Fear, Faith, and Finding Your Place in God’s Kingdom

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Welcome to Grace at the Fray, a podcast that explores the many dimensions of God’s grace that we find at the frayed edges of life. Come explore how God’s grace works to renew your life and send you on mission in His kingdom.

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0:00:22.2 Jim Lovelady: Hello beloved. Welcome to Grace at the Fray. Before we jump in, I want to thank you for listening and watching and following along as we explore the fullness of God’s grace in the nooks and crannies of our lives in His Kingdom. And if you would be so kind, as to leave a like and subscribe on YouTube and leave a rating and a comment on your podcast platform, it really does help us get this out to more folks. And of course, share this with your friends and family. And absolutely, please keep praying for us. So the singer Madonna has this famous song “Material Girl” where she says, “We are living in a material world, and I am a material girl.” And now it’s stuck in your head. I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry. And though the song is really about shopping and consumerism, the point is well taken that we live in a secular, materialistic society where everything you experience with your five senses, well that’s all there is. Everything can be explained or will eventually be explained with science. There’s no need for the supernatural. I have a chemist friend who once told me that all we are is a bunch of chemical reactions. Well, if that bothers you, you’re in good company with a great many people who are dissatisfied with what philosopher Charles Taylor calls “the immanent frame”. Where belief in something that transcends your personal experience becomes optional. And the idea that there is one overarching story of the universe is just absurd. The immanent frame. All we have is now, and whatever you can make of your own experience of the now. In other words, we live in a culture where, for the first time in the history of humanity, it’s more difficult to believe there is a God, than it is to believe that there is no God. And if you pay close attention, you can see the dissatisfaction with a purely secular, materialistic world. And it’s not just Christians and other religions that push against this idea. Even people who don’t believe in God have this issue, right? Even the famous atheist Sam Harris, he does yoga as an attempt at self transcendence. And I kind of think that’s funny. But being a Christian in a secular, materialistic world is really difficult because, when you stand up and say, there is a person other than yourself worth surrendering your life to, the secular materialists, they scoff at you. Why would you be so silly as to surrender your life to something outside of yourself? Why would you take risks and relinquish the comforts of this material world for something or someone you can’t see or even prove is real? Why would you put your hope in something outside of your individual self? It’s not easy to be a Christian in a world that finds the transcendent foolish, however much they may long for that to be. And it’s not easy to be a missions agency that is always on the lookout for people who are so foolish as to want to give their lives away for something beyond the immediate materialist experience of life. But today, I’m going to share a conversation I had with Dan Macha, one of the Serge recruiters who is constantly inviting people out of their comfort zone, out of their imminent reality, out of their small materialistic world, and into something transcendent, something risky, something bigger than themselves: someone. Someone named Jesus. So here’s my question for you. Have you been duped into thinking that your little world is all there is and your main goal in life is to mitigate suffering and boredom? Do you have a nagging that there actually might be more to this human experience than what you’ve been settling for? Are you curious that there might be something more, but you’re afraid of the risk and even suffering that comes with participating with God in His Kingdom? If so, well then this episode is for you. And here’s the bottom line. Is life with Jesus safe? Nah. But is life with Jesus the richest, most meaningful, truest way to be human? Absolutely. Come and see.

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0:04:49.8 Jim Lovelady: Dan Macha. Welcome to Grace at the Fray.

0:04:53.3 Dan Macha: Great to be here.

0:04:54.1 Jim Lovelady: I know that you are a war, A World War II history buff. I know that you’re a history buff in general, but it always kind of lands at World War II, right?

0:05:03.0 Dan Macha: Yep.

0:05:03.6 Jim Lovelady: So I saw this at the thrift store. I saw this book at the thrift store. I opened it up and I was like, “Oh yeah, this has got… this is World War II trivia book. And this has got your name written all over it.

0:05:14.5 Dan Macha: Well, first of all, there’s nothing trivial about World War II.

0:05:18.0 Jim Lovelady: True, true, true.

0:05:19.4 Dan Macha: Okay. 

0:05:19.9 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. It’s not a trivial book. No, it’s not trivia book. [laughter] Actually, I’m going to flip through this and I’m going to ask you some random question and see if you can answer it. These were so obscure to me. I thought, nowhere near as knowledgeable about World War II as you. I’ve heard you talk about it, but I thought I knew a little bit, but this made a fool of me. So I hope it doesn’t make a fool of you, but I hope it’s a challenge. All right, let’s see here. I can’t even pronounce that one. Okay, I’m going to move on. [laughter] What? Okay, this is so random. What were the design features that made the T-34 such a good tank? That’s what we’re dealing with here. Do you know the T-34 tank?

0:06:07.3 Dan Macha: Yeah. The most popular tank, the most successful tank the Soviet army had. 

[laughter]

0:06:16.6 Jim Lovelady: Exactly. That’s enough. That’s all I needed to hear. 

0:06:19.8 Dan Macha: Okay.

0:06:19.9 Jim Lovelady: That’s amazing. That is amazing. I’m like blurry eyed as I just flip through this. Oh, interesting. What was the code name of the final German plan for the attack in the West? 

0:06:40.1 Dan Macha: In the West? 

