Pack Your Coffin

I recently started reading Mark Batterson's book, All In. His introduction grabbed me and I have been mesmerized with each page. He wrote about how many missionaries of yesteryear bought one way tickets to the mission field and they did not pack their belongings in a suitcase. They packed them in a coffin. They never intended to return home.

These courageous men and women fearlessly braved hostile people in hostile lands where they planted their lives. They faced persecution, disease, intense heat, bitter cold temperatures and mental battles we could never understand. They stayed. They heard God's call and followed Him with abandon.

Just like Simon and Andrew by the seashore, they heard Jesus say, "Follow me." They dropped everything and followed Jesus immediately. It used to be that way. Jesus called inviting people to follow Him and people responded. They obeyed stepping out in faith. Those missionaries did the same.

Should it be any different in our day? We have become used to comfort and unaccustomed to sacrifice. We avoid discomfort and sacrifice. Don't believe me. Just let the electricity go out on an oppressively hot night or a frigid winter night and listen to the complaining. Let someone not have a comfortable place to sit or the food run out before second helpings can be enjoyed and weeping and gnashing of teeth will begin. Let the hot water heater go out and be forced to take a cold shower. How much rejoicing will take place then.

It is beyond the comprehension of many Christians that Jesus might  actually call anyone one of us to follow Him to distant shores, to hostile nations, to sacrifice the American Dream, to smaller salaries, to Kingdom causes and purposes that defy the priorities of the masses.

Yes, Jesus still does that. To you and me. I have spent the better part of the last two days reading scripture in the book of Luke and praying through what I read there and in Patterson's book. It is challenging.

Whatever Jesus' calling might be, do I, do you, have the courage to follow Him and pack our coffins knowing our following His leading might bring hardship our way. Many of those early missionaries did not come home. They were buried in those coffins they had packed.

Is the cause of Jesus spreading His gospel really worth it? Is Jesus really to be taken seriously or are His commandmentss relics from a different age and a different era? If you take Him and His commands seriously it can be a little unsettling. He has the right to interrupt our plans and lives anytime He wants. If that call should come our way I pray we have the courage to pack our coffins like those early missionaries did. May we sing with conviction, "Wherever He leads I'll go."