Most people call it spring; here at Advancing Native Missions we call it "missionary season." There's a missionary couple staying at my house, and I think it's safe to say that the wife is quite taken with me. Not a day goes by that I'm not told that I'll soon be heading to Ghana in a suitcase. It started off as a five-month stay, then she started saying five years. The way it keeps fluctuating up and down makes me want to avoid Ghana (even in the conventional way) because if my new friend has her way, I'll never come back.
Never come back. That's a frightening phrase, isn't it? Most of us are quite comfortable inside of our carefully crafted boxes. The thought of stepping out is disconcerting enough, but to think that we may never come back?… It's enough to send us retreating into our little cubby holes for the rest of our lives.
I think that's why so many of us are afraid to follow God's calling on our lives. We're afraid that He will lead us to a place of no return. And our fears are not altogether unfounded. God often does call His children to "never come back," but what we tend to forget is that the place to which He is leading us is much better than the place we now stand.
So take a deep breath, and step outside of the box you've been living in for too long. Allow God to lead you to glorious places of which you've not yet begun to imagine. And once you're there, never come back.
Oh, and before she leaves the country, someone please check that missionary's suitcase!