0:06:41.3 Jim Lovelady: Yeah, the final German plan of attack in the West. It’s like, I don’t even know if I can pronounce this ’cause I don’t know German. Schlieffen. Does that ring a bell? 

0:06:57.7 Dan Macha: Not so much.

0:06:58.4 Jim Lovelady: That’s probably ’cause I didn’t say it right.

0:07:00.7 Dan Macha: And I’m not sure which. Of course, my real question is, which attack in the West? It’s not like they made one. Okay.

0:07:05.3 Jim Lovelady: It’s true. It’s true.

0:07:05.7 Dan Macha: Yeah, right. 

0:07:06.6 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. By west, what do we mean? Okay, let’s see here. I don’t know. What was the base of the Soviet Baltic Fleet? Do you know that one? What city? Leningrad.

0:07:31.5 Dan Macha: Okay.

0:07:32.0 Jim Lovelady: I finally stumped you. Goodness gracious. Well, here’s the easy one. Here’s the easy one. December 7th, 1941, a day which? 

0:07:47.1 Dan Macha: Shall live in infamy. 

0:07:48.7 Jim Lovelady: Which shall live in infamy. Why? 

0:07:50.7 Dan Macha: Because it was the day of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. 

0:07:57.8 Jim Lovelady: My son and I just watched the new Midway. Not the old Midway movie. I liked the old one. I grew up watching the old one. That’s one that I can answer. That’s the only one I can answer.

0:08:11.3 Dan Macha: Yeah. Charleston Heston.

0:08:15.7 Jim Lovelady: That’s right. Well, it was a star-studded cast.

0:08:17.3 Dan Macha: Yeah. 

0:08:18.0 Jim Lovelady: So I am impressed with your knowledge of history and I love that you work in mobilization here with Serge and you have been with the company for years. And you are a career long missionary. Where all have you lived? 

0:08:35.5 Dan Macha: Not that many places, actually. We lived in our time with Serge. We lived in Dublin for nine years in Ireland way back in the day, in the previous century. That’s how long ago it was.

0:08:50.8 Jim Lovelady: That’s right. That’s why I call you Grandpa Dan. Because, if there is someone who knows some of those old legendary stories of how the company got started, I’ll walk over to your office and I’ll ask you. It’s like this book could be Serge trivia book, which is not trivial either. [laughter] That’s right. 

0:09:12.3 Dan Macha: Yeah. 

0:09:12.7 Jim Lovelady: I wanted to talk to you about what it looks like when you go around talking to folks who are thinking about becoming missionaries with our company. You go around recruiting, you work with the mobilization team to onboard new missionaries. It’s normally a pretty long process of early conversations all the way to. 

0:09:36.1 Dan Macha: Right. Usually the process will take about two years… 

0:09:39.8 Jim Lovelady: Really?

0:09:41.2 Dan Macha: From early conversation. The first conversation that I would have with someone, it will usually be two years before they’re fielded with us. 

0:09:49.2 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. 

0:09:50.3 Dan Macha: So I would say that my sense of calling for this work over the years has been a lifeline calling to walk people through crossroads. There are these times where we do have a sense that we shouldn’t go on as before. Sometimes we can’t go on as before. So how do we navigate that? When do we know it’s time not to just walk straight through the crossroad? When is it time to go to the right or to the left? Usually it is much harder to see that when we’re driving the car at 60 miles an hour and not trying to hit someone. It’s great to have someone who has the overview to say, these are the signs of the approaching intersection, that it’s time. Some are obvious, some are not, but it’s always. But it’s been useful to have someone who can bring that perspective. And over the years I walked a lot of people through a lot of crossroads and a lot of them here at Serge. I was just with somebody who I talked to, when he was a 20-year-old college student. His first conversation with the company and then he spent some time in Ireland and he’s now a team leader in London. 

0:11:12.5 Dan Macha: So it’s great to see where the walk through the crossroads where that road takes people. So that’s kind of the vision. That’s a lot of the vision that has kept me having the same conversation at least 10 times a week, most weeks for a lot of years. 

0:11:32.6 Jim Lovelady: So one of the things that I’ve been really curious about and I’m wanting to investigate this season, is what it means to mobilize the younger generations for mission and for short-term mission, but also for career long mission. And so I wanted to sit down with you because, okay what does it look like? What is it? What have your conversations been like with young people? And if a young person called you up and said, “Hey, I think that the Lord is calling me to missions.” To a life of mission, or at least to see what not even a life of mission, but like going on a mission trip might look like. What have you been hearing as you’ve been talking with younger folks? 

0:12:15.8 Dan Macha: The first question I would ask is where and why did this interest start? You’re almost trying to figure out where in. 

0:12:25.7 Jim Lovelady: What are some of the typical categories of where and why. Well, not the where but the why part. 

0:12:29.2 Dan Macha: I grew up hearing about the gospel and mission. Usually the why is I’ve heard someone, who has made me think in this direction, that there is something beyond right where I’m at that I should be reaching for. 

