Today, I’m going to stray from my usual pattern of updates…please bear with me! It will go somewhere…

In Canada, life is somewhat measurable with some consistency between challenges. However, missions can stretch and put ones faith into action…drawing the best out of us. Dreams, thoughts, and visions gain credibility and become a way of life. We tend to rely more on a spirit of discernment that God gave us than we ever do back home.

… Personally, in Mexico, I wake up each morning asking for direction and what the plan is for the day….and there is always a plan! I just listen better abroad.

I know what it is…back home it’s the trappings of living in a place that we can leverage what we want to satisfy our needs. We have less dependence on God…and I get that. Yet, I still don’t use those skills I learned back in Mexico to make it the same here. It’s just way too easy to call on the resources I have, to position things just the way I want it.

….Keith Green wrote, in his song “To Obey is Better than Sacrifice, I want hearts of fire, not your prayers of ice.”

God doesn’t need our money…He just wants our life! In getting to know Him better, dependence on Him is not enslaving but freeing as we understand how desperate the “Call” is. Spending time with Him rids us of the things that enslave us back home. Knowing His heart breaks my heart for the lost…and I want more of that!

Yesterday, I attended the funeral of a very good friend’s mother. She was late in life, but lived the last few months boldly. Accepting the Lord just a year and a half ago she modeled dependency on the Lord. The thing is…she changed everything in the last 18 months! Token verses like Psalm 23 and John 3:16became real to her and she lived it. In the last few days before she passed, not a person left her bedside without knowing the path to complete freedom and salvation. She had such a burden for the lost and it came out of dependency.

With boldness…we all need Jesus! He is truly the way, truth, and the life.

For those of us believing in this, our hearts need to break for the lost. We need God to break up the “fallow” ground in our life and create “hearts of fire.” The funeral and testimony of Dianne spoke volumes into this work. I am often convicted by those who are living so close to the transition between this life and the next. They understand and know things we should be living everyday.

…Honestly, do our hearts break for the lost? Do we desperately depend on Jesus?This blog was written and re-written over the last couple of weeks. I didn’t know why it was so hard to write until today…but it needed to be all about Jesus, our dependence on Him, and a call for more!

May the Lord give us the passion to pray for those living abroad, at home, and in our own families to receive Him as their Lord and Savior!