There I sat, a freshman in college, a bulging backpack leaning against my legs, eyes blinking away the weariness seeking to close them, and body sinking ever deeper into the velvety seat as chapel began that crisp fall morning.
“Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die,” the speaker challenged. Weariness gone and mind alert, I listened to the gripping account of Jim Elliot who had sat in a chapel seat similar to mine. He had ventured forth as did Christ to an uncomfortable, uncultivated place and laid down the grain of wheat of his life to bring forth much fruit. The Lord drove that message to my heart. Unbeknownst to me, He also moved the heart of another student that day.
A few years later, that other student and I sat in a church building, warm with fellowship and bright lights, listening to that same chapel speaker, now our pastor, preach a message on going where Christ has not been named. That night the Lord revealed more fully to my young husband His will for our lives. The living God called us to sow our lives, taking the glorious message of salvation in Christ to those who had never heard.
Are trailblazers needed today?
That chapel service was over 30 years ago. Are there places in need of individuals to offer their lives in 2022? As I sifted through statistics in preparation for this article, I was staggered with the answer to that question: 400,000 laborers (in the broadest sense) have stepped forward, answering the call to the harvest. Surprisingly, 97% of these workers are reaching only 60% of the world’s population and in places considered to be reached. Ninety-nine percent of the resources for missions fund their efforts. Praise the Lord for each laborer and supporter helping to develop these places! But what about the rest of the harvest? Using 1% of missions offerings, the remaining 3% of workers toil for the unreached 40% of the world’s population.
Looking at the facts from another perspective, out of the world’s 17,431 people groups, 7,399 are still unreached.
Where are trailblazers needed?
The unreached live in communities scattered around the globe, but an overwhelming 97% populate the “Resistant Belt,” a rectangular area spanning North Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. By prayerful persistence and creativity, trailblazers can access this area to plant churches.
What can a trailblazer expect?
I have often thought back to the unbearable heat of my mud kitchen in one of our homes on the field and compared it to the scenes of a college summer at an understaffed church camp with endless responsibilities and hours in the stifling dish room. It is a marvel to think that even in common experiences the Lord had been preparing me.
In our village at last, after having completed deputation, language school, and arrangements for bush living, I strolled the dusty streets with a coworker and my precious one-year-old boy. Children threw rocks at us, certainly not the greeting we were expecting and not the last to be hurled at our family over the years. The rocks and the hatred they symbolized were humiliating, and the mocking songs of children often pierced our hearts.
Nothing in my past experiences could have prepared me for those things, but with His unfailing grace the Lord met each challenge– malaria, various sicknesses, births, dust storms, educating our children in a wilderness, terrorists stalking our region, and the list could go on.
But any difficulty was worth the privilege of enabling my husband to give a first-time witness in hundreds of villages and of seeing, after many years, some of those mocking children sitting in our Bible club and listening to the message of Christ and His love.
“Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die. . .” Letting words of Scripture shape our thinking enables us to glory in this kind of calling, no matter the response.
How are trailblazers enabled to go?
In Hebrews 11 we see people just as we are at crossroads in their lives. They weighed in the balance the lifelong costs of obeying God with their present, favorable opportunity, and God enabled each by faith to gaze at heavenly realities and take decisive action.
Praise the Lord! He did that for me too. I thank Him for giving faith to die to self, follow my husband joyfully, and go despite my fears. I can testify that the fearful unknown was filled with works lovingly prepared by my Heavenly Father, each one enabled by His all-sufficient grace.
But what about “much fruit”?
We all want to see “much fruit.” By God’s grace this is the expectation. The saints of Hebrews 11 and Jim Elliot did not see “much fruit” in their lifetimes. But God keeps His Word. You and I are visible fruit of the obedient choices of Noah, Abraham, and Moses. I am also part of the “much fruit” from Jim Elliot’s life. The joy of trailblazing is simply following the Lord and leaving the results to Him.
Could God be calling you?
All of us share in the responsibility for the harvest of our generation.
“We have been acting as though we had an eternity in which to do our work, and the people we seek to reach had an eternity on earth in which to be reached; whereas the fact is, that our term of service and their term of life must both very soon expire.”
“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” – Jim Elliot