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Is God Calling Me to Missions? How Does Marriage Affect My Call? · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to Reformed Thinking. We are so glad you were here in
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the room with us today for this deep dive.
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To start things off, I want you to imagine, like visualize that
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you are standing at the base of Mount Everest.
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Oh, wow. OK, starting right at Everest.
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Yeah, we are jumping right in. So you were at base camp, right?
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And you are surrounded by the harshest, most unforgiving
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environment on the planet. I mean, you are preparing for an
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expedition that is going to push you to your absolute physical,
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mental and emotional limit. Yeah.
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The air is dangerously thin up there.
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Precisely. The temperature is completely
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hostile, and the margin for error is well, it is essentially
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0. So how do you prepare for an
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environment like that? You have to look at objective
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reality. There's no other way.
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Right. You study the weather forecasts,
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you calculate your oxygen levels down to the leader, you you test
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the tensile strength of your carabiners, and you pick your
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equipment based entirely on survival and efficiency.
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Your actual life depends on those objective, measurable
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facts. It has to.
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You can't just wing it on Everest.
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But imagine if someone showed up to base camp right alongside you
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and they pack their bags based entirely on their favorite
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colors. Oh no, that is a terrible idea.
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Right, like they brought a bright pink windbreaker that
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offers zero thermal protection simply because looking at it
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makes them feel warm inside. Or a purple scarf instead of a
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heavy duty parka because you know it matches their boots.
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Yes, they are making life or death decisions based on a
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subjective internal emotional state.
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And the crazy thing is, it feels completely right to them.
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They feel a real sense of peace about their outfit and it is
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totally satisfying right up until the actual Blizzard hits.
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Is a recipe for a frozen catastrophe.
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I mean, it is subjective feeling overriding objective reality.
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When you place those subjective emotional states above
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measurable objective conditions in a high stakes environment,
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the result is incredibly dangerous.
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You are effectively, you know, closing your eyes to the storm
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and just hoping your positive thoughts will generate physical
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heat. Which defies logic completely.
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It defies basic survival instincts, and it almost always
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ends in a tragic rescue mission or, well, worse.
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And that tension, that exact scenario brings us to the core
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of our analysis today. You sitting right there
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listening to this, you might be considering cross cultural
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ministry. You might feel a pull toward the
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mission field. Yeah, you want to see the gospel
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advance among unreached people groups?
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Right, but you are also married. Or maybe you are engaged, or you
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are a single person who strongly desires to be married soon.
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How do those two massive all consuming obligations actually
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align? Because taking a family to a
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foreign field, displacing them culturally, stripping away their
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native language, I mean placing them in a spiritual pressure
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cooker, that is very much like stepping into a Blizzard on the
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side of a mountain. It really is.
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So the mission we have for our time today is to analyze 2
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highly detailed texts that unpack the theology of First
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Corinthians Chapter 7. We are looking specifically at
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how it handles marriage and missions.
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All right, our goal is to tear down the modern sentimentalism
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that has really infiltrated the church regarding romance, and we
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want to rebuild a biblical view of the household.
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Yeah, we need a view of the family that actually aligns with
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the Great Commission. We want to understand how God
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designed the covenant of marriage and the call to the
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nations to function together, not as brutal competitors, but
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in total harmony. So let's unpack this.
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Before we look at the biblical solutions, we first have to
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define the false dichotomy that modern Christianity has created
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regarding romance and calling. Yeah, the texts we are looking
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at refer to this as the illusion of mystical romance.
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Which is a great phrase for it. Modern evangelicalism has this
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very dangerous habit of treating, you know, falling in
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love as this autonomous, mystical force.
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Right. It is treated as something
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entirely disconnected from objective obedience to the
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Lordship of Jesus Christ. We see this all the time, don't
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we? All the time.
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It is as if the heart wants what the heart wants, and we just
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expect God to rubber stamp our romantic feelings regardless of
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how they impact our life's actual calling.
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We treat romance like a Disney movie where the feeling just
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validates the action no matter what.
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Yeah, and what is fascinating here is how this romantic
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emotionalism leads candidates to make colossal decisions without
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ever evaluating how their future spouse actually aligns with the
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Great Commission. Which is wild when you think
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about the stakes. It really is.
