There's no going back

How many times had I heard someone say about a missions experience, “You need to go at least once. It will change you forever,”? In 1999 I took the challenge, hopped on a plane - passport in hand – and prepared for the promised transformation. I'd expected the change to come by way of witnessing unimaginable poverty and suffering; delivered in the form of shock so profound it would propel me into higher levels of compassion. I braced for the jolt.  It never came. Nonetheless I was changed as promised.  It just didn't come by observing a country's poverty.   

The world-rocking began almost imperceptibly with a question.  “Are your beliefs rooted in Christ or  culture?” Had I been duped into thinking my own hodge-podge of mingled truth with tainted teachings processed through a grid of limited perspective resulted in some worthless doctrines and a  less-than-powerful theology?  Yikes! 

As difficult as that realization was to face, I’m grateful for it's discovery!

Walk with me through the process of exposing one of those limiting beliefs.

Somewhere along life's way I had fashioned a belief that, in essence said,  'if you don’t read your Bible everyday you are a lazy ingrate who has no right to expect God to do anything for you. You aren't willing to bother with the bare minimum of reading His Word'.  Having taken that idea to heart had turned my adoption into a performance game. It was that trip to Asia that started the questioning and of that belief's validity. One question led to a dozen.

What of the billions of people who don’t have 14 translations of the scripture piled up on their nightstand? 

Or, of those who might have access but because of their gender, financial or physical limitations,  are denied the education necessary to accomplish the requirement of daily Word consumption? 

Or what of those who, by some unfortunate reason, were incapable of learning to read? 

My heart’s cry became, "God, how do You communicate with that person? How do You make Yourself known the them? I want to know that God, rather than the one who is limited by how well I perform the duties deemed - by forces I didn’t know -necessary to qualify for an audience and your grace." I sensed His smile at the challenge, and He’s been revealing Himself since. 

I traveled half way around the world and back to realize that the greatest mission field in need of  the Gospel was my own heart.  And in the spirit of full disclosure, there wasn’t much space in there for His Truth. My heart had become a repository of have tos, got tos, need tos, and supposed tos, that were all stuck together with a lethal combination of  shame and fear. 

My heart’s capacity to believe had become so crammed with this sort of thinking that God had been relegated to somewhere between my heart’s foyer and its front porch. And the Lord doesn’t clear space for Himself in the human heart.  Space clearing is our responsibility. 

No, this isn't my desk - just a picture I found online at marriannemcdonalddotnet closet therapy.

Since I started examining my beliefs  keeping those based on truth and surrendering those I recognize as based on something less, like culture,  or personal preference, or fear, or traditions.  Jesus said it this way in Mark 7:13 "Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that."  NIV

The Lord doesn’t live on the front porch anymore.

The process has left me forever changed, and yes, it all began with a whispered question while I walked on the streets in another country.