Somewhere between this time last year, and this time next year

Living in the present

As part of Pioneers’ mobilisation team, I recently helped facilitate our Mission: Next weekend. It was a time of stirring up zeal. We wanted those attending to get a taster of what innovation and flexibility looks like in Pioneers’ teams. By definition, it looks very different from team to location to people group. So we watched videos – little snapshots of how PI teams around the world are interpreting what it looks like to ‘live out loud’, contextual yet counter-cultural; accessible yet distinctive. We entered the subculture of skaters in Myanmar and the church planting efforts by sacrificial families in remote Chad and closed Pakistan, the metropolis of Bangkok. 

When my team’s video was played, I couldn’t stay in the room. It brought my two worlds colliding into one and I was in pieces. My recent return to the UK after serving on the Surin team in Northeast Thailand for 4 years has meant that once again, I find myself in transition. This familiar feeling comes to all of us with each new start. I thrive on innovation, I think. I’m very flexible, I think. But although this may have facilitated a smoother adjustment to the many and frequent transitions I’ve experienced (moved house 21 times; moved countries 7 times), it always comes with its share of angst.

New starts are exciting, but angst isn’t. I could go ahead with ‘just make a decision to be joyful’, but I don’t think burying angst under a façade is helpful. At that moment, I questioned this new start again for the thousandth time. My passion for the unreached is as great as ever, my desire is for the day when all have an opportunity to hear, when worship rises to Creator God from every language and colour, age and ethnicity. I long to be a part of that – that greatest goal that any of us could give ourselves for, that great ingathering into the Kingdom of God, whatever the cost.

Yet I am just as sure that there is a season for everything, and sense God’s pleasure on this season of returning to my home culture. I know Him personally – this is not some contrived theological argument to make things okay, this is the deep seated peace that transcends my unanswered questions and frequently mixed emotions, this peace that passes understanding, it is real.

He tells me to trust my choice, too. He seems to be a great fan of this free-will thing. While I may wrangle and wrestle over the fear that I may somehow ‘miss it’ (the 'it' of His Will, or my Calling, as if it was a single red line through the tangle of choices that is life), Father seems to value my relationship with Him in this over and above anything I do for Him. Never minimising the importance of a real faith that is lived out by works, He is rather calling me back simply to hear His heart first. And His heart is love. Loving acceptance of who I am, my desires, my choices.

"Live in the present", He urges gently, insistently. "You hanker after your rose-tinted memories, or live in your dreams and fears of what may be next and after that and after that. But what about this moment? This, now, here, is precious to me." He knows my heart is to serve Him, to do for Him, to win for Him. But, he pushes deeper, "Will you be more excited about being with me than doing things for me?"

What about the need for harvesters? What about the unreached millions? He knows them each by name. He is passionate for each heart. Whatever part each of us play in his Story, He is pleased. Right now, for me this means praying zealously for those He has laid on my heart; sharing my passion with the Church and helping those who are also responding to His invitation to build Kingdom, as they take steps to where He is leading. 

But as pleased as He is with this, I believe He is already pleased before we begin. We are His children! Will I be abandoned in worship to Him, snatching glimpses of Him through my busy today and just enjoy His presence? Because anything else is the outflow.