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I mean, Reformed theology demands that our affections be
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subjected to the rule of Holy Scripture and the providential
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government of God. A calling to global missions is
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not some ethereal, subjective impression.
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Right, it's not just a shiver down your spine during a really
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emotional worship song. Exactly.
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A genuine calling is the alignment of sanctified desires,
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objective biblical qualifications, the rigorous
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affirmation of the local church elders, and clear, providential
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open doors. So when you bring marriage into
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that equation without objective evaluation, things get
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incredibly volatile. And the texts outline 2 very
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dangerous extremes that happen when we abandoned that biblical
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objectivity. Let's hear them.
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So the first extreme is pragmatic seeker sensitivity.
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I want to break this down because honestly, it sounds like
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a corporate buzzword. It does sound like something out
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of a marketing seminar. Right.
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This is where a missionary agency, or maybe the candidate
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themselves, treats a spouse and children as auxiliary assets.
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Oh, wow. Yeah, they become demographic
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tools for programmatic success on the mission field.
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It sounds terrible, but it happens constantly.
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A candidate thinks I need a wife so I can get access to the
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women's quarters in this specific Middle Eastern village.
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Or I need kids so we look like a normal non threatening family to
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the locals. Yes, precisely.
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It treats the human beings living in your own house as
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strategic props for a ministry resume.
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And the psychological tool that takes on a family is just
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devastating. I mean, when a spouse realizes
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they are valued primarily for their utility in a ministry
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strategy rather than being cherished as a covenant partner,
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bitterness takes root immediately.
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It has to. And the second extreme is just
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as dangerous. It is hyper spiritual mysticism.
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OK, what does that look like in practice?
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Well, this is the belief that a subjective inward impression
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dictates all action. It allows an individual to
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believe they have a direct, unquestionable line to God's
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will that somehow supersedes their spouse's conscience.
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Oh I see, so a husband might drag a hesitant, uncalled wife
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into cross cultural ministry under the guise of like
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following the spirit. Right, He essentially says, God
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told me we have to go. So your hesitations are just a
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lack of faith. Man, that effectively just ends
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the conversation right there. It does, and it almost always
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leads to massive marital estrangement.
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Both of these extremes, the pragmatic and the mystical,
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completely ignore the covenantal unity of the family under
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federal headship. OK, let me stop you right there
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and ask for a quick translation for the listener, because
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federal headship is a fairly heavy theological term.
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It is, yeah. In modern evangelical culture,
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if people hear headship, they often think of a dictator
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barking orders at the dinner table.
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What does federal headship actually mean in the context of
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a husband leading a family into missions?
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That is a vital clarification to make.
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Federal headship is not tyranny, OK.
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It is ultimate responsibility. Ultimate responsibility.
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Yes. Think of a ship's captain.
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The captain is federally responsible for the safety, the
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nourishment, and the survival of the crew.
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If the ship goes down, the captain is held accountable.
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Right. The blame falls on him.
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Exactly. A husband's headship means he is
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accountable before God for the spiritual and physical
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flourishing of his wife and children.
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He is not permitted to sacrifice his crew to achieve a personal
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ministry goal. That is a huge distinction.
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It is if he drags an unwilling crew into a hurricane, he is
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failing in his role as the head. So going back to our mountain
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climbing analogy, the pragmatic approach treats your spouse like
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a pack mule to carry your extra gear, and the mystical approach
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is tying yourself to someone who does not even want to climb the
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mountain and then dragging them up the Cliff face by the rope
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while yelling at them for not climbing faster.
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Neither of those scenarios is going to end well.
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No, we have to contrast those errors with the perspective
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found in the Westminster Confession, which views marriage
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as mutual help. When applied to a missionary
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calling, marriage is a strategic partnership.
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Yes, God does not call one spouse to the severe hardships
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of the foreign field while leaving the other indifferent,
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terrified, or resistant, right? To step into the Crucible of
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global missions with a divided home is to basically court
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domestic and ministerial disaster.
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Absolutely. And to understand why this
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modern sentimentalism fails so spectacularly, we have to look
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back at the historical reality that shaped the Apostle Paul's
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instructions on this topic. Yeah, we have to leave our
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comfortable modern context and walk straight into the 1st
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century pressure cooker of Corinth.
