Listen to the language of President Obama speaking with the troops in Afghanistan. Listen to the words spoken of heros awarded in recognition of their service. Listen to the farewells said to astronauts boarding their space vessel. The speeches, congratulations, and cheers all revolve around one predominant human emotion- sacrifice. Sacrifice is as much an emotion as it is an event. For instance, it’s possible to feel sacrificial even though you're not just as it's easy to be sacrificial and not feel like it. Taking two soldiers aside to ask them if they’ve sacrificed might produce this very reaction; one might feel sacrificial about his duty the other might not. I’ve been reflecting on this over the weekend as we’re packing up the remaining tidbits of personal items and making preparations for the movers to come on Wednesday. Even though we've done it once before it's still a strange feeling packing our things up for our new home in Europe. Above the din of emotions the thought that’s been rattling around in my head is “is this really a sacrifice?”

Part of me says yes, this is a sacrifice. To leave our land of birth and travel to a foreign country to serve those we’ve never met? To struggle with a language and culture of another people in an effort to share with them something that they might reject? To sell off our possessions (again) with no promise that we'll ever see their equivalent return?

The other part of me says no, this is not really a sacrifice. To be able to finally live in a part of the world I've been dreaming of for years? To do what I love in two arenas and get paid to do it? To live an amazing life that we'll look back on with satisfaction not regret? To live life right smack in the middle of God’s perfect will? To expand the kingdom of God so that more people get to know Jesus?

For fear of sounding hyper-spiritual, I have to confess that I don’t feel like we’re sacrificing anything. In fact the only way I would feel that way would be if I felt that we were losing more than we’re gaining. I wonder then if the feeling of sacrifice in ministry comes from the deep-seated fear of losing? Jim Elliot once said,

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose."

Then there is this weighty quote from David Livingston,

“For my own part, I have never ceased to rejoice that God has appointed me to such an office. People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa... Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word in such a view, and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger, now and then, with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us pause, and cause the spirit to waver, and the soul to sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice.”

I’ve heard the self-sacrificing attitude from my own lips and those of others. I’ve gladly accepted the congratulations and adulations of others and have seen my colleagues do the same. Yet, we’ve received a ministry so amazing so profound that we should be envied not pitied! Yet the thought remains, in light of all of the riches that are mine in Christ Jesus, in the midst of leaving much behind, is this really a sacrifice?

Tags: Missionary Life, life