Commencement: the end of one thing, the beginning of another.
I watched as my two cousins, Andrew and Rachel Sutton, and their four young girls were commissioned by their home church to become missionaries to the country of Uganda, Africa. Missions has been something that God has moved in their hearts to do for many years, but Uganda specifically in the last 9 or 10 months.
I have had the privilege of seeing a calling from God, the steps He placed before them to take, and the fulfillment of His faithfulness as they were official sent off by their church. I’ve seen the whole process and I just sat back and said, “wow”! It is truly amazing how God worked all things together for this good, this goal. The Sovreignty of God is magnificent!
To see these two people commit their lives to Christ in such a way: it is energizing, it is convicting, it is inspiring, all at the same time. I want to do what they’re doing, I want to feel what they’re feeling, I want to live my life for Christ in a way to make people notice.
The fire for Christ that would drive someone to forsake all that they know to follow Him to the uttermost: I want to have that. I want to own a faith unbound. I want to walk worthy of the calling wherewith I have been called. In His letter to the church at Thessalonica, Paul put it this way:
That ye would walk worthy of God, who hath called you unto his kingdom and glory.
-1 Thessalonians 2:12
Walk worthy of the calling. It’s not something we have earned, and we can see that it is a high calling and costly by the use of words. We strive for the prize, we press toward the mark for the high calling in Christ Jesus.
Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,
-2 Timothy 1:9
Before the world began… God purposed the plot of your life before the world began. Your story, bathed in grace sprang from the pages of your own writing. You hold the pen, but God built the pages. You write the body, but God ends the chapters. We have been called because God chose our stories to be the best ones for the task. Your past has a great deal to do with your present; if the past choices you have learned from yielded growth in your life, it is in those areas your future is mostly likely to occur. God prepares those He calls according to His purpose.
I would be remiss if I did not include this verse in relation to missions.
And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.
-Mark 16:15
The command was to go, and that is exactly what the Sutton family is doing. I’m impressed, I’m surprised, and I’m inspired to follow Him with this kind a radical faith. What about you?
As always, thanks for reading.
—the anonymous novelist
the anonymous novelist 