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The historical setting of Corinth in the midfirst century
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is essential for interpreting the pastoral urgency of First
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Corinthians Chapter 7. We cannot read this text as if
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Paul wrote it from a quiet suburban coffee shop.
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Right, It wasn't a rural parish. Corinth was a major cosmopolitan
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hub, wasn't it? Oh, massively.
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It was a bustling center of commerce, situated on an
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isthmus, which meant it had two major seaports.
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It was a melting pot of sailors, merchants and Friedman, and it
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was known for rampant moral degradation and Pagan worship, I
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think. I read that above the city
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loomed the Acra Corinth, which housed the temple of Aphrodite.
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Yes, complete with hundreds of temple prostitutes.
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The sensory overload of the city was intense, so this newly
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planted Christian Church faced immense external pressures from
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this incredibly chaotic Pagan environment.
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And Paul specifically mentioned the present distress in First
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Corinthians 7.26. When we read that today, we
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might think of a minor inconvenience like, I don't
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know, a flat tire or a tough week at work.
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Right, our version of distress is very mild.
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Exactly. But this was not a minor issue.
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The distress meant localized, brutal persecution.
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It meant severe economic instability.
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We are talking about famine conditions under the Roman
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Empire. Real physical starvation.
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Yes, we are talking about Christians being blacklisted
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from trade guilds because they refuse to offer incense to the
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Emperor. And of course, there was the
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very real physical threat of martyrdom.
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It is sobering to think about married Christians in Corinth
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faced the agonizing prospect of watching their spouses and
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children suffer imprisonment, starvation or execution because
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of their confession of Christ. So in that volatile environment,
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the physical and emotional costs of maintaining a family were
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exponentially higher than in times of peace.
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Just providing daily bread was a monumental task.
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And internally, the church was dealing with a deeply polarized
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culture. They'd written to Paul with
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questions because they were caught between 2 radical
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extremes. What were those extremes?
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Well, on one side you had the extreme licentiousness of Pagan
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Corinth, where the cultural motto was essentially that the
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body is just an appetite to be fed, so any sexual behavior is
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totally acceptable. Anything goes.
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Right. But then on the other side,
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there was an emerging asceticism inside the church itself.
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Let's break down that asceticism, because why would
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the Church swing to that specific extreme?
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Why would they think the body is inherently bad?
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It was heavily influenced by early Gnostic like philosophies
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that were very prevalent in Greek thought at the time.
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The basic premise was that all physical matter, including the
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human body, is evil. Right, and only the unseen
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spiritual realm is pure and good.
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Exactly. Therefore, to be truly
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spiritual, you had to deny the body completely.
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They viewed all physical relationships, even marital
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intimacy, as inherently defiling.
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They thought total celibacy within marriage was the highest
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form of holiness. Wait, if the early church in
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Corinth was leaning into this asceticism, thinking marital
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intimacy itself was defiling, isn't Paul walking a really
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tricky tightrope here? He really is.
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I mean, he has to correct their bad theology about the physical
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body. He has to tell them that God
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created marriage and it is a good thing, but at the same time
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he has to warn them about the actual physical danger of having
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a family during a time of intense Roman persecution.
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Yeah, how does he correct their theology without sending them
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into a wood chipper? Right.
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How does he balance that? Paul walks that line
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masterfully. He upholds the goodness and
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absolute necessity of marriage as a defense against immorality,
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explicitly commanding husbands and wives not to deprive one
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another. But at the same time, he
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elevates singleness as a highly tactical advantage for Kingdom
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expansion in a hostile world. He is not endorsing A
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philosophical disparagement of marriage.
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So he isn't saying the physical body is bad.
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No, not at all. And he isn't suggesting that
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singles are somehow holier. Rather, he is pointing out a
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logistical reality. The mobility of an unmarried
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person is a massive strategic asset.
