Gain

“You know that in the end you are not really giving away anything at all. Instead you are gaining. Yes, you are abandoning everything you have, but you are also gaining more than you could have in any other way.”

 - Radical by David Platt

A year ago, almost exactly, I came back from Kenya with a single suitcase that was mainly filled with souvenirs for friends and family in the States. Sixteen months before that I had left the Tri-Cities with that same single suitcase, that time mainly filled with American foods and snacks.

Both times, I was leaving things behind, leaving behind belongings and people and a lifestyle that couldn't fit in a suitcase.

Both times I wasn't quite sure what came next, what life would look like when I stepped off of the plane.

Both times, I knew that God was bigger and in control and that He didn't need to be reduced down to the size of my suitcase.

Both times, there were panic moments where it didn't seem like that could possibly be true.

Abandoning everything is a strange feeling.

Gaining everything feels just as strange.

Culture shock is weird no matter which direction you take it.

What would be stranger, though, would be imagining a life where none of that took place.

I can't imagine a life without my American kids now, just like I couldn't imagine a life without my Kenyan kids a year ago, and I can't imagine not being involved in the things that I am involved in now, just like I couldn't imagine not being involved in the things that I was involved in then.

When Christ said that we would gain things every time that we gave something up, He was serious. And, He didn't mean just that we will gain all of those things someday in heaven.

Ask my suitcase. He meant that those things were real, and He meant that those things were now.