Counting the Cost

Our home church missions emphasis month is featuring the theme, Counting the Cost. I was reminded of it again yesterday when I read on another blog about the death of a young woman Peace Corps worker. She taught school in an African country. She got close to the girls and realized that they were being systematically sexually abused. After much consideration, she decided to report the matter to the proper authority--discreetly and anonymously. The day after her report, she was found murdered in her home.

As I read her sad story, I remembered how many times I have faced up to the fact that what I am doing could cost my life. I've thought about it long and hard and many times. I value my life and I enjoy living. I'm not afraid to die. I know that when I die, by God's grace I will be with Him, because I know that Jesus Christ paid my sin debt to God. But still, I've got eternity to enjoy heaven and not so long to enjoy this life, so I'm in no hurry to move on to the next life.

Every time I've thought about it, though, I have come up with the same conclusion. What I am doing is worth living for, and it is worth dying for. I remember one night in Congo when we were trapped in the war there. There was fighting all around us and it was not safe to leave the house where we were staying. One evening we heard that the soldiers were planning to raid our neighborhood that night. There was no way to get out. I really thought we might die that night. We gathered with our Congolese friends who were there and knelt together. We prayed committing our lives to the Lord. The tears flowed down my face, but there was an amazing peace in my heart. The soldiers never did raid the neighborhood. We learned later that the guard reported seeing angels over the gate that night.

But it could have been different. Many missionaries have been killed at their post of service. Am I better than they? No. I don't know why I survived the Congo war and others suffered so much. I only know I have counted the cost, and I am willing to pay whatever it is.

In fact, the very book that God used to confirm His missionary call to me many, many years ago was "Through Gates of Splendor," a book about the martyrdom of five American missionaries in the jungles of Ecuador. My reaction then, as now, was sober but peaceful. I will give my life for the children of Africa. One way or another.