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I see. Think of it like a military
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deployment. An unmarried missionary like
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Paul himself could travel rapidly, endure severe hardship,
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sleep in prisons, and face beatings with a degree of
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flexibility that a family man simply could not sustain without
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neglecting the safety and provision of his wife and
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children. Knowing that intense historical
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pressure is just crucial because it brings us right into the
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exegetical reality of the text. It helps us understand the
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specific anatomical vocabulary Paul uses to describe the
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structural reality of the married mind versus the
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unmarried mind. Yes, let's look at First
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Corinthians 7.32 to 35. This is where Paul outlines the
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anatomy of a divided heart. OK, laid out for us.
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The Greek word Paul uses in verse 32 is merrum.
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Now it translates to being anxious or having divided mind.
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Mirim now. Right.
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It carries the connotation of a heart being pulled in opposing
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directions, like a piece of fabric being stretched by two
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different hands. Paul's structural thesis is that
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marital status directly influences the direction and the
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distribution of this mirim, now this mental and emotional
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bandwidth. OK, let's analyze the two states
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Paul describes. First, the unmarried focus.
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Paul says the unmarried person directs their focus vertically
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toward the things of the Lord. Their goal is to please him,
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which which is the Greek word aresco.
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Their entire existential energy moves in a singular upward
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direction. They wake up in the morning and
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their primary unfiltered calculation is how do I advance
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the Kingdom Today? They don't.
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Have a check a shared calendar. Exactly.
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They don't have to worry about a spouse's emotional capacity for
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the day. They have an unbroken gaze.
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Then Paul contrast this with the married focus.
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The married person, he says, is anxious about worldly things.
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Now we must clarify that worldly things here does not mean sinful
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things. That is a very necessary
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distinction. It is.
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Paul is not talking about worldly vices or idolatry.
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He is referring to legitimate God ordained creational and
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domestic duties. It means providing food,
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managing shelter, purchasing clothing and maintaining
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emotional stability for the family.
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I have to admit hearing the phrase worldly things always
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sounds negative, especially in modern evangelical circles.
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It sounds like you are backsliding or losing your zeal.
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Right, It carries a lot of modern baggage.
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But if I buy a house, I have to mow the lawn.
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If the roof leaks, I have to fix it.
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If I get married, I have to spend time listening to my
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spouse, caring for them when they are sick, and managing our
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finances. So is Paul basically giving us a
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spiritual time audit rather than a moral judgement?
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That is precisely the right way to frame it.
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It is an objective time audit. Think of it like a computer's
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processing bandwidth. You only have 100% capacity,
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right? The structural consequence of
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marriage is that a person's interests are permanently
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divided. The Greek perfect passive verb
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used here is mariso, which means to be cut into pieces,
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fragmented or partitioned. Mariso, so you are literally
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partitioned. Yes, Paul does not accuse the
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marriage man of sin for having a fragmented schedule.
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He simply describes A structural state of reality.
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The goal for all believers, Paul says, is to live at Paris
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Bastos. A Paris Pastos.
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What does that mean? It translates to undivided
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devotion or being without distraction.
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Because marriage introduces God ordained distractions.
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Attempting to ignore those domestic duties for the sake of
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real ministry actually violates the covenant God established.
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Oh wow, so you cannot just pretend you are single when you
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are married? You absolutely cannot.
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You cannot ignore your wife's emotional needs, miss dinner
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every night, neglect your children's physical and drugs,
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and then justify it by saying, well, I am out here doing the
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Lord's work. I am preaching the gospel.
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No, that is not piety. That is covenant breaking.
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You are stealing time and energy that belongs to your family and
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reallocating it to ministry in a way God never commanded.
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Spot on. And this structural division of
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the mind explains so much about modern missions.
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It explains why so many families leave the field prematurely
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broken and exhausted. Yeah, they just burn out.
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A structurally divided focus requires total marital unity to
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survive cross cultural strain. If a husband and wife are
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pulling in two different directions while trying to learn
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a new language and adapt to a new culture, that structural
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division turns into a catastrophic fracture.
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Applying this structural reality to the mission field really
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explains the tragedy of mismatched callings.
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It explains the trap of coercion.
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The text draw heavily on the insights of veteran missionary
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Caleb Suko. Suko has some brilliant insights
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here. He does.
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He points out a very common agonizing tragedy in missionary
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circles. You have single candidates
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burning with zeal for the gospel who want to go to the hardest
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places on earth, right? But they end up marrying someone
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who completely lacks that passion.
