This World . . . and the Next

Talking with Wendy today, Wendy or Evelyn mentioned alerts in the news for travel to Mombasa in Kenya. The conversation led to details about contingency plans for Wendy and her team should an emergency evacuation be necessary from their place of service. Hiding places among local natives, secret rendezvous sites, and options in case the closest airport was compromised—these were among the possibilities she described.

I couldn't help but think about the Scriptures Johnny Dye quoted this morning when he was a guest speaker at Christ's Church at Mason.

First the words of Jesus to his apostles just before his crucifixion:

“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first” (John 15:18)

“In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:13).

And then the challenge from one of those apostles to Christ’s followers decades later.

“Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the father is not in them” (1 John 2:15).

And finally the rebuke from the Lord’s own brother to wayward Christians in his midst:

“Don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God” (James 4:4).

I think about Wendy's bout with recurring malaria and then typhoid fever in the months before she made this visit. I remember her sister's Facebook update about a rat bite while she was sleeping in her bed in Haiti. And then there were the weeks of prayer for Adrian Fehl, missionary in Ethiopia, who was beset by a virulent virus that left him unable to eat or drink for many days. Far from any quality of medical help, he suffered dehydration that threatened his kidneys. 

Yet none of these has spoken any intent to leave their field of service. 

I think of their sacrifice and suffering, and I shake my head, echoing the words in the book of Hebrews: “The world is not worthy of them” (Hebrews 11:38).

But how will I know I have not succumbed to the love of this world? Must I forsake my comfortable American suburban routine to know I don’t love the things of this life more than those of the next?

Maybe. But afraid to do that, I search for another solution while challenged no more by the Bible’s command than by the example of those I know who so simply and beautifully are obeying it.