The Legacy of a Place: Thoughts From Wheaton College

Today is June 24th. We leave in one month.

It seems fitting that Renee' and I prepare for our July 24th departure to Mongolia living at the Wheaton College campus. These days of learning about aspirated retro-flexed affricates (all of which are great new words!) have been challenging, to say the least. We miss Jonathan and Cori and continue to grieve over the space between us and the life we lived six months ago. However, room for reflection at Wheaton has been abundant. This is the place where Nate Saint, Jim Elliot and Ed McCully attended college and a place where significant spiritual formation took place in their lives. The lives and death of these men were exactly what God used in the spiritual formation of my own life. As a floundering and aimless teenager, I read Jim Elliot's Journals from cover to cover. I realized that this man was real, passionate and had something that I lacked - and something I desperately wanted and needed.

Without a car, Renee' and I have done a lot of walking this month. (This is probably good because we need to get used to having to walk and take public transportation everywhere - that will be life in Mongolia - and because there is so much good food everyday at the Wheaton Cafeteria!) As we walk through downtown Wheaton, my mind wanders back to what this little town might have been like over 50 years ago when those men wandered the same streets. What might have been going through their minds as they prepared to leave their families and loved ones and all that was familiar? It's one thing to say Jim Elliot's immortalized words in a sermon. "He is no fool who gives what he can not keep to gain what he can never lose". It's quite another to feel the loss before you really experience the gain. That's what I think the Bible calls faith - and it's what I am realizing to be in great demand; often nearly beyond my capacity. Just because the man described above is indeed 'no fool' (I really do believe that), it doesn't mean that he doesn't feel a fool. At least a little bit, sometimes.

At one of those plenteous Wheaton Cafeteria meals, Renee' and I were sharing with someone at the table our "Steven Curtis Chapman Concert Experience" of a few years ago. Those who know Renee' and I know of our inner skepticism of popular Christian Music. We went to this concert with very little expectation - but knowing that Jonathan and Cori would like it (For Jonathan's sake - I want you to know that he's moved way past SCC, today. One listen to his online MP3 player will clue you in on that one!). As the concert progressed, SCC began to tell the story through video and song of the five martyrs and their families. The wash of emotions Renee' and I felt as that well-known story progressed was profound. However, it was the end that turned the evening into a memory that still ignites my heart to this day. Steven Curtis-Chapman introduced Steve Saint, the son of Nate Saint, who then proceeded to introduce Minkaye: the very man who brutally speared his father. Minkaye is a God-follower today. Steve Saint's children call the man who murdered their Grandfather: Grandfather. Minkaye worshipped the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ in his native Waodoni tongue, as Steven Curtis Chapman sang "My Redeemer is faithful and true". It was one of the most beautiful pictures of redemption I believe I'll ever witness on this side of eternity.

This month at Wheaton has been difficult. However, as I walk these streets - the very ones that Jim, Nate, Ed and others have walked - I know my Redeemer is faithful and true. And though there are times when I wonder about the wisdom and foolishness of it all - I know the One who is all-wise. Making Him famous in as many lives as possible in all of the earth is the one thing that will last forever. His renown is the desire of our soul.

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[Jesus Estrada]

