If your life is orbiting near mine these days, you are aware there is one thing that pretty much overshadows everything I do, both personally and in ministry: CHINA. My family and I leave for our 6-month mission in Beijing in 18 days, and every area of our world is being impacted by the upcoming adventure. I am experiencing an unprecedented mix of emotions these days: excitement, gratitude to God for the opportunity, uncertainly about the future, weariness from all the preparation, and so on. My wife Kim and I keep saying this is probably the biggest challenge we've undertaken in our nearly 20 years of marriage. We are trying to follow the direction of God with joy, and at the same time, we are dealing with the nitty-gritty details of moving a family of 5 to China.
All that to say … we’ve been doing a lot of cleaning.
Cleaning out our home so it’s ready for a family to move in and care for it.
Cleaning up relationships with our kids’ schools, music groups, sports teams.
Cleaning up areas of ministry at church so that other leaders can flourish.
And cleaning up my heart.
For me, this is the difficult one. I find the practical kind of cleaning requires a certain mindset. It might be a little tiring physically, but it’s really not difficult to roll up my sleeves, clean out a closet, or give away some clothes we don’t need. For our family, February 1st looms large on our calendar, and it’s easy to get into work mode and check things off the to-do list.
The problem is, this busybody mindset is diametrically opposed to the mindset I need to clean up my heart. In order to prepare my heart for the new season ahead, I need to slow down and stop moving. I need to close my mouth and open my spiritual ears. I need to allow the Holy Spirit time and space to speak, encourage, convict, and transform my thinking. There is no way to put these items on a to-do list, and yet they are infinitely more valuable than ANYTHING on my to-do list.
It’s the same contrast we see between Martha and Mary in Luke 10:38-42. There are practical realities we must attend to in every season of our lives (not just when planning for a trip overseas), but we must never overlook the most important priority of keeping our hearts soft and our ears tuned to the voice of the Holy Spirit each day.
In the past, every time I’ve taken a step of faith and obedience to God, the lessons learned in my own life have been far greater than whatever I accomplished for God. Already, our family is learning valuable lessons. Practically, we’re discovering that if we don’t need an item for 6 months while we’re away, we probably don’t need it at all. Spiritually, we’re anticipating a new season where God has called us to serve Him and love people, but we have few details on how that will actually work. We cannot rely on ourselves. We simply must trust the Lord and try to be ready each day to respond to what He sets before us.
I hope you’ll join me this new year in a commitment to be “clean" people. We certainly aren’t perfect people, and we all know the futility of simply trying harder to accomplish resolutions in our own strength. However, if we make a regular, intentional effort to bring our lives back to a “clean” place, both practically and spiritually, we put ourselves in a place where God can speak to us, transform us, and use us for His glory. That’s the kind of year I want to have.
This will be my last post to the blog for a while since it will be inaccessible to me behind the “Great Firewall of China.” While we’re away, you can keep in touch with us here: http://eepurl.com/bGaTmn.
再见，愿上帝保佑你 (Goodbye and God bless you),
Brent
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