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They operate on the sentimental hope that their partner will
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catch fire later. They think, you know, Once we
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get there, once she sees the need, her heart will change.
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But reality dictates the exact opposite.
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Suko's pastoral experience confirms that the domestic
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demands of a hesitant spouse usually extinguish the
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missionary calling of the zealous spouse.
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Wow, so it works in reverse. It almost always does.
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To marry someone who does not share your calling is to
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intentionally create a massive barrier to the very work you
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believe God has called you to do.
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You are taking your Merrim now, your focus, and permanently
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dividing it with someone who is pulling toward comfort while you
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are pulling toward sacrifice. The friction is immediate and
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relentless. Let's expand on that boat
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analogy we used earlier. Think about trying to sail a
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small vessel across a treacherous ocean.
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You are the captain. You are navigating the storms,
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fighting the massive waves, rationing the food, trying to
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reach a distant shore to deliver life saving supplies.
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Noble goal, but your Co captain does not want to go.
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They never wanted to leave the harbor.
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In fact, your Co captain is secretly down in the hall
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drilling holes in the wood. Oh man, you are up top
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frantically baling water while they are down below letting the
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ocean in. You will never reach your
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destination, you will simply sink in the middle of the sea.
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And the tragic response from the zealous spouse when they realize
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the boat is sinking is often a highly destructive habit.
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Carnal coercion. Carnal coercion.
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What does that look like? Well, when a husband realizes
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his wife does not want to go, he might resort to spiritual
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manipulation. He might use guilt or hyper
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spiritual arguments to pressure her onto the field.
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Like quoting verses out of context.
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Exactly. He might sit at the dinner table
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and quote statistics about thousands of people dying
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without the gospel, effectively making her feel guilty for
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wanting to stay home and raise their children in a familiar
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culture. That is so manipulative.
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It is. He might even weaponize church
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history, comparing her to exemplary missionary wise like
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Anne Judson or Mary Schleser, which effectively crushes her
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conscience. The result of that manipulation
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has to be an absolute disaster. Coerced agreement is not unity.
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No, it is not. If you guilt your spouse onto an
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airplane, if you wear them down until they finally just say
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fine, you have not won a spiritual victory.
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You have imported a seed of deep, quiet bitterness into an
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environment that is already strained.
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Think about the environment they're stepping into.
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Right. You arrive in a foreign country,
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you don't know the language. The cultural displacement is
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exhausting. You are dealing with intense
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demonic opposition. If you bring a coerced spouse
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into that environment, you are guaranteeing marital decay.
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That seed of bitterness will sprout and strangle the
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marriage. A lack of passion for the
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nation's cannot be fixed by a husband's manipulative
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arguments. It requires the sovereign work
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of the Holy Spirit at the heart level.
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Yeah, you can't argue someone into a calling.
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It really can't. If the agreement to go is
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coerced with the intense pressure of the field hits when
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the electricity goes out for the third day in a row, when the
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children get sick with a tropical illness, when the
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language barrier feels insurmountable, that underlying
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friction will erupt. It has nowhere else to go,
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right? It compromises the public
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ministry because the local see a fractured home and it shatters
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the private sanctuary of the family.
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Knowing that coercion destroys the mission, we have to pivot.
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We must outline the proper, biblically sound model for a
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family heading into cross cultural ministry.
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We need what the texts call the covenantal corrective.
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I like that phrase the covenantal corrective.
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Yeah, we have to view the household as a fortress rather
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than treating it as luggage. The Reformed tradition has
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historically held up the family as a little church.
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In this complementarian model, the husband acts as the domestic
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pastor. He is responsible for the
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spiritual, emotional and physical oversight of his
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household long before he ever stands behind a pulpit.
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So the home is the proving ground.
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Exactly. The Westminster Directory for
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Family Worship points out the duty of dearly family worship
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instruction and prayer. This is not optional.
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Extra credit for the Super spiritual.
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Right, it is the baseline. If we connect this to the
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standards of First Timothy chapter 3, a man must pastor his
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household well, managing his own children with dignity before he
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is ever qualified to pastor the public.
