Life Away

“…they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint” (Isaiah 40:31, NIV 2011).

Airport in Tirana, headed for Vienna, then home. The beauty of mission behind me, thoughts of normal life ahead. The load comes creeping back onto my shoulders---a backed up patient load, lectures to prepare, my aged parents, my children and their dreams. These last 10 days of serving the Lord away from all the pressures is the way I imagine that life should be, and I laugh at myself.

There is something beautiful about time away on a mission trip, even time away on a vacation. If we stay away long enough, the weight of this world really does seem to lift from our shoulders. We breathe deeply again; we are able again to see the beauty of the world, able to hear again the voice of God above the constant roar, able to think great thoughts again. If only our normal life could be the same. Time away seems much more like the life that God intended…but for the Fall (Genesis 3).
Jesus did not step into such a “life away.” He came from one, by choice.
He was born and lived in poverty; supported His family with hard work for decades; father gone early; mother and brothers and sisters with problems to tend to; a mission of dusty roads, ending with death as a criminal. His lived the normal life in extraordinary ways, not settling for the ideal short-term mission or vacation.
As healthcare professionals, we work hard and are certainly blessed by times away, empowered by times of mission; but we should never think that we were made for such. We were made for the dusty roads of normal life, with normal heavy burdens, where we are called to walk with Jesus and draw all men unto Him as we share their load.

Dear God,
Thank you for the times away. Help me to be just as faithful in every moment of the normal life.
Amen