“To move to a place like this—that girl must be Xena: Warrior Princess.” I heard the compliment, if that’s what you’d call it, in echoes through the stairwell of our new home. We were planning to move in a few months and had come to visit our landing place—an apartment building that housed a tiny church plant, our apartment to be, and 12 other apartments that my husband would manage in the heart of one of the poorest, most drug addicted neighborhoods in New York’s Southern Tier. My mind conjured images of a long-haired brunette scantily clad in armor, wielding weapons, and unafraid of everything. I’d never seen the show, but based on the images from commercials, this was the image that came floating to my mind. I was pretty sure the hair was the only real similarity between her and me.
Our new neighbor, who would later tell my husband, “I don’t carry knives because I’d shank someone,” proceeded with his compliment: “She must be tough.”
Other than a decent glare when the situation calls for it and maybe a propensity to talk a big game, I’m not what anyone would call “tough.” During our first week in our new home—in which I celebrated my 22nd birthday, our first wedding anniversary, and our first church service—my husband had to evict someone from our property for assault and I had a run in with a mentally ill man who told me his brother was buried in the basement of our building (confused, but not a lie—that’s a story for another day). I was in over my head from the moment we started in a life of ministry.
Covered in the Armor of God
The truth is, we aren’t called to be tough. The Christian life is about putting on the armor of God and taking shaking, trembling, weak-kneed steps in the direction our Savior calls. Not everyone will sit on the steps of an apartment building while drug addicted ex-cons talk about your shocking toughness, but every Christian will be asked to follow Jesus into things that feel uncomfortable, hard, and even unsafe. Our Lord didn’t live His earthly life in the company of safe people who made Him feel secure. He walked boldly into the homes of sinners, sat at their tables, and broke bread with them. Perhaps the most shocking part is that He enjoyed it. Those were His friends. Those were the ones He defended against attack. Those were the ones he chose to be with. I think He was onto something.
The Lord has called Christians to follow Him into hard places, not grudgingly as if we are doing the world a favor by stepping into things that make us uncomfortable. Not as if we are the hero of the story because we were willing to go to “those people”—but happily, because we see ourselves among the hurting, the beggars, and the broken. We know we have no strength on our own, but we know that the Lord has strength in abundance and He can supply all that we need.
There was a time in my life when pride would have said, “Look where I’ve been and what I’ve done with the Lord.” But no more.
The only hero in the story of the Great Commission is the Lord of glory whose right authority demands our lives.
The Christian life is not primarily about our safety. It isn’t primarily about us at all. Maybe the “unsafe” thing for you to do isn’t to uproot your life and move to the inner city or across the sea, but that doesn’t mean the Lord is fine with you living a life away from the pain of the world. While I think this will look different for different Christians in different contexts, I am confident of a few things:
1. God Works Through Unlikely People in Unlikely Places.
We see this all over Scripture and throughout history. Only the Lord would have planned for a prostitute to shelter the Israelite spies in Jericho and end up in the line of Christ. Only the Lord would have chosen lying Jacob, timid Moses, or adulterous David. Rather than running from the problems of this world—or the problem people of this world—Jesus enters in. In His earthly ministry, He ate with tax collectors, spoke with adulterous women, and spent time with children. This is His church growth strategy. He chooses the weak, foolish, and despised of this world so that no one can boast in His presence (1 Cor. 1:18–31).
2. Great Commission Work Isn’t Comfortable.
I doubt the stones which left Paul so injured that he was carried out of Lystra and presumed dead were very comfortable—and they certainly weren’t safe. Neither was Peter’s upside-down execution or John’s imprisonment. For millennia, God has been working through people who were uncomfortable with what the Great Commission was calling them to. Their eternal destiny secure, the older generations of our spiritual family were sent to engage in unsafe tasks that made God’s glory known among the nations. God’s plan for His people and the spread of His fame has not changed. He is using saints today to share the gospel in unsafe places. While His plan for your life might not include martyrdom, it absolutely does include discomfort (Matt. 10:24–25). Rejoice in that and see what He will do!
3. God Uses His Church in Hard Places.
We serve a good and sovereign God. He is able to save people through online sermons and radio programs. He works wonders when His people are faithful to proclaim His gospel, even at a distance. But God’s primary means of working in any locality is to establish His people there. He moves in the hearts of His people to plant us exactly where He wants us to be, and then He saves people through our proclamation of the gospel. From the beginning, God’s plan was that His people would be a light to the nations. Nothing has changed. So, while your Christ honoring Facebook post might be used by the Lord to do His work (and I’ve been shocked to see how much He uses social media and the internet!), the comfort of screen distance is not the normal means that the Lord uses to reach people. With the rise of technology and the distance it brings, the local church, in all of its eclectic beauty, shines as an even brighter light in the dark world.
God’s Strength Made Perfect in Our Weakness
We don’t have to be tough to go where the Lord is calling us. I promise, I have more in common with Ms. Frizzle than I do with Xena: Warrior Princess. Praise God that He doesn’t need me to be strong. In His upside-down kingdom, our weakness displays His strength. We can follow Jesus into things that are hard. We can walk toward people who are easier to run away from. Then we can stand back in amazement, because the Lord Jesus delights to do His work in exactly these places.