I feel like a fool at times. Often, lately, here it seems. Wondering if the passion I have to help just one person is just that: passion, or is it in fact, lunacy? I have come to the conclusion, that if my passion in helping just one person walk through this incredibly tough faith that even Jesus said would be difficult is indeed lunacy, than by all means it will be lunacy for the Glory of the Lord. Lunacy for the Lord requires faith. It requires reckless abandon to be a lunatic for the Lord. It requires sacrificing the very self-image you fought all your life to feel good about, because what matters more than how people perceive you, is how God perceives you. Maybe I will die with people thinking I am fool for being so passionate about helping out just one person that God has placed so deeply in my heart. Heck, I might even die thinking I was a fool for being so passionate about helping out that one person God placed so deeply in my life. But the key phrase here is "the one God placed in my life". I am bound by my committment to live out God's Word. I am bound by my committment to live out "there is no greater love than this, than to lay down your life for your friend." If living out God's Word in my case makes me a fool, if it makes me a lunatic, than a lunatic for the Glory of God I have been, I am, and I will continue to be. It takes faith beyond our capacity to be lunatics for the Lord. To walk outside the box much to the chagrin of even fellow believers. But, the call of God is un-mistakeable, and obedience is detrimental, even if, that call seems foolish in human eyes. I too, have thought about those five men alot lately. And the one thing that keeps coming to mind is they never got to see the result of their sacrifice. Not here on earth, anyway. The cool thing about these men, is they saw the result of the sacrifice in their hearts, even before they ever had to sacrifice their lives. When we are called, we do not know how, what, when, why, or how far ahead in time the sacrifice we plant today as a seed will bring forth fruit. We cannot possibly imagine the importance of sacrificing every thing we have to even help just one person become a disciple, who makes disciples, who makes disciples . . .because our little human minds cannot possibly comprehend just how magifcently the Lord may use that person in ways we can never know or understand. In ways that may supercede time and space. To us it is only a seed, reaching out to that lost sheep, being willing do give up our very lives in order to bring that lost sheep home home. To us, that is all we may see. But the Lord sees more than that. He sees how that seed will one day become fruit that bears more fruit, and more fruit, and more fruit . . . this is why our obedience is crucial. This is why it requires us being willing to give up our very lives in order to bring just one person home, for, if we are not willing to do it for just one person, what makes us think we would be willing to do it for two, or even three, or even ten . . .
If we aren't willing to die for just one person, how can the Lord use us to be willing to die for many? I do not see me being willing to lay down my life for one person as just doing so for one person, I see it as laying down my life for each and every person he affects with the truth of Jesus, because I loved God's Word enough to do what it called me to do, and to lay down my life for a friend, in order that he would know Jesus, and pass that Jesus on to others. All the while, not being able to see with human eyes the wonderous, miraculous, Godly "domino effect" my obedience in helping just one person will have. I lay down my life to help one friend, who because of my obedience to God in doing so, reaches out to someone who, reaches out to someone else, who, in turn, reaches to someone else, who in turn, reaches out to . . . .in that long line of dominos that are being pushed down as a result of God using me to push that very first one down, in that long line there may be a person who helps someone like Jim Elliott do what he had to do. In that long line of dominos that are being pushed down, even on down the line, there may be a person who helps bring people like Bernie Anderson to the Lord. We do not and cannot see the irrefutable impact of laying down our lives for just one person, and what that means to the people he or she may touch, and eventually, what it will mean to us, and future generations. Someone prayed for someone who led someone to the Lord who prayed for someone else, and stood by them to lead them to the Lord, and that someone became someone who touched the life of Jim Elliott, who's life, along with those four other mean affected us so deeply for the Kingdom of God. Their journey's begun long before they were born. Their journeys begun with the people in their life before them, and the people in the lives before them, and before them, laying down their lives for the person ahead of them. Laying down our lives for just one person was important enough for Jesus to address it in HIs Word before He gave up His life. Do we take this too lightly? Do not, or can we not see that Jesus saw the importance that just one individual can make, in searching for that lost sheep, and in that lost sheep being found and being used for God's Glory? If that shepherd really wanted to have 100 sheep, wouldn't it have just been easier to go out and buy another one, instead of risking his very life to go after something lost, and much more, an animal at that? A sheep? It wasn't a numbers game to Jesus. The mere fact that the shepherd left the 99 to look for one lost one dispels that very fact. And if you place that Scripture, the shepherd leaving the 99 to look for that lost one, next to the Scripture where Jesus says "there is no greater love than this, than to lay down your life for a friend", then you have a Shepherd who gave up his very life to search for one lost "sheep" and to bring him home. I dare say again, if we are not willing to lay down our lives for the sake of just one person, even if that means being called crazy in the eyes of the world, and even our fellow believers, than how can God possibly use us to be willing to die for many. If being called crazy, a lunatic for being so passionate in helping just one person walk this walk called Christianity that even Jesus said would be difficult to do, than a lunatic for the Glory of the Gospel I have been, I am, and a lunatic for the Glory of the Scripture that tells me that am to lay down my life if I really love them, I will continue to be.