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You cannot bypass your own living room to get to the
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foreign pulpit. Your wife and children are your
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first flock. They're your primary
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congregation. And Suko provides some
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incredibly helpful diagnostic steps to cultivate this domestic
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pastoring, especially for couples who are considering the
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mission field. We can walk through these to see
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what this looks like in practice.
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Let's do it. The first thing he points out is
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the necessity of diagnosing the friction.
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You have to observe the signs of silent withdrawal.
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Silent withdrawal. Yeah, if you bring up moving to
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the Middle East, does your spouse lean in, ask questions
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and show genuine excitement? Or do they just endure the topic
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with a tight smile, give one word answers and quickly change
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the subject? That silent withdrawal is a
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massive red flag. When a husband notices that
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tight smile, the biblical response is not to double down
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on the statistics. No, you don't pull out the
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graphs. Right.
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The response is to abandon all forms of manipulation.
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A husband must lay down his persuasive arguments and turn to
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persistent private prayer. He must ask the Lord to align
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their hearts. He has to trust that if God is
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truly calling the family, God is more than capable of changing
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the wife's heart without the husband needing to act as the
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Holy Spirit. That takes a lot of faith to
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step back like that. And while he is praying, he
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needs to make his spouse his first mission field.
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This is the third concept from Suko.
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A husband must actively protect his wife's schedule.
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That is so incredibly practical. It really is on the vision
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field, or even just in preparation for it, a wife can
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become completely consumed by domestic survival.
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Think about it. Boiling water.
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Homeschooling in a second language.
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Managing A chaotic household in a new culture.
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It is a full time job and then some.
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The husband must step in, take the kids, and ensure she has
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dedicated, uninterrupted time for personal devotion, rest and
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spiritual flourishing. If she is withering on the vine,
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the mission is failing. And that leads to the
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cultivation of a gospel Oasis within the home.
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The missionary household has to be a sanctuary of grace.
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A. Gospel Oasis I love.
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That because the outside world is going to be hostile, the
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culture will be draining, the language acquisition alone will
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make you feel foolish every single day you're.
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Just constantly making mistakes. Exactly.
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Therefore, the home needs to be characterized by quick
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confession and prompt forgiveness.
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It needs to be the safest place on earth for that family.
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When a husband loses his temper because he is frustrated with
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the local bureaucracy, he must be quick to repent to his wife
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and children. If a couple can marinate their
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marriage in the flavors of the gospel, if they can actually
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practice the grace they are trying to preach, they build a
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fortress that can withstand the spiritual storms of the foreign
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field. That is the goal.
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You have to pastor your own living room before you ever try
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to pastor a village on another continent.
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Your first metric of success is not how many tracks you handed
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out, it is the spiritual health of the people sitting at your
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dinner table. This brings up a critical point
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regarding how local churches and sending agencies evaluate
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missionary candidates today. A calling to the field cannot be
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validated without a synchronized covenantal calling within and
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the marriage itself. So the Church has a
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responsibility here too. A.
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Huge one churches must examine the marriage, the character, the
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resilience and the unity of a couple.
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They can sit down with the wife privately and ask her, do you
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actually want to do this or are you just submitting to your
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husband's ambition? Wow, that is a heavy question.
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But a necessary one. If an agency sends a fractured
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marriage into the field just because the couple's willing to
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go and they have the funding raised, the church is acting
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pragmatically, not biblically. They're sending a fragile vessel
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into a hurricane. Having established the practical
25:55
daily duties of the household, our analysis pushes us to frame
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this entire discussion through the lens of eternity.
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We have to zoom out and look at eschatological realism and the
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Christological lens. Yes, we go back to First
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Corinthians 7, specifically verses 29 through 31 where Paul
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says something striking. He says the appointed time has
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grown very short. What does that mean for a
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married couple? Well, Paul is instituting a
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principle of eschatological detachment.
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He explains how the impending consummation of the world forces
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believers to hold all earthly conditions loosely.
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Eschatological detachment. Think of holding water in your
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cupped hands. You could hold it, but you
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cannot grip it tightly or it slips away.
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Whether it is marriage, mourning, rejoicing, or
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commerce, all of it is passing away.
