I (and most of my friends) spend a lot of time thinking about all the reasons to be missionaries. But I just got to thinking this evening about the reasons not to be…
• You will struggle to learn
• You will fight fear constantly
• You will feel responsible for souls
Please note the things that didn’t make the list: ‘eating weird food,’ ‘being away from family,’ or ‘taking a pay cut.’ Not sure those are really the hardest things – for most men anyway. There’s lots of other things that will make you experience some social or financial discomfort. Of course, missionaries don’t have the corner on struggle, fears, and responsibility, either. But the other difference in these two types of problems is similar to the difference between the doctor and the patient’s discomfort before a difficult surgery. One’s in pain; one’s under pressure.
There’s certainly pains about the mission field (it snowed again today!). But the tougher part here is the pressure (how are we going to get the Gospel to our country???).
I think any missionary understands that this pressure slowly but crushingly pushes us into the mold of a kind of missionary that we don’t want to be! We don’t want to give up learning, we don’t want to cave into fearfulness, and we don’t want to despair of truly fulfilling our Lord’s commission. Passion, tears, dreams, and desires are ground down to a gray callousness – soon the career missionary is more career than missionary.
What to do under pressure? Hebrews tells us about one who endured unprecedented ‘contradiction.’ We are exhorted to ‘consider him’ (12:3). What a prescription for protecting our minds from fainting! Fill it with him – fix your gaze upon him (12:2) and his suffering. That’s all that can work. It will not only protect us from fainting, but it will compel us to run the race (12:1 – not ‘walk the path’).
Honestly, the reason I thought about all this junk tonight was… I’m a little on the scared side right now. ‘Bout to do some craziness next week and there’s really no way to tell what’s going to happen. Only one sure thing: we will triumph in Christ!
The Gospel in China 
you all are in our prayers.