missionary ppl

We read these books about amazing missionary people: William Carey, David Livingston, Hudson Taylor etc. And we're like "dang! I wish I were that Godly!"

Maybe they didn't start out that way. Hm? Maybe they had this wishy-washy (but God given) idea to go preach somewhere, with or without a passion behind it, and they said "ok God, you gave me this idea, I don't know if you're all-behind it, but I'll try it." and then they jumped into oblivion with little or no super-Christian godliness...

And then God chuckled and took them for the ride of their lives!

Maybe missionaries became amazing people after they jumped, not before.

My advice? Find your interests, listen closely to the holy spirit, and find something to do. Then sit on it for at least a month, pray like crazy, bring in an army of friends to affirm you, then jump.

2 Caveats: (making sure I don't offend people, basically, and clarifying some things)

1 Missionary people can also be called with violent amazing passion right off the bat. Good for them, but I think God might get more glory out of a confused but faithful follower.

2 Missionary people are not the only amazing people. You can be called to be a 'sender' as most often is reffered. I think of it more epically like 'raising the next generation of missionaries' or 'dedicating your life to being eaten alive by Gods fire', or 'putting tools into the hands of Christians so that they can be eaten alive" things like that. Or in war analogies, sender people could be artillery marshals (making literature to send out), or grease monkeys who work on tanks and things (making planes for...whatever that plane-flying mission group is called).

up/down decisions

In my head there is this pyramid of ideas, with the biggest, coolest ones like God at the top, and super tiny ones like brush your teeth at the bottom. People, in their daily lives, can use this fact pyramid to make decisions in one of two ways: top-down processing or bottom-up processing.

I think the first one is infinitely better.

Top-down processing starts from a few big ideas at the top and looks at many common sense actions that come (descend) from those facts. An example of top-down processing: God is amazing - therefore go spread the gospel, seek him in his word, love your spiritual brothers and sisters...etc. This is one of the cool things about God: when we're most satisfied in him, theology kind of fades away and we do things like evangelism and stuff because we want to, not for any logical reasons.

Bottom up processing makes a small number of decisions using a large base of facts. This requires a lot of thought and calculation. Bottom-up processing would be like this: God told us to go preach, and it would be nice to have other Christians around, so even though telling people about Christ feels kind of awkward - therefore I should go and preach.

It requires a lot less brain work and you're less prone to error when you use top-down decision making. Strike first at the big ideas, figures those out, take them deep into your heart, and many things will follow easily after. "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." Matt 6:33

P.S The ideas at the top of the pyramid, being larger, are also more emotional.