The following blog was inspired by a journal entry that I wrote on July 15th…
In opening my final blog post of the 2012 South Africa trip I want to let you know that I’m safely back home in the States and beginning the adjustment back to American culture while thinking through all the things I’ve experienced in this short month across the globe. When on the trip I didn’t have much time to actually stop and process what was going on around me and it’s taken me leaving the mission field and coming back to my home to actually see some of the changes that have taken place in me spiritually.
If I could summarize the trip experience down to two main themes that God permanently pressed into my soul it would be the following two downfalls that He brought to light for the first time in my Christian faith. The first was the fact that I have elevated mission work and missionaries throughout my faith journey and in doing this I made it out to be something better than me which then made it seem out of my ability to do. My lofty standard of missions caused me to fall into the trap of my own expectation and God flushed this out of me the first two weeks. He showed me that mission trips are not just suggested but are necessary for all Christ-followers and that they are so much more doable than what we think.
The second theme that marked me deeply was the false belief that I created which undermined the character and heart of our God and who He is. Though I knew this belief was all but true I lived out my daily Christianity thinking that a heart to serve was equal to a heart that was inclined to the Lord and because of this theory I then would expect to receive the mercy and grace of God because of my heart inclination toward Him. The problem with this thought process is that it put an awkward sort of condition on the love that the Lord poured out on me and this condition was something that I had enough power to change solely on my own through having a heart to serve (or serving and fooling myself into thinking it was because my heart was compelling me to do so).
After being directly ministered to by the Holy Spirit I became completely broken between the second and third week and God used my team host and the encouragement of Team Unveiled Pursuit as a whole to remind me of the incomprehensible and unexplainable unconditional love of the Lord our God. The thought that a perfect God would give a “screw up” sinner (for lack of better terms) such as myself a second chance at eternity by birthing a desire in my heart to follow after the person, Jesus Christ, and showing me grace and mercy that I would never be able to attain by any work or deed absolutely rocked me to the core. It makes no sense to me why God would love me as much as He does and maybe for the first time in my life I am just going to go with it; no more trying to rationalize, no more trying to figure God out, no more point in trying to put together a puzzle that is impossible for me to solve.
I now understand more deeply why God calls us all onto the mission field. He does this first to spread the love of Christ through serving and discipling others (which is a given) and second is to change and minister directly to the heart of the people on the mission trip by taking them completely out of their comfort zone and forcing them to be solely dependent upon the only one we were made to live for, Him. Praise be to God!
Blessings from Team Unveiled Pursuit!
Wesley Reed
Matthew 28:18-20
