ChuckLawless.com is a blog about Missions, Evangelism and Biblical Church Growth

When I was a college student in Oxford, Ohio, I knew “Lottie Moon” only as the name of a local popular bar named after a Confederate spy during the Civil War – not the missionary whose name our annual missions offering bears