish their soul’s passion is quite similar.
If you are now carrying God’s burden for the nations, regardless of what your role might be, my hope is that this little book will refresh you. If in the past, you felt such a stirring, but have given up your zeal for lesser pursuits, my desire is that by the time you are finished with these few pages, something will have rekindled your God-given flame.
However, be forewarned. If you have never felt the urge to cry over a world map, it is doubtful the thoughts in this book will make much sense to you. So to my praying friend on the West Coast, and to my big sister living in yet another awful location—I offer these words of encouragement so you will remain in the battle.
Excerpted from Meditations for the Missions Heart: A 40-Day Journey to Renew Your Vision, published by William Carey Publishing, 2025. Use the discount code HEART25 to receive 25% off the paperback and ebook versions.
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Gene Daniels has a passion to spread the fame of Jesus in the Muslim world, something he and his family have been involved in since 1997. Beginning as a church planter in Central Asia, he now focuses on research, writing, and training. Daniels has his doctorate in Religious Studies from the University of South Africa and is the author of many articles and books.
