Sacrifices

I went to Melbourne last weekend (with my trusty Advocate, Kate) to attend a SIM training day and final interview. We got a lift back to where we were staying with a guy who's going to Africa for a couple of months. He was saying he wasn't sure he could ever go for any longer because of the sacrifices he would have to make. Now I'm so accustomed to this path that I don't usually think in terms of sacrifices, but he got me thinking...

I reckon there are three sacrifices that you make in being a missionary - career, money and people. I gave up the first two five and a half years ago when I began my church apprenticeship. It didn't seem like that big a deal. I was looking for a new line of work anyway and, as it turned out, I loved doing 'ministry'. And I was never someone who was about the money. But I am about the aesthetic and the lifestyle, and oftentimes that stuff needs money. I just can't buy nice homewares or paintings or a car. I have to live like a student when most people my age were done with that years ago.

Now if you've been following this blog awhile, you will know that this was a major problem for me a couple of years back. So it was interesting to find myself in the bright city lights again, thinking about sacrifice. And it's been interesting to see how I have coped with a suddenly reduced income (I need to do more fundraising!) on my return.

The seduction and the anxiety are still there, but it's a timid, reedy voice compared to what once was. I could actually go into shops in Melbourne and think "Gosh it would be nice to have that" but not in a covetous sort of way. And even while I was thinking it, I felt this steady confidence that that stuff's not what life's about, that it's a pretty illusion. I knew that relationship with God, with people and righteousness of character is where true class and beauty lies. Praise God - his burden is light.