0:12:45.8 Jim Lovelady: Yeah, I remember when I was a kid, missionaries would come and visit our church and they would tell their story. I grew up, Southern Baptist. It was like the Christmas Lottie Moon offering was where we start talking about the missionaries that the Southern Baptist Church, Southern Baptist Convention is supporting all these missionaries all over the world. And I grew up hearing about. I don’t remember any of them. I just remember that there were, that there are missionaries overseas. So it makes total sense that someone would say, “Hey, so what is a typical? And I think I should consider this.” What does that look like, when they say that to you? 

0:13:23.9 Dan Macha: By that, do you mean I am thinking about this because? 

0:13:26.9 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. 

0:13:29.8 Dan Macha: Sometimes they will say, “I’m really interested in this place.” I have a sense of I could live there or I was in this country. That reminds me of a conversation that we had across the hall in our large conference room about a year ago with a returning college student who just said, “I met this person and I’m just thinking about them. I’m thinking about what it would be like to go back and reach out to people like them.” So again, I go back to personal encounter or I just want my life to matter. I want to do the right thing. People don’t usually wind up connecting with us flippantly. So I get to talk to people. 

0:14:24.2 Jim Lovelady: What do you mean flippant? Oh I’m sorry… 

0:14:26.9 Dan Macha: Yeah, we are wrong, yeah. 

0:14:29.2 Jim Lovelady: Bud called you. [laughter] 

0:14:29.8 Dan Macha: By the time they have decided that they’re going to invest in an hour long zoom call with a missionary recruiter, they’re serious and they are trying to figure out how to do the right thing. And so, it has almost spoiled me from having normal conversations in the sense of, I’m talking to people who really want to know… 

0:14:54.8 Jim Lovelady: Whether this is what I need to be doing? 

0:14:56.5 Dan Macha: Whether this is what I need to be doing. That is both the weight and the joy of conversations like that. 

0:15:01.8 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. One of the things that I gather is growing as a response is this concern for, is this safe? Is this risky? Is this imprudent? Is this reckless? And I’ve heard a few conversations with parents where parents are like, “No, we don’t want our child to do that ’cause that’s too risky. We don’t want our child to do that because they’re going to ruin their career. That’s not their major in college. And I don’t want them to throw that away.” All those things. So how do you speak to mostly the sense of safety or the sense of risk that’s involved with this? Because, one of the things that we’ve been talking about a lot as a team, is how the Anxiety just dominates the cultural milieu right now and for a lot of really good reasons. So here we have the audacity to call someone who struggles with anxiety to go live in potentially a scary place. 

0:16:04.7 Dan Macha: Right. No, that is true. And you’re right. There is a lot of external pressure in the rising generation, or influence, maybe a better word, that continues to encourage fear. In one sense, a lot of people in the rising generation, their sense of self image is assaulted by exposure to social media. We know that. I grew up at a time, Dan, for a second, I grew up at a time and in a different place. I grew up as a Kansas farm boy, where some of the guys who I went to high school with, drove up and parked their pickup in the school parking lot, and they had a gun rack and a shotgun that then they would go out pheasant hunting right after school. And then I have to transition in mood in saying that, to say, the generation that’s considering missions now. I don’t remember a time where school shootings were not kind of a monthly occurrence. 

0:17:09.0 Jim Lovelady: Yeah, well right now that would be… 

0:17:10.8 Dan Macha: So it made it feel like a dangerous world. 

0:17:12.2 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. That there’s a moral judgment on that way of life that looks at best, kind of suspicious or maybe not. Maybe that’s not the best case. The best case is like, well that’s one way of living your life, strange Kansas boy.

0:17:29.1 Dan Macha: Right.

0:17:29.9 Jim Lovelady: But…

0:17:30.2 Dan Macha: And we’ve had a parenting generation that has been. And again, I’m talking about other influencers or other observers who have noticed, we have a generation of parenting style that has been about keeping children and people safe. So that a lot of the questions about it, if it’s safe, really do come from parental influence. An anecdote about that is, it is not unusual, but beginning a couple of years ago, we started having parents who would call and talk to our mobilizers about whether or not their kids were going to be safe on the field.

0:18:09.5 Jim Lovelady: Oh, yeah. 

0:18:10.3 Dan Macha: They’re not illegitimate things, but the access to communicating in a different way has encouraged that. 

0:18:17.2 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. Okay. So, I can totally see. I could totally foresee that how potentially, not to write it off as trivial. [laughter] 

0:18:28.0 Dan Macha: Yeah. And as a matter of fact, maybe where I want to go with that is, you know what my first response to that is, get over it. 

0:18:35.9 Jim Lovelady: I appreciate how… 

0:18:37.6 Dan Macha: What is it? I wrote, earlier last year, I wrote, I wanted to say, look, missions is a lot more like Oppenheimer. We’re trying, we’re dealing with nuclear forces here. There is danger. Well, this is not a Barbie movie. And just get…

0:18:54.1 Jim Lovelady: This is Oppenheimer not Barbie. 

0:18:57.2 Dan Macha: Yeah. And instead I go, but it is important to measure safety. I don’t think that we want to encourage people to be sort of like one of the early church fathers, who as a zealous youth wanted to, during a persecution in the Roman Empire.

0:19:17.7 Jim Lovelady: That was Origen? 

