I think that I quite understand you. I see you in a tumultuous time in life, having children to support and a wife to care for while you navigate what I think is a very significant transition. I am not even talking really about the theological changes; none of those are shocking, to me anyway. It’s that you’re (I use the term advisedly) a man, no longer a boy, now, and from boy to man is a transition. Perhaps you were unprepared?
You write that you feel adrift and without the “support group” that you’ve had all your life. Well my dear fellow, can you imagine a time when you’re yourself leading a support group for someone else? It is all well and good, in fact needful, for one to have minute direction in every decision of life—to not even have many decisions to make in life at the very beginning, though one naturally ought to have more of those as one matures—when one is a child. You are no longer a child, I think is what you’re coming up against. You have choices to make and now a family to lead, and you’ve spent so long awaiting the decision to be handed down to you that when it comes time for you, after prayer, to do the handing down yourself, you’re afraid.
Have you ever thought much about the disciples of Jesus when they set out across the sea with Him, and He was asleep? It struck me long ago when I read His response to them, after the great windstorm arose and the boat began to fill with water as the waves beat into it, and He had gotten up and rebuked the wind and told the sea to be still—He said to them, “Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?” Any mere mortal such as you or I or the Twelve or any other could have told you that naturally, when the waves begin to fill your boat and the storm rages and no land is in sight, you are going to sink and you’ll probably die. How would we not be fearful then? I pray that in such a case I will remember that the One who tells me “Let us cross over to the other side” is with me and that He is able to take me there. May it not be said of me that I have no faith (Mark 4:35-41).
And speaking of praying, do that, I recommend. Pray your heart out, and I will do the same. If only I can be assured that He is leading me then I do not have reason to fear. He is capable, not only of keeping and leading us, but of giving us peace along the way (Philippians 4:7).
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What feels like a lifetime ago—but it was only about eight years ago—missionary work occupied a great deal of my heart and thoughts. I used to read about the Judsons, Adoniram and Ann, and the few who traveled with them on their pioneering voyage as some of the first missionaries sent out by the church in the United States. There weren’t many on that trip and not multitudes more awaiting them in the lands where they served, lands so far from home that a letter could take months to arrive, if it wasn’t lost at sea and never arrived at all. Judson lost his wife, you know. Twice he experienced that loss.
I thought as you face this being adrift and seemingly alone (but not alone) in the great sea of this life… having lost reassuring agreement with the ones you so long looked to and needed to be on the same page as, theologically… you and I could learn from the example of these brave followers of Jesus; and that we could gain some perspective on our own trembling. Here is a part of a letter that Ann Judson wrote to the ones at home as they were setting out. She was 23 years old.
My heart often sinks within me, when I think of living among a people whose tender mercies are cruel. But, when I reflect upon their miserable state, as destitute of the Gospel, and that it is easy for our heavenly Father to protect us in the midst of danger, I feel willing to go, and live and die among them; and it is our daily prayer that it may please God to enable us to continue in that savage country. Farewell to the privileges and conveniences of civilized life! Farewell to refined Christian society! We shall enjoy these comforts no more; but Burmah will be a good place to grow in grace, to live near to God, and be prepared to die. O, my dear parents and sisters, how little you know how to estimate your enjoyments, in your quiet homes, with all the comforts of life! How little you know how to prize dear Christian society, as you have never been deprived of it! How little you can realize the toils and perplexities of traversing the ocean; and how little you can know of the solid comfort of trusting in God, when dangers stand threatening to devour! But these privations, these dangers and toils, and these comforts, are ours, and we rejoice in them, and think it an inestimable privilege that our heavenly Father has given us, in allowing us to suffer for his cause.
I trust that their God and ours will preserve us, and will lead us safe to home.
Reminiscently,
Ben
Blog Of My Sojourn 