On missions and yarn

I’m not going to lie — before missions entered our life, we had more. More expendable income. More assurance that the world was (mostly) safe. More comfort living our American Dream. More oblivious indulgence in our own pleasures.

I’ve never been an extravagant person. I’ve always preferred small houses to sprawling ones, cocoa at home to coffee out, warm slippers to leather boots, knitting to a night on the town. Nothing drastic, really. Nothing that shouts excess.

And then came missions, and with it, the knowledge that my $9 could buy a skein of my favorite yarn … or provide room, board, and training for a pastor in a part of the world where people who dare to call themselves Christian are routinely beaten, imprisoned, or tortured until death. Suddenly, my indulgences seemed, well, indulgent.

Not that my yarn is bad. Gosh, no. God gave me the love of fiber, the skill to work with it, and sometimes even the time to fully enjoy its beauty. I have knit both mindlessly, destressing and escaping my cares, and mindfully, pressing a prayer into each and every stitch as it passed off my needles. Indeed, I think God is often glorified through my yarn.

Yarn is not bad.

What’s bad is the refusal to acknowledge that we are blessed to be among the tiny portion of Christ-followers in the history of the world for whom our “quiet time” is nearly as precious as the Gospel itself. What’s bad is my desire to spend hours wandering the aisles of a local yarn shop searching for the perfect texture … and my lack of interest in hearing about entire people groups who have yet to hear of Christ.

Yarn is not bad.

What’s bad is forgetting that this small thing that gives you happiness is not a right, not an “I deserve this,” but a gift. A chance to revel in a blessing you DON’T deserve but are fortunate enough to have the time, the money, the margin, the life that allows you to afford such a thing. What’s bad is my irritation that I’ve lost the chance to spend another evening focusing on my happy knitting … and my lukewarm response to those who are imprisoned for their faith.

Before missions, I had more ability to keep my eyes focused on myself. Now I can’t do that quite as easily. God used missions to remove my blinders and give me the context in which to see the life He has blessed me with, and its inherent abundance, even in things that would seem barely worth noting as I live my life in a land of plenty. I love yarn, yes. But first and foremost, I should love Christ. I should love His Word enough to spread it into the places it has yet to be heard. And I should love the people He died to set free. That, truly, is the more that missions has given me.