0:19:18.8 Dan Macha: Yeah. He wanted to run out and martyr and give himself up as a Christian and be martyred. Fortunately, his mother hid all his clothes. And we would have lost his contribution to the church. 

0:19:34.8 Jim Lovelady: If he had been so reckless.

0:19:34.9 Dan Macha: If he had been so reckless. 

0:19:37.0 Jim Lovelady: That’s a good example of the fine line between, is this reckless or is this, just being wise? 

0:19:46.4 Dan Macha: Right. And how you begin to determine it. One of the ways that I’ve thought through this is, in just being a missionary, you often encourage those times of, there are those times of danger. When do you sort of put your life on the line and when do you not? Two stories that I’ll tell you about, a number of years ago, I’m not a strong swimmer and we finished off a mission trip to Africa and we decided to go white water rafting on the Nile. My ability to swim is so bad that I should never be in more than five feet of water. So I’m white water rafting in one of the main dangerous stretches of the Nile and I almost drowned. And it was just ’cause I didn’t want to stay back while the other guys went out and did this rafting adventure. So that was just taking a risk for the sake of risk. 

0:20:47.4 Jim Lovelady: That was imprudent. 

0:20:48.4 Dan Macha: That was imprudent. However, a couple of years later, I was in Africa. I had to get on the back of a motorcycle and go down a dangerous road in order to get to the next village. That was just saying, I will take the risk and Jesus be with me. So I think we’re always, we’re called to count the cost and ask ourselves, are we doing this for thrill seeking or is this a time where, that’s a trivial example where I have to be willing to take a risk? Those are some of the parameters. 

0:21:19.7 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. I love that.

0:21:22.2 Dan Macha: I begin to put around that.

0:21:25.2 Jim Lovelady: Yeah, I love that the way that we articulate and are trying to live out the gospel means that the gospel is real for every kind of concern, every kind of situation, every kind of concern. So if someone calls up and says, “Hey, I’m wrestling with whether or not to go on the mission field and I have a lot of fear, I have a lot of anxiety, and I also am enamored and can’t keep my mind from daydreaming about this people over there, that have just wiggled their way into my imagination and I can’t get it out of my mind. And so, but I’m also afraid.” So it’s like balancing these two things. Well, the way that we understand Jesus’ death and resurrection and his victory is that, in His intimacy and His love for us means that He wants to know, He wants to talk to us about that. And so, I see you as someone who, when that person calls you up and says, “Hey, I’m afraid that you” There may be a knee jerk reaction of, oh get over it. But ultimately it really is. 

0:22:42.6 Dan Macha: Where do you go? After I repent of my own self righteousness. 

0:22:48.4 Jim Lovelady: That’s right. 

0:22:49.7 Dan Macha: And my own judgmental spirit in that. Where do I go? Well, first of all, you really do. And I already suggested that, but you addressed legitimate concerns. Yesterday I was having a conversation with a couple who have a couple of young kids and one of the spouses. First question was, what about our children’s education? And the second question was, what about our health insurance? And you say, well here is how we think about education. It’s field-driven and you can look to families who are already on that field… 

0:23:36.7 Jim Lovelady: To see how they’re doing it.

0:23:38.2 Dan Macha: To see how they’re doing it. You don’t say, “Don’t worry about It. It’ll all work out.” You say, “Talk to those families, and they can probably tell you how they have already walked through that.” And yes, we do have healthcare coverage. When I said that, there was this. Oh, yeah, there’s that. Measuring those factors of dangers are sort of like Jesus says, before you build a tower, you count how much it’s going to cost. And we do have member care. You’re not. A fear is, I’m going to go and I’m going to struggle emotionally. 

0:24:14.4 Dan Macha: And I say, we have someone who’s going to be assigned to you. On the field, who has been either on the field with Serge or served in ministry a long time. Who will always be there, so that if you’re struggling, they can help you. But then I also will eventually say, but all of these institutional safeguards, at some point, they may fail. For example, we do great member care. I can say that enthusiastically ’cause I don’t play any part in that. And the people that do it are gifted for it. Right, okay. But at some point, we’re going to screw up. So where do we go with that? We ultimately, we have to confess that and know how to talk to one another. The gospel gives us the tools to overcome the disappointments we’re going to have with one another on the field. So that’s part of it. 

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0:25:15.7 Jim Lovelady: I want to pause this conversation and invite you to join us in prayer for the Serge field workers that we at the headquarters here in Philadelphia, are praying for each week. We meet on Tuesday and Friday mornings to pray, and this week, we’re praying for our teams in the UK. Would you pray with me? Lord, we pray that you would bless these folks, give them joy in their work in your Kingdom, and the pleasure of your joy as they follow you. Give them wisdom, and let your grace abound in their relationships with one another, with family members and children, with the people that they serve, heal all sicknesses, liberate the enslaved, protect them from the powers and principalities of darkness, restore to them the joy of Your salvation and let Your Kingdom come, and Your will be done in these places, just as it is in heaven. We pray in your name. Amen. 

0:26:13.3 Jim Lovelady: Now back to the conversation. 

