I Don't Like Questions

I am having to ask questions again.

Honestly, this season of returning to the mission field after an almost-five-year hiatus was not one I heavily reflected on. My focus was mostly on how my husband, a man embarking on his first missionary journey, was handling the process. Or how he was going to handle the process; or, how I was going to handle him going through the process…how was I going to handle myself with him going through the process? And, up until now, that has predominantly been where my focus and energies have gone. In some ways, it’s almost as though I myself have not been here this last year. I’ve been watching, waiting, listening, praying, crying, yelling…for him, at him, to him…to see if he’s going to fall in love with missions as I have. I have wanted him to look like me. But I didn’t know it. At least, not in a conscious sense. I didn’t know that I was waiting for him to fall in love so that we could be in love together and finally live in dreamy harmony for the rest of our adult lives.

A few times last summer I believed this was starting to happen. Instead of being able to start up the ministry site we came down here to start, he was told by our missions leadership that they wanted him to experience being in another site first…to see how it functions when we have short-term teams with us. It seemed wise, though hard to deal with at the time, as he was very excited to begin the work we came to do. Within a week, though, change was happening. After several frustrating months of transition and haphazard language learning, my husband began coming home rejoicing. He was spending the days on a patch of dirt playing soccer with a group of neighborhood boys. He went from being ‘Americano’ to ‘Meester Cleenton’. Even though they daily accused him of being the World’s Worst Goalie, they also showered him with hugs, high fives and respect. In their eyes, in their attitudes, on their streets, Clint saw himself as a young boy growing up in a poor socio-economic area. As the saying goes, he, like they, grew up poor, but happy.

But then Clint started coming home asking questions.
Questions about the way we do missions, about the need for missions, frustrated with missions, confused about missions. Questions I didn’t want to hear, ponder or even try to answer. I’d already asked these questions myself when I was a single missionary walking these same streets eight years ago. After living here for two years and after wrestling through many questions, I finally concluded that none of it mattered. God had called me here. God had directed me to work with this specific organization. It was up to Him whether or not we were doing missions ‘correctly’—whether what I did or didn’t do made any kind of difference.

Since the moment God spoke to me about returning here, with my husband, to work for the same organization in the same place, I have not questioned that there was purpose in it. I have not questioned that there is a divine reason why God wanted us here.  And I have wanted my husband, who did not hear God’s voice telling him to come here, who has never wanted to be a missionary, who has really struggled to grasp why we’re even here, to not have questions either. I was not prepared to have to walk with him through the same process I myself walked through eight years ago. I was not prepared to have to answer questions I had long since buried. Questions like: If there are churches here full of Dominicans, why do so many Americans still come here? How integrated do we need to become? Should we live in a poor area or in a "safer" area? Do we give to everyone who begs or just to those who can’t work? We run a media site…is it intrusive to be filming these poor people or is it the best means to communicate their need to the world? Are we here helping or exploiting? Are the Dominicans tired of the constant coming and going of Americans? Will we ever be able to overcome the ‘rich American’ status we automatically have in coming here by being so shiny for Christ that Christ is all they see? (So far, the answer to that question is NO).

And then come the bigger questions: Why did God direct us to come here? What is it that He truly wants from us?  Are we supposed to be voices that cry out in the wilderness or are we supposed to be world changers? Does it matter that we feel too broken to make a difference? Too selfish? Will we become one of the statistics-- one of the casualties-- due to lack of soul care on the field? Is the gospel really what we are living for? Are we truly willing to die?

These questions get very overwhelming. 

Which is why I had stopped asking the questions.
It was easier for me to just keep my head down, do my job and leave the details to God. God said come, so I came. That’s all I needed to know. A+B=C.  I am an algebra girl. Clint is a calculus guy.  I don’t want to peer into all that ‘stuff’ that hurts my brain.

But I have to. I have to because he has to. I have to because it’s part of growing, part of working with God instead of just for God. God says, ‘Seek Me’. God says, ‘Knock’. God says, ‘Ask’. He promises to answer us when we do these things. He promises to be found by us when we do these things with all of our hearts. We are often taught that obedience is all God wants. We are also often taught that he wants relationship more than anything. Can a relationship truly exist without dialogue? Aside from your kids automatically doing what you’ve asked them to do, do you want to know them? Do you want them to know you? What about your spouse? Sure, it’s wonderful to have your spouse automatically respond to a request with a joyful, ‘Yes, honey!’ but if they never ask you questions, will you ever have a true relationship? You can pay people to do exactly what you want them to do for you. That is not relationship. That is not love.

But the questions bring up conflict.
They bring up dark, murky areas that reveal our imperfections and vulnerabilities. They force us to look at our limitations and absolutely feel our inadequacies. They throw our little controlled worlds into orbit and cause rifts in our atmospheres. Rifts that are so uncomfortable for us that we just fall back to our favorite answer: God is in control. And yes, yes He is. But does that mean He doesn’t want change? Does that mean He really does want automatons to do His bidding and it doesn’t really matter one bit what we say, think or do?

I don’t believe so. And, so here I am, being provoked through my husband, to ask questions that are uncomfortable. To listen to him ask questions I don’t have answers for. To know that the choices we make have impact, whether great or small, and that we need to be evaluating what kind of impact we’re making, what kind of life we are living. “for in Him we live and move and have our being,”

And, in all of this, we still aren’t going to get it right. But in all of it, in all of the seeking, asking, knocking, we just might get a greater revelation of who God is, of who we are, of how He sees the people we live among; of what love truly looks like. I encourage you to ask some questions today and be willing to let God take you to new places.

“I will give you the treasures of darkness

And hidden riches of secret places,

That you may know that I, the Lord,

Who call you by your name,

Am the God of Israel.”

Isaiah 45:3