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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Peter Jordan
Read between
August 17 - August 20, 2020
he is suddenly aware that his arms feel like lead. It seems to take so much of his energy to reach out his arm. The wonderful, floating weightlessness of zero gravity that Al and his crew have enjoyed for the last eight days has gone; gravity has kicked back in.
In a few short minutes, Al and his crew have gone from hurtling around the earth at 18,000 mph to standing still. They have descended 135 miles through searing heat and biting cold. They have endured the zone of silence at a time when they most needed the input and reassurance of Mission Control. They have coped with the effects of gravity, and have experienced some disorientation. But they have made it home.
Or perhaps the heat will come from the fact that no questions are asked or comments made about what you have been doing on the mission field. Apathy and lack of spiritual interest are bitter pills to swallow, especially when you are bursting to tell people about God’s faithfulness to you during your absence. Disinterest and indifference generate heat.
internal heat will probably be generated by your inability to fully understand and respond rightly to people who seem to misunderstand you and why you went.
in leaving the mission field, you are leaving the support structure of friends and co-workers who have guided and nurtured you during your time away. When you arrive home, you must establish a new support structure. Until you do, the silence can be deafening.
silence can creep into your devotional life.
re-entry stress tends to push you away from Him.
ensuing silence can be frightening as you try to bear the challenges of re-entry alone.
you may have had certain ministry pressures to bear, but they are different pressures to those you will experience at home.
release the weight you are feeling to the Lord, who says, “Come to me; all you who are…burdened….Take my yoke upon you…for my yoke is easy and my burden is light”
he spent 313 days orbiting the earth in the Soviet Mir space station. He wasn’t supposed to be up there that long, but his nation, the Soviet Union, was breaking apart below him. People had more important things to worry about than Sergei, so he stayed in space for five months more than the planned length of his mission.
the longer you have been away, the greater the level of disorientation you are likely to experience.
As a missionary just returned from the field, you cannot help but have expectations of how people should treat you. Unfortunately, the reality is that few people are going to live up to your expectations.
“a good landing starts on the downwind leg.”
starts well before the airplane is lined up into the wind and descending on final approach to the runway. It begins many minutes before touchdown with a careful analysis of the surrounding conditions and preparation for all contingencies.
Closure is the art of bringing to a satisfactory conclusion the passage of life through which we have just passed. Closure enables us to move from one passage of life to another without carrying burdens of guilt and false expectations. It allows us to build on previous experiences instead of camping in the emotional fog of past memories.
This is why some form of funeral service or ritual is important in all cultures. The funeral allows time to honor the one who has passed on, time for the family and spouse to grieve, and a time of farewell to the dead person.
I put the old lady down several miles ago after we crossed the river. You’re still carrying her!”
still “carrying” the old woman, these people were carrying unnecessary burdens.
It is difficult to move successfully into the next passage of your life if you have not brought closure to the preceding passage. Therefore, it is imperative for every returning missionary, be they short-term or long-term, to bring closure to their time on the mission field. Failure to do so means you will never truly leave the mission field behind.
there should be a closing of the door to that part of your life as you move on; you can’t live there any longer. You must live in the present, not in the past.
recognizing and coming to terms with the reasons you are leaving the mission field to return home.
Your desire is to stay on the mission field, but circumstances dictate otherwise.
regardless of the circumstance, he recognizes his return as God’s will for him, and God’s way of leading him into a new passage in his life.
all manner of misfortunes, and saw each of them as God’s new opportunity for spiritual growth and effectiveness.
despite all he endured as he diligently sought to serve the Lord Jesus, Paul summed things up this way: “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose”
If you have to leave the mission field because of circumstances beyond your control, embrace the truth of this verse. God is at work, regardless of your circumstance, and He will be faithful to you.
it is easy to feel a sense of guilt about going, especially when going home means leaving work undone, or increasing the workload your co-workers must carry.
missionaries seldom have the opportunity to leave with their work completed.
Instead of focusing on having to leave work unfinished, focus on whether it is God’s will for you to leave. If it is God’s will for you to leave, you must put your trust in Him. God will take care of what you cannot.
There is absolutely no need to experience guilt about leaving the mission field in the will of God. Your confidence is in God, and He will provide. There are many legitimate things to be concerned about in preparing for a return home, but guilt is not one of them.
All too often, our ideals form the basis of our expectations.
We also expect God to do many wonderful things through our ministry as we step out in faith to serve Him. Usually our expectations are overinflated, and need to be modified to be realistic.
It is not necessarily wrong to be disappointed when expectations are not met. But it is wrong to let that disappointment fester into bitterness and resentment toward your fellow workers.
Working on the mission field is a high-pressure lifestyle. People are working in difficult situations, and are often cut off from their culture, family, and friends.
If you must leave behind a rift in any relationship, make sure it is one that you have done your best to mend.
If you leave the mission field with bitterness and unresolved conflict, it will be a stumbling block to you for the rest of your life, or until you finally face it and deal with it.
don’t, under any circumstance, leave the mission field with bitterness and unresolved conflict.
Have you learned the lessons God wanted you to learn while on the mission field? If you haven’t, He will continually bring similar situations into your life until you finally learn the lesson.
leave with a clean heart before the Lord, a clean slate with your co-workers, and with their blessing, if possible.
some may have gone to the mission field to escape a bad situation or an unresolved conflict.
physical distance is not emotion...
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He is a God who wants His children to face their failures, and to deal with them with His help. He will not allow His children to hide from their weaknesses and failures, but will continue to bring us face to face with our weaknesses and failures until we deal with them. In the process, we will learn much about Him and about ourselves.
begin to deal with them before you leave for home. Don’t procrastinate or promise yourself that you will make everything right the moment you step off the airplane. You may not have the opportunity to do so.
How you do it is not as important as making an effort at reconciliation.
Take time to lay your situation honest...
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assessments of your effectiveness during that time, and can identify both the things you think you did right and the things you think you did wrong, or which were not effective. It is also a time for sharing any insights you may have gained that will help fellow workers in the years to come.
Set aside a time for reflection on Philippians 4:8-9: “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.” Using this verse as a springboard, spend two or three hours alone, reflecting on your missions experience. As you reflect, make a list of the things you are grateful to God for during your time on the mission
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that they had not properly prepared for what awaited them. They had not adequately considered how much they had changed in their time away, and how much the society at home had changed.
Things have not been stagnant during your time away.