0:26:15.9 Dan Macha: The other part is in leading us into these storms, and we talked about this. Yesterday, I read the story of Jesus calming the storm. He’s asleep in the boat, a storm comes up, and the disciples wake him up and say, “Don’t you care? We’re about to drown.” And he doesn’t just go, “Okay, peace be still.” First of all, He says, “Why are you so afraid?” And you get the feeling that Jesus sometimes lets us experience some of our fears so that He can speak to the heart of our fear. 

0:26:52.7 Jim Lovelady: I love the tone that you gave when you quoted Jesus. “Why are you so afraid?” It’s really easy for us to feel like we’re being scolded. Why are you so afraid? It’s really easy for my propensity is to be just full of condemnation. And so, I’ll impose tone where it probably isn’t. And so I appreciate that there’s this. The posture of Jesus is He’s going to let this opportunity play out so that they can see how glorious He is and how it is. Let’s be close to this guy. And in His presence is the fullness of joy. And so wait, I’m in His presence ’cause He’s just right there sleeping. But I lack joy. And He’s like, “Hey, you don’t have to be afraid.” 

0:27:39.9 Dan Macha: Yeah, but that is not always removal. 

0:27:43.5 Jim Lovelady: That’s right. 

0:27:44.0 Dan Macha: From the storm. Which reminds me of one of my favorite passages in the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, where the children encounter. They first hear of Aslan, who’s a lion, and they’re kind of scared. So they ask, it was Mrs. Beaver? “Is he a safe lion?” And she laughs and says, “Of course not.” But he’s good.

0:28:11.1 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. 

0:28:12.5 Dan Macha: And that is so we’re not safe. Ultimately, I’m way, way many miles down the road in a conversation before I say that. But no, you can’t be safe in missions, but you can be secure because you’re in the presence of His love. And maybe, you know those moments of unsafety, of unrest. 

0:28:35.1 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. 

0:28:35.7 Dan Macha: So that you can know that. 

0:28:37.6 Jim Lovelady: And this is the crossroads that you’re talking about. What’s at stake here? I feel the Holy Spirit nudging me to go do this thing that terrifies me. And everyone has their own version. Everyone who follows Jesus has their own version of what I just said. I feel like the Spirit’s nudging me to go do this thing. And the thing that terrifies, everyone’s scary thing is different. It could be, walk across the street to talk to my new neighbors who don’t speak the same language as I. And/or, hey bring some gift to this or that person who you don’t like, or give away some stuff that you cherish that you know someone else should have because the Holy Spirit’s nudging you to do this thing that you don’t want to do. You’re terrified. So what’s at stake? The Lord is calling you here. But, man I’m terrified. So ultimately, how do you help people follow Jesus? 

0:29:40.9 Dan Macha: That’s a great question. Part of it too, is I realized, our fears are broader than safety. For one thing, safety in a bigger sense. It’s like, for the most part, we’re really not afraid that we’re going to drown into Nile river if we go overseas. But what if? 

0:30:01.2 Jim Lovelady: It’s pretty specific, yeah. 

0:30:02.1 Dan Macha: Yeah, that’s pretty specific. And yeah. 

0:30:04.3 Jim Lovelady: I’m afraid now. [laughter] 

0:30:06.0 Dan Macha: Yeah. You’ll never be able to go rafting again. Giving you a new fear. But I just have these lists of things I can worry about if I run out of the thing that’s driving me at the moment. 

0:30:19.6 Jim Lovelady: That’s right. 

0:30:20.1 Dan Macha: But even in missions, it’s like, what are we really afraid of? It’s usually not physical danger. Though, some of our workers, we won’t even talk about here because we are aware that they face some level of danger.

0:30:39.8 Jim Lovelady: A lot of missionaries that I will never interview because that would be imprudent. 

0:30:45.6 Dan Macha: So somebody’s worst fear may be, “What if I go and nothing happens? I’m not successful.” 

0:30:53.8 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. 

0:30:54.4 Dan Macha: So that’s the other big one. What if I’m not happy? I’m not satisfied? There’s no satisfaction in that work. What if I can’t get along with the people that I work with?

0:31:10.0 Jim Lovelady: I studied all of these things in college, and am I wasting my career opportunities by… 

0:31:15.9 Dan Macha: Right. What if there’s a better offer coming along? It’s like the guy you’re talking to and says, “Yeah, this woman that I’m seeing is really great, but what if somebody better comes along?” Those are all the things. What if a better offer comes along? I don’t do a lot of work with our college students, but one of the things that our intern applicants are almost afraid to say, yes, I’ll go and spend the summer. What if there’s a better internship opportunity that opens up where I can work with a Fortune 500 company. Instead of going to Dublin and brewing cups of tea for three months? 

0:32:00.1 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. In a very real way, I was talking to a pastor friend. We’re colleagues, we’ve been in ministry for about the same amount of time, and they’re buying a house. And they realized that financially, because of the years of ministry and missions that they’ve been involved in, that they’re about a decade behind other people their age, financially. 

0:32:28.1 Dan Macha: Right. 

0:32:28.8 Jim Lovelady: And it hit me, I was like, “Oh yeah, that’s how it is for Lori and I. We’re about a decade behind everybody our age.” I’m in a financial situation that would be more akin to someone 10 years younger than me. 

