A side thought - Day 11

Let me ask you a question....

If you were to buy a house what are some of the things you would consider?

Maybe firstly the price, then perhaps the location? Then the number of bedrooms or bathrooms, is there enough room for you or your family? Perhaps even the size of the kitchen and the lounge area? Or what the garden is like - is it grass or concrete, is it suitable for your kids or pet? What about the transport system, how easy would it be for you to get to work? What are the schools like? How close by is the nearest shopping market/ petrol station/ post office. Then maybe some social questions... how will i fit in here? what is the demographic? will people look at me strangely or will they stop and say hi?

In just buying a house the 'to-do' list of questions is so endless that even when you think you’ve answered all the questions you then go and hire a surveyor to tell you about all the things you hadn’t even began to consider!

A lot of thought goes into buying a house.... and a lot of thought also goes into becoming a missionary (or at least it should).

Some of you have kindly emailed and commented on my blog about my need to focus on what God has sent me here to do, which includes overlooking the whole husband/marriage thing! Now please don’t get me wrong, I’m far from obsessed with this issue, but to me not thinking about marriage (especially here on the field) is the equivalent to me advising you to buy a house without considering the price! If I did that you would happily label me as a foolish fool!

Ayako my housemate and I had a long long talk about this issue, and even though she is from and distant from the UK (Japan in fact) she gets the same thing! "Don’t worry marriage just focus on God". I wonder if it is the married missionaries saying this!

So let me highlight a point on behalf of all the singles; it is not that we worry about it all day, no. But we do, if we are honest, think about it a lot, and I actually think that is smart. Even the Bible says what type of leader does not consider the cost of war before going to battle? At least then he has a vague idea of what his troops are getting themselves into!
I'm sure even Abraham thought long and hard about leaving his home when God told him to.

So I think the key here is not to overlook marriage, but to actually look long and hard at it and then let it go. It is important to realise and understand all the possibilities of your life before doing an Abraham and forgetting everything and trusting God.
Just like in buying a house it’s not one aspect that will sway you to buy it, but instead a lot of complimenting factors (even if it means you don’t get the en-suite bathrooms you had hoped for!) Similarly the life of a missionary – has good and bad aspects but its important to look, think, ponder and pray about each one of them. I actually think that is a big part of the process and equally as important as all the other stuff im seeing.

It’s like standing on one side of a rickety bridge knowing you have to get to the other side. You think of all the possibilities of what might happen; you may slip, fall, the rope may snap etc or you may get across easily. Thinking about these things doesn’t mean you won’t take the step and cross the bridge. It just means you take an informed step and say “God in spite of all these possibilities, good or bad, I’m gonna cross this bridge because you told me to. Please catch me if I fall”
L x