Drums from the wat.... fighting at my neighbor's house.... dogs barking... moto engines being pieced back together by would-be mechanics revving down the road...the strong smell of everyone burning their daily trash... a funeral playing mournful, horrible music down the road... swatting mosquitoes sitting by a fan....

To some this is an eclectic, attractive part of this mysterious life called missions. And there is an assumption that I've embraced it.

"Oh, I couldn't do it!"  I've heard more than I care to. Its offensive to me more than its the intended compliment.

We do what we do when God says to do it.  We don't know how. We just crawl or inch forward. To say you can't or wouldn't is.... its.... well, its hard to narrate.

I can't do this either.

None of us is super natural.  None of us is super spiritual.  We just do.  We abide.

Have you ever ended a relationship God told you to end, or quit a perfectly good job, or taken out a whopping loan for your new business adventure?  Shew, I could never do that.

See?  We do hard things when there's an unction in our spirit.

There is an Ultimate source of strength. A source of redemption.  Of changed lives.  Of new chapters, and of triumph over loneliness, addiction, confusion, and mediocrity.

We try.

And to not try and laugh it off, well, to me - in any book across the board - is a failure.

So, please don't say you could never do this to a girl that tends to periodically plead for more workers in the field. It breaks my heart.