You would.

I’ve got a heavy heart tonight because something one of my best friends often says just keeps repeating in my mind. Whenever support stuff comes up—you know, when she asks me what I’ve been up to, which is always support stuff, it seems—she says, “I could never do that, ask people for money, raise support. I just could never do that.”

It just hurts me. Stings. And she loves Jesus, very much. But a lot of folks put God in a box, especially when it comes to money. And I just cried tonight as I was driving to work because I know my God is big enough. Deep down, somewhere, I know that’s true. And I just wish that she would see that, too. That God is big enough to provide the money I need to go to Africa and more. It’s all his, anyway—every beast of the forest, the cattle on a thousand hills, all that moves in the field.

And I want her, and everyone, to see that they would do it. They would do it because they’d have to do it, just like I have to do it. I don’t have to raise support because my mission organization says so; I have to raise support because my God says so. I have no choice because my heart is so broken for the African people. It’s broken because God broke it. And He broke it because He wants His name to be glorified among all the nations. And I’m joyous about that. I’m far from a reluctant missionary.

If you really understand the burden of the darkness there—that people are living and DYING every day without hearing the name of Jesus Christ and, because of that, spending an eternity in Hell—certainly raising support would seem like such a small thing. Why should I—the chief of sinners—be spared by the grace of God (a gift, free and undeserved) and not overflow with joy because of that? How can I hold my tongue? How can I deny God’s power when I look at what He did on the cross? At what He’s done in my life?

And that’s a hard perspective. I don’t always keep it, to be sure. But He brings me back to it. And He brings me back to the cross. And He reminds me that His hand is over everything. And I’m going to be just fine. God will be glorified in peoples’ giving, in their sacrifice. He will be glorified in me trusting Him to provide. And He will be magnified when He brings it all in, if that is His will.

Ugh.