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We live in a transient temporal order.
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So don't hold on too tight. Right.
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By placing this discussion right in the middle of his teaching on
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marriage and singleness, Paul forces his readers to evaluate
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their relationships in light of eternity.
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You are not building a permanent mansion here.
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You are living in a temporary tent.
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And Jesus is the ultimate archetype of this focus, isn't
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He? He lived as the perfect single
27:03
man. He displayed absolute, undivided
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devotion to the will of the Father.
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John 4.34 says his food was to do the will of him who sent him.
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His life proved that singleness is not a deficiency.
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It is not a waiting room for real life to begin.
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It is a state of supreme dignity and spiritual wholeness.
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A single person can reflect the image of God completely and
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fully. Furthermore, when we look at
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marriage, Ephesians 5 teaches us that human marriage is a
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temporary institution. It acts as a living parable, a
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physical shadow of a spiritual reality.
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A. Shadow pointing to something
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greater. Exactly.
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It is meant to reflect Christ's eternal covenantal love for his
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bride, the Church. The Gospel exposes our spiritual
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adultery. It exposes our constant tendency
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to divide our affections between the Savior and the idols of this
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world, including making an idol out of marriage itself.
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We do tend to idolize the family.
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We do. Yet Christ's priestly work
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provides pardon for all of it. He provides pardon for selfish
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husbands who manipulate their wives, for anxious wives who
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fear the future, for careless singles who waste their time,
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and for ambitious miniatures who treat their families like
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stepping stones. Let me throw out a hypothetical
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push back from someone listening.
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If the form of this world is passing away and if human
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marriage is completely temporary.
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I mean, Jesus himself said there's no marriage in the
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resurrection. Shouldn't we all just strive to
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be single missionaries? There is a fair question, right?
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Why bother putting all this effort into a temporary
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institution dealing with the friction and the structural
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division of the mind if the time is short and people are
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perishing? That is the exact ascetic
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temptation the Corinthians faced.
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But we must remember that while marriage is temporary, it
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remains a holy reflection of the Gospel.
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A holy reflection. Yes, a missionary cannot preach
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a gospel of grace to a village while acting like a tyrant at
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home. The parable matters because it
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points to Christ. The urgency of eternity actually
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frees the believer from idolizing either the marriage or
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the mission field. Oh, that makes so much sense.
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You hold the marriage dearly, but not as your ultimate savior.
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You pursue the mission zealously, but not as your
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ultimate identity. That is massive.
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It recalibrates the entire pressure system.
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So as we bring this all together, let's distill the core
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truth from everything we have looked at today.
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Marriage does not cancel a missionary call.
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No it doesn't. Rather, marriage tests it, it
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clarifies it, and it shapes it. It forces the calling to be
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grounded in reality rather than sentimentality.
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If you are a single believer listening to this, you must
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choose romance with biblical intentionality.
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Do not give your heart to someone who does not share your
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zeal for the nation's. Assuming you can change them
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later, that is a recipe for disaster.
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It is, and if you are an engaged couple, you must test your unity
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before taking vows. Have the hard, uncomfortable
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conversations about risk, physical suffering, language
30:00
learning, and leaving your extended families behind.
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Have those conversations now. And if you are married
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believers, you must stop treating your spouses as cargo
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to be transported to your preferred destination.
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Your spouse is your covenant companion.
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Your home is a holy place, a little church that requires your
30:16
primary pastoral care. I want to leave you with a final
30:20
concept to Mull over regarding your own daily life.
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We have established that the extreme pressure of the mission
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field acts as a magnifying glass.
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Yeah, it does not create new problems out of thin air.
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It magnifies whatever already exists in a home.
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The cracks just become chasms. Ask yourself this, what secret
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quiet fracture in your current daily life would be the very
30:42
first thing to break under the strain of cross cultural
30:45
ministry? That is a tough question.
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Where is the hidden resentment when you look at your spouse?
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Where is the lack of prayer in your daily routine?
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Where is the impatience with your children when they
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interrupt your plans cause the Blizzard is coming, the pressure
30:58
will hit and you cannot pack for the mountain based on your
31:01
favorite colors. You have to pack for the
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objective reality of the weather.