Tilling the Soil

The other night a friend and I were debating as to whether I am originally from the country or the city. I argued that I had sort-of come from the country because my folks' house is next to some fields. But my friend is right--I am from the suburbs. And anyways, the field is being turned into a subdivision.

I've recently been thinking about farming, fields mainly. At various retreats and conferences this semester, I've heard about martyrs and people like Hudson Taylor and Gladys Aylward and even my good friend Noelle Gornik who is being called to go to Africa as a missionary. My question has been, "Lord, what are you trying to tell me? Am I supposed to go to China? Korea? Africa? for the sake of mission?

But as questions like these have arisen over the years, the Holy Spirit has gently reshaped such questions for me and narrowed them down to one: "Lord, show me my plot of land in the mission field. All I want is to till my little plot very well, to stay in this plot and till and grow what you give to me." I can so easily look to those around me laboring and compare my little plot to theirs. And it is little because I am nothing without Him, and He gives us the right size of land, knowing what labor He has equipped us for. It may seem like someone near me is growing trees and starting a vineyard, and I am planting flowers, but if that is what the Lord is handing me, then it is His will, and I am content. It is enough to have seed--the Gospel--and it's the seed that is precious. It's a joy to have a little plot of land in God's plan.

We don't have to go searching for a plot of land in the mission field because we're already standing in the part of the field God wants us to be in right now. Yes, He may very well call us to go various places to serve. But I think when we look inside our hearts, we see the field, and we learn that the field begins with our hearts. The first field we are given, the first field that God wants us to till, the first field He wants us to let Him till is the field of our hearts. I could mention various parables and metaphors from Scripture concerning nature that are used to explain what spiritual growth looks like. But I won't. The main point is that God is after our hearts. Last year at a communal prayer meeting, someone gave this word: "God wants the one thing He lacks: our hearts."

If we can understand this, if we can learn to see when we look at the mission field not a field of places, cities, circumstances, or things but a field of hearts, cracked, broken, dry, empty, in-need of the Holy Spirit's tilling and not our own, then we will be very good missionaries because we will be looking at the field with His eyes:

Jesus went around to all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and curing every disease and illness. At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples: 'The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.' (Matthew 9: 35-8).

Verses 37-8 are often quoted in reference to mission, but I think it's important to consider what moves Jesus to say what he does: "his heart was moved with pity." Jesus Christ is calling us to have hearts that are movable, as His is movable.

But who can love as Jesus loves? Who can see these crowds not for what they could "do" or "be" but simply as ones who need love? Only one who has received Jesus's heart for mission first and received Jesus's heart for him/herself first. Can missionaries humble themselves enough to believe that they, too, still need to be evangelized by the love of Christ? Can we believe that Jesus Christ looks on us and is "moved with pity" because we are "troubled and abandoned"?

We are in what many Christians call the season of Lent, a time of fasting, prayer, and repentance. Jesus Christ looks on us and is moved. Do we notice His gaze and count ourselves as part of the crowds? Jesus says "Blessed are those who are poor in spirit." Do we know how "poor" we are, that we may know how "blessed" we are?

Let us count ourselves as those who need the Gospel. As we continue to acknowledge this we shall be free to share with others the true nature of the Gospel, that "all [have] fall[en] short of the glory of God"(Romans 3: 23). We will know the nature of the seed we have been given to sow in the little plot of land which God has given to each of us. And we will see the plot of land for what it is, a lovely gift from Him, and will be confident that the One who has placed us where He has an incomprehensible love for each of us.