Pursuing God's Call E-Book

Tom Lin

• Herausgeber: IVP
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Serie: Urbana Onward
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Seitenzahl: 57

Beschreibung

What happens when God calls you to follow him? Where might Jesus take you? What might it cost? And what kind of surprising blessings could it bring you and the world around you? Through sharing his own personal story, Urbana director Tom Lin shows how pursuing God?s call can take us in unexpected directions. As a success-driven Harvard student, Tom figured he was headed for a lucrative career in corporate business. But then God called him to a life he never expected. Despite painful resistance from his family, he followed Jesus, eventually going halfway around the world to pioneer Christian campus ministry in the virtually unreached nation of Mongolia. Along the way he saw how God had been guiding his journey all along. Our challenge today is that we too easily settle for less than God intends for us. We prefer comfort and avoid risks. But we live in an era of unprecedented opportunities for God's global mission. If we are willing to embrace a life of adventure, we too can discover the radical ways God can use us to bless the nations. So step up and answer the call. And God will surprise you beyond all imagination.

Leseprobe

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Pursuing God's Call

Tom Lin

Series editors: Nikki A. Toyama-Szeto and Tom Lin

www.IVPress.com/books

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InterVarsity Press P.O. Box 1400 Downers Grove, IL 60515-1426 World Wide Web: www.ivpress.com E-mail: [email protected]

© 2012 by Tom Lin

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from InterVarsity Press.

InterVarsity Press® is the book-publishing division of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA®, a movement of students and faculty active on campus at hundreds of universities, colleges and schools of nursing in the United States of America, and a member movement of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. For information about local and regional activities, write Public Relations Dept. InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA, 6400 Schroeder Rd., P.O. Box 7895, Madison, WI 53707-7895, or visit the IVCF website at www.intervarsity.org.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, Today’s New International Version®, NIV. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.tm Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

While all stories in this book are true, some names and identifying information in this book have been changed to protect the privacy of the individuals involved.

Cover design: Cindy Kiple Images: abstract background: © Matthew Hertel/iStockphoto housing icon: © Matthew Hertel/iStockphoto

ISBN 978-0-8308-6600-7

In honor and living memory of Sue Lin

Contents

Pursuing God's Call

Letting Go of the Dream

Embracing a Global Vision

A Costly Choice

Obstacles to Obedience

Saying Yes to God’s Global Mission

God’s Unexpected Blessings

Unprecedented Opportunities

Four Ways to Bless the Nations

A Dream Transformed

Questions for Reflection

Aknowledgments

Notes

About the Author

About Urbana

Urbana Onward Series

Spiritual Warfare in Mission

Pursuing God's Call

Partnering with the Global Church

The Mission of Worship

Your Mind's Mission

Deepening the Soul for Justice

Pursuing God's Call

It was the summer of 1991, and I was a high school graduate, ready and eager to begin the next phase of my life. The news from around the globe in the decade prior had been dramatic and world-changing, from the fall of communism, to the unrest in the Middle East, to the revolution in Tiananmen Square. But I still remember feeling distant from what was happening outside the borders of the United States; global events were interesting but not relevant to my daily life as an American teenager.

I was looking forward to college as the next step in my quest to turn my future hopes into reality. My plans were to study as hard as I did in high school, then attend a top-notch law school and become a top-notch corporate attorney, pursuing the prestige, salary and benefits that accompany such a career. It was my personal version of the American Dream.

“We’re proud of you, Tommy,” my parents would tell me whenever I mentioned my life goals, and their affirmation would send waves of joy inside me, confirming that I was on the right path. They were big supporters of my dream, as immigrants from Taiwan who had high hopes for me, their firstborn son. I was to fulfill all their reasons for coming to America in the first place. College, graduate school, a well-paying job and eventually settling down somewhere with a wife and family—this was the future narrative that I was supposed to follow.

Nothing I learned through my days and years in Sunday school or youth group ever challenged my dream. I thought the formula for being a committed Christian was simple: declare Jesus as your personal Savior, experience God’s unbounded grace and forgiveness, and receive his blessings on your life. I had served God faithfully in the church, I had been a longtime leader in my youth group, and I thought that continuing to serve God in the corporate world was his will for me. Achieving my dream would demonstrate God’s blessings to me, a comfortable reward for a lifetime of following him.

Yet now my life looks nothing like what I was expecting it would become. Instead of joining the business world after college, I went into vocational ministry. Instead of earning the comfortable salary of a corporate attorney, I have to raise my own financial support. Instead of spending my professional life in sleek American office buildings, I have found myself spending years in the frigid grasslands and slums of Mongolia, where the average daily winter temperatures are -40°F, and where staple American brands such as Starbucks and McDonald’s are nowhere in sight.

And looking back, I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Over the years, just as the world has dramatically changed since the 1980s, my personal dream has undergone radical transformation. I used to be a young American focused on my own dreams of self-actualization, but now my life goal is to help as many young people as possible recognize God’s dream for them: to be his ambassadors in a world that desperately needs to know about his love and grace. I can take no credit for this transformation. Only God was able to change my dream of self-blessing into one of blessing the nations.

Letting Go of the Dream

As a first-year student at Harvard University, I spent my first six months focused on anything but God. I shaped my identity around my multi-million-dollar American dream, which meant I needed to study all the time, in order to get all A’s, in order to become the valedictorian, in order to gain acceptance to a top-notch law school. But the more I chased after this dream, the emptier I felt.

Then I reencountered Jesus through the ministry of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. In particular, studying the book of Mark proved to be a transformational experience, especially the story of the young adult in chapter 10:

As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘you shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother.’ ”

“Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”

Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.

This wealthy, young ruler wanted a checklist from Jesus as a way to affirm what he had already been doing in his life. But Jesus sees right through his intentions and challenges him to do something much harder than he was expecting. “You want to follow me? You want that eternal life? Go and sell everything, your stock, your mansions, give it to the poor and then come follow me.”