Danger

In Dec. 2003 I attended Urbana, the student missions’ conference. We saw a skit there about preparing for a missions trip. It was embarrassingly true-to-life, depicting Americans gathering all their comfort items to spend a few weeks in another country. One of the participants wondered….what if it’s dangerous? And the answer came: “It’s always dangerous.”

And that line will always remain fixed in my memory. It’s always dangerous.

Fast-forward to yesterday when I was listening to a John Piper sermon online. The message was about missions and situations like the persecuted church and martyrdom. One thing that was particularly convicting was what he said about Americans and comfort. As an example, he mentioned potential missionary families who asked about how safe their children would be on the field. It may seem like a sensible question, but the way he phrased it really made a certain self-centeredness come across. We really do live in a protective bubble sometimes.

But what is the next step, when we realize that we are living in a protective bubble? To go and seek danger?

To be continued…