0:32:41.6 Dan Macha: Yeah. 

0:32:42.3 Jim Lovelady: Because of ministry choices. And so, it’s like, “Oh.” And so, part of me just gets all wound up and mad that God called me into ministry. And then, that’s the whole “do You not care? Do You not care that I…” 

0:32:57.2 Dan Macha: Do you not care? 

0:32:58.6 Jim Lovelady: For me it’s not, do You not care that I’m drowning? Do You not care that I don’t have as much money as when I say it out loud, I sound. I feel the foolishness of, “Oh, really? I’m just not being content right now.” 

0:33:13.4 Dan Macha: But how long has that kettle of resentment brewed before it ever spouts out, those do You not care? But I guess there are two things we’re talking about. There are two things I want to explore. One, we have a predetermined notion of outcomes, of what needs to happen. If I go to Ireland, I want to plant a church of 200 in two years. What if in two years, I’m depressed two out of three days, and there are four other depressed guys that I’m doing a Bible study with and that’s it? What if I don’t have success? 

0:33:49.8 Jim Lovelady: Well, what does the gospel say to that? 

0:33:51.5 Dan Macha: The gospel says the real key is the joy. Have you known my companionship? Are you willing to walk with me? Are you willing to let me. Ultimately, it is. What does Paul say? I sowed. 

0:34:08.3 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. 

0:34:08.8 Dan Macha: Somebody else watered.

0:34:10.0 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

0:34:10.9 Dan Macha: Yeah. And God gives the increase. First of all, can I surrender outcomes to God? But I have to believe that he’s good. That I have been able to do that.

0:34:19.6 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. These emotions, these outbursts of emotions that come welling up, when we finally feel safe enough to let them boil over and express them to Jesus, which is part of your job is to help encourage people to be honest with Jesus in those. “Hey, tell me what you’re afraid of.” And then, as when I say my resentments of being 10 years behind financially, and as soon as it comes out of my mouth, I realize, oh it’s like the Spirit goes, see. See what we’re dealing with here? You lack contentment and you’re not trusting me. Do you want to trust me? Do you want to follow me to a place of contentment that demonstrates a certain kind of faith that I’ve seen in people. I’ve seen people have enormous faith and enormous contentment, that I’m kind of jealous of. And then I have to deal with my jealousy. But I see how they just, this is what Jesus has given me, and I’m content with that. And I go, “How can I do that? I want to be content in all things.”

0:35:22.1 Dan Macha: One of the things that I often tell people is, I regret that too many, too much of my life has been lived with, “I’m going to be really happy when I get to the next place.”

0:35:34.0 Jim Lovelady: Oh, yeah. 

0:35:35.4 Dan Macha: So can I know joy in. That’s what I meant by the joy of the journey. Am I content with what Jesus is giving me now? Can I rejoice with. I am walking in this place, in the Kingdom with my best friend, Jesus. 

0:35:52.3 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. I’m in the boat with Jesus. 

0:35:53.5 Dan Macha: I’m in the boat with Jesus. 

0:35:55.2 Jim Lovelady: And even if He’s asleep, I’m safe. 

0:35:58.5 Dan Macha: And even if he doesn’t immediately calm the storm, because that’s, we spend a lot of time. And I heard Scotty Smith say, “What’s the most frequently asked question in the Bible?” How long? How long am I going to be here before I see anybody come to know Jesus? Yeah, that’s his call. But before we get to those outcomes, I guess the other thing I would explore is, I try to free people up from fear of making the wrong choice. Our fear of a better choice, which we were talking about, what if a better internship comes along? I often remind folks that the same God who opens doors for us is really good at closing them or keeping closed one.

And I say, my best example, was at a time where Jesus had taken me into a wilderness and I was learning to just be content with, “Hey, I’ll stay here as long as you want.” I really was learning that. But as he began to suggest through a friend, it was time for me to move out of that, he and I simply began to pray. God, will you open some doors and close others? At that time, I was working in a flooring store, selling residential flooring in a city where only about five people knew me before I was 50. Which was, nobody knew me in other words. One day, the store manager came back from corporate headquarters, and he called all of the sales guys into the break room and said, “Guys, I locked up on the way in and you guys can go home as soon as you can get your stuff together.” Now I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I realized that was a closed door. And I wound up calling Serge and began the conversation that brought me back for this, what I call Serge 2.0 in my career. And the timing was perfect. If I had called three months before, the chance to work in mobilization wouldn’t have been there. 

0:38:13.9 Jim Lovelady: Interesting. 

0:38:14.7 Dan Macha: Six months later, they would have hired. I know who they would have hired by then. And it gives me great confidence to say, “Hey guys, we can walk. You can walk through those doors and God really can at times close those.” And even if you make the wrong choice, God is really good at mid-course correction. He will bring you back. And it’s not, he’s not going to swat you. It’s sort of like if your three-year-old wanders into the wrong, when we wrong part of the house. It’s sort of like when we lost our daughter Karen Joy, who is now a missionary with Serge in Romania. I lost her in Heathrow Airport. 

0:39:03.6 Jim Lovelady: Oh gosh. [laughter] 

0:39:05.2 Dan Macha: Which was really great. Right? 

