A Missionary Hero!

I don't know why but death seems to be the theme that is keeping me in a very broken place here. The loss of a good friend seems to make every other difficult thing your going through 10 times harder than it would normally be. And I've resigned myself to feeling like I need to deal with the hard things so I can move on. Sometimes God just wants to keep us in a broken place for awhile...it's not always fun but it can be good. It can be a time to remind us that the end of us is always where God does his best work.

The Christian life is often messy, unfinished and unpredictable. To the untrained heart God often feels like he is leaving us hanging. But to the one who has learned how to listen to his music God is leading us to a place that is with Him and Him alone. We must lean into the pain and stop fighting it. We need to surrender to him our control and need for a plan and let God lead us on His journey. A mature believer can let trust in God from the past echo to hope in him for the future. God wants a surrender of control and our right to expect what is coming next.

God never promised that living the Christian life would be easy....he only said that he would never leave us or forsake us. He never said we would get everything we wanted but he promised that he would give us all that we need. He never guaranteed that he would make all the bad things go away but he did say his plans were to prosper us and not to harm us. As C.S. Lewis said of Aslan, "He is not safe but trust he is good".

Tommy was a hero to me because he lived everyday sold out and on the frontlines of tribal, evangelistic efforts to reach the unreached. He was there for me during some very formative seasons and always saw a missionary in me. He once told me to ask God EVERYDAY where he wanted to use my life. That's the way he lived and it's an inspiration to me...even during the deep sadness of his loss.

"Oh the wondrous cross, bids me come and die and find that I will truly live"

For more information copy and paste this link:
http://www.water.cc/2009/05/07/remembering-tommy/