How Often Do You Go to Pakistan

I had the opportunity this weekend to go see “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” and it was an incredible adaptation of the book! When I first saw the movie trailer, it evoked a memory I had from elementary school. When I was around eight or nine, it was a required reading for my class, and the book has stuck with me for twenty-five years and counting, so to see it presented in such a beautiful way was touching.

Growing up, I felt like Imogene Hardman. I had one parent walk out of my life and the other parent was either never home or not very kind. I wasn’t well like in school. I was always wearing the same three outfits. I had a children’s church pastor from the neighboring town that drove over fifteen minutes each way twice a week to pick us up for the children's church. When I was attending, we were also in the Christmas pageant and because of my age, I was always a shepherd. As you can see, I can really relate to the Herdmans. 

If it wasn’t for the mother running the pageant sticking up for those kids, if it wasn’t for my youth pastor picking me up and planting that seed, the ending could have looked immensely different. I am almost seven years born again and it was that church that planted the seed. 

I am sure you are thinking, but what does that book/movie have to do with going to Pakistan?  Well, to combine two stories, I was sitting in adult Sunday school beside a my church mom (my friend who has become a mother to me) and she was showing one of the ladies her pen. It was a souvenir I gave her when I got back from Pakistan last year, having gone on my first missions trip. We were kind of laughing and the lady’s husband was joking that he probably would have brought back a sword, but a pen is a cool souvenir to have, too. One of the other people in class said, “how often do you go to Pakistan” in terms of getting fun souvenirs, but as soon as she said it, I had a burning in my spirit. It was as if the Lord was saying how often do you go to Pakistan, Jackie meaning how often are you spreading the gospel when the opportunity comes up.

Everyone is called to be a missionary. Surely you may say, I am not called to go to other countries and preach the gospel. Correct. You may not be called to go to different countries but you are called to be a missionary. Mark 15:16, perhaps the most famous scripture on missionary work tells us to go into all the world and spread the gospel. Acts 1:8 tells us that when the Holy Spirit comes upon us, we will be witnesses. That doesn’t mean quit your job, hop a plane, and go live and preach across the nations (although for some it might). It means you are called to spread the gospel in your family, in your friends group, at work, at school, in your town, in other towns, online, in the paper…and sharing the gospel might just mean showing someone the love of Jesus. 

In Romans 10:13-14, the Bible brings about a good point, as it often does. It says that those who call upon the name of Jesus will be saved but how can they be saved without knowing the gospel and how can they know the gospel if no one has ever told them about it? When Jonah went to Nineveh to preach to the nation about God, he was not happy. He argued with the Lord and the Lord told him, paraphrasing, how can you expect these people to be good when they don’t know any better? Once they learned the gospel, they turned from their wicked ways. 

 I recently taught my Sunday a lesson on missionaries and we saw many different ways that people spread the gospel. Some had disabilities and were missionaries via the internet while others went to various countries. Some sent letters to retirement communities and some went to schools and spoke. It was truly amazing to see the many different ways that people would spread the gospel.

I hear people say this a lot, but most recently someone was talking about how ashamed they would feel if they got to Heaven and saw someone they knew, and that person asked them “why didn’t you ever tell me about Jesus?” So I ask myself and I encourage you, how often do you go to Pakistan – how often are you sharing the gospel when you have the opportunity?