0:39:07.9 Jim Lovelady: Great. Father of the year. 

0:39:08.9 Dan Macha: The father of the year. [laughter] When someone found her, two minutes later for us, I did not take her across my knee. And I was just so glad she was home. That’s what the Father does if we wander down the wrong aisle. 

0:39:24.9 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. 

0:39:25.5 Dan Macha: But again, you have to see a Father who loves you. So go ahead, make the wrong choice. Make a choice. 

0:39:36.1 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. What if I make the wrong decision? 

0:39:37.9 Dan Macha: Go ahead. 

0:39:38.7 Jim Lovelady: Go ahead. 

0:39:40.5 Dan Macha: Yeah. He will get you back there. And it will be in that, there’ll be a sense of you will learn about what was wrong in that. I made a major life choice once, not a number of years ago where I violated one of the three dictums I give for making a good choice. And that there are, what do I want to do? What do other people think I should do or I can do? And is there an opportunity to do that? 

0:40:13.6 Jim Lovelady: Nice. 

0:40:14.9 Dan Macha: I didn’t listen to the people around me. Which leads to the other thing that frees us up in fear. As North American Christians, I think we believe that it’s up to us, to have this, to always come. It should always be, or it should normally be just a one to one existential encounter. 

0:40:38.1 Jim Lovelady: Interesting. 

0:40:38.5 Dan Macha: But I say, talk to people around you. 

0:40:40.5 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. 

0:40:41.7 Dan Macha: Listen to them, always ask the question, what is behind their advice? But don’t wait until you’ve decided to go to the mission field to start talking to your church. 

0:40:53.9 Jim Lovelady: This is what I’ve decided to do. 

0:40:54.8 Dan Macha: This is what I’ve decided to do. Will you bless us, say? And when I’ve done that, in the course of a major life decision, where everybody around me is saying, “Yeah, this is a good idea. We see, this is what you should do. This is what you should focus on.” There’s real freedom in that, and there’s real captivity and feeling like it’s up to me alone to make that decision. It needs to be consistent with what I want to do. In one sense, God’s spirit will confirm it within me, but he will also confirm it through the folks around me who love me, who are in places of spiritual leadership in my life and authority, and sometimes even professional leadership. God sometimes speaks through our bosses. 

0:41:45.7 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. And so when we say, are you afraid to make a mistake? Do you know to go. To make the wrong choice? Yeah, go ahead and make the wrong choice. Well, another aspect of this, and it’s a little bit more scary is, sometimes the community can come around you and make the wrong choice for you, and that’s okay. The Lord is in that as well. And with the long game in mind and with the… And that one’s even, that one’s got a certain kind of pain to it of disappointment in the people that you were depending on to guide you and all that. So there’s that, man. There’s a lot wrapped up in that. There’s probably a whole podcast episode in just that. But, just to say that the Lord is in your mistakes, and it’s not surprising. The Lord is in the community’s mistakes, and it’s not surprising. And so, there is this. If you want to give it a shot, just give it a shot. 

0:42:44.5 Dan Macha: Give it a shot. And maybe some of the things that you think are mistakes, a year after you’ve done them, when you’re kind of at Y point in life, you go like, maybe that wasn’t a mistake. Maybe it was a disappointment. 

0:43:02.6 Jim Lovelady: Interesting. 

0:43:03.4 Dan Macha: Yeah. I haven’t explored that idea a lot, but it has started to come up recently. I was debriefing a decision that I, and I was on a church elder board, and we went. We made a strategic decision, but we never saw that outcome. Was that a mistake, or was it just a disappointment that the church never reached this attendance goal in spite of all the things we tried to do? So maybe that’s another way of looking at, is God in this? Because it goes back to, if I’ve already determined what has to happen, if the decision I make doesn’t yield it, then I’m going to feel like it’s a mistake. 

0:43:49.7 Jim Lovelady: Yeah, for me, that’s just another example of how all of these things come down to. Do you even care that we’re drowning? It’s just continuously coming back to that for me, where these are all different versions of that same cry, outcry or accusation or whatever we want to call that, that the disciples direct to Jesus. “Do You even care about my disappointments? Are You here? Are You in this?” And the response is, “fear not.” 

0:44:17.5 Dan Macha: And some of those things have provoked is, Jesus where are you? My heart is actually looking for him. I’m coming to depend on him. And I’m coming to say, I’m looking to him for an answer. But God before I thought I had it. 

0:44:31.3 Jim Lovelady: So okay, this is my last question. And it’s kind of like we’ve talked about Jesus, the one who says, “fear not”, but then there’s also the Jesus who does calm the storm, the powerful Jesus. And I want you to paint me a picture, but I want you to do it through this lens of the person who is not quite sold on whether or not it’s worth it. And it does remind me of like on December 7, 1941, the days after that, the desire for young men to be a part of something, to be a part of a battle between good and evil. And that’s it’s very complicated, way more complicated than we can unpack historically speaking. But the fact of the matter is the cultural milieu of that time was, there is a battle between good and evil. And I want to be a part of it. And I want to participate. I want to be a part of this thing that transcends me. Nowadays I look around and I’m like, we don’t live in a world where transcendence is. We live in an imminent secular world where those big meta narratives are just, are too easy to be critical of, too easy to be cynical of. Even that meta narrative of the narrative of World War II and the battle between good and evil, so easy for us to deconstruct. After 70 years of history, to look back and go, well, we did. It was messy. It wasn’t just good and evil, it was messy. That doesn’t change the fact that we felt this sense of transcendence. Well, where is that now? And how do you help people tap into the sense of transcendence, of a God who can calm the storms, a powerful God who is calling us into a big Kingdom. How do you entice people to give their lives away for something bigger than themselves? Does that question make sense? 

