What is the greatest crime in the desert?

...Finding water and keeping silent.

Kristen is at Wycliffe orientation these next two weeks at their center in Orlando. The more I hear and read about the vision and ministry of Wycliffe, the more I am impressed by their passion for the glory of God and the salvation of men. After 2000 years, there are over 3000 languages that still do not have any of the Bible in their own language! These people have never heard the gospel message and do not know Christ, their only hope for salvation. Many of these language groups do not even know what writing is. I heard another statistic today that said 80% of support for missionaries today comes from my grandparent's generation.

So in pondering these two statistics, I wonder what it is that my generation is seeking. I know that God will continue the work that he has started among the nations and that one day men from every nation, tribe, and tongue will stand before his throne. But will my generation be among the harvesters? I wonder that my generation hasn't grown up despising suffering and therefore forfeits any endeavor that might inflict such misery upon us. And yet Christ called us to suffer, but even more to take part in the great joy of suffering and living and dying for his namesake. We sit in our churches and seminaries and Bible schools with every imaginable tool and book with which to study our Bible- all at our fingertips. We have Bibles in whatever flavor you could want. There are millions of people who have no such access to the Bible and thirst for its hope and salvation, and yet how dispassionate are we to their need or maybe ignorant or blinded by our own ambitions. Some, like Kristen, have heeded the call of Christ and begun their journey to spread God's name among the nations...will you? Will I? God commanded us to missions. It isn't a choice. Here lies the choice: whether we live and die stateside supporting missionary work or live and die as the missionary. Both call for sacrifice and suffering and a war-like mentality...and a joy found in the promises of Christ, indeed Christ himself.

I end with a quotation by missionary Jim Elliot from The Shadow of the Almighty:

"You wonder why people choose fields away from the States when young people at home are drifting because no one wants to take time to listen to their problems. I'll tell you why I left. because those stateside young people have every opportunity to study, hear, and understand the Word of God in their own language, and these Indians have no opportunity whatsoever. I have had to make a cross of two logs and lie down on it to show the Indians what it means to crucify a man. When there is that much ignorance over here and so much knowledge over there, I have no question in my mind why God sent me here. Those whimpering stateside young people will wake up on the day of judgment condemned to worse fates than those demon-fearing Indians, because, having a Bible, they were bored with it- while these never heard of such a thing as writing."