0:46:49.3 Dan Macha: It does. And in one sense, it’s a good place to return to and land on, because that is probably more of what started our journey. Where is that? There is that narrative which you capture in scripture. It is through all of the pain and the heartache and the disappointments and the mistakes. It’s great to end with the promises of God and that final scene to say, “We are a part of this, we can be a part of this.” That we know that there is a time where we won’t need to worry about power failures. We’re calling people to wherever a permanent home, where the light of his face is going to light up the streets and there won’t be any more cancer, and there won’t be any more injustice, and there won’t be any more evil or weeping or saying goodbye to loved ones. And we are a part of announcing that. I remember hearing Tim Keller once say, “The gospel is not a code of ethics, it’s an announcement.” So join in just saying, Jesus is risen. And we know that’s going to happen. So what’s your part in just announcing it? Not bringing it to be, but announcing it. And I know you’re going to find your place because as I always tell our younger recruiters, guys we can’t mess up our job. [laughter] because He who began a good work in our recruits is going to bring it to completion on the day of Christ Jesus. And I know that God has good works for you, and it’s just a question of our figuring out if it’s down this road or that road, because he’s going to take you there. So just walk down the road. He’ll get you there.

0:48:55.6 Jim Lovelady: Oh, I love it. 

0:48:56.5 Dan Macha: Yeah. 

0:48:57.0 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. Well, thank you, my friend. I think that you stand at a crossroads and you’re like this guide who goes, “Hey, is it over here or is it over here?” Let’s learn how to sense where God is. And that’s where you want to be. Wherever Jesus goes, I want to follow. That’s where I want to be. And if He’s… Yeah, it makes me think about the Hebrews 13, let’s go out. Therefore, let us go out into the camp, outside the camp, because that’s where Jesus resides, in those marginalized places, those scary places, those places where we wouldn’t expect it, but that’s where He’s actually bringing redemption. So hey, wherever He goes, follow Him. 

0:49:46.6 Dan Macha: Yeah. 

0:49:46.7 Jim Lovelady: I love it. Well, thank you my friend. 

0:49:48.8 Dan Macha: Yeah. Good to be with you. 

[music] 

0:49:56.0 Jim Lovelady: By the end of that conversation, I was thinking about how Dan is a lot like John the Baptist in the first chapter of the Gospel of John. And I want to read it to you, starting at verse 35. The next day, again, John was standing with two of his disciples and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God.” And the two disciples heard him say this and they followed Jesus. And Jesus turned and saw them following and He said to them, “What do you want?” And they said to him, “Rabbi, which means, teacher, where are You staying?” And He said to them, “Come and see.” I think the disciples are kind of funny here because they’re kind of stalking Jesus and they’re curious and timid and kind of tongue tied. But Jesus honors their curiosity and He asks them, “What do you want?” And they stammer. And I imagine that all they can summon through their nervousness is a fumbled, where are you staying? And Jesus invites them to come and see. It’s an invitation to come be with Him. I think it’s remarkable that the first words of Jesus in the Gospel of John are what do you want? And I’m confident the answer to that question, whether your life is comfortable or filled with suffering, whether you’re bored or aimless, whatever degree your curiosity is pushing you to explore Jesus, the answer to the question, what do you want? As always, I want to be closer to you, Jesus. I want to be wherever you’re staying. Is your curiosity stronger than your comfort? Is it stronger than your fears? All I can say is to echo Jesus’ response to his curious disciples. Come and see. It’s Jesus’ constant invitation for you. And I have a number of resources for you in your church, in your small group that will help you explore God’s calling on your life and how to follow him on mission. I’m going to flood the show notes with links to blog posts and some webinars that will guide you in your curiosity and think of them as Jesus’ invitation to come and see. But I want to highlight an easy way to follow your curiosity. Go to serge.org/#nextstep to sign up for an email series designed for seekers like you to inform, encourage and inspire you on your journey. As you explore your calling on mission. And be on the lookout today, for how the Spirit wants to guide you through heartache and suffering, through boredom and aimlessness. Listen to where Jesus is saying to you, what do you want? What do you really want? Jesus really wants to hear you, tell Him what you want. And what He has for you is way bigger than you could have imagined. What would you give up to participate in that? I don’t know. I’m excited for you to hear Him say to you, come and see. And as you follow him, as you stay with Him, receive His blessing. May the Lord bless you and keep you, make His face to smile down on you. May the Lord be gracious to you and turn His bright eyes to you and give you His peace. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, one God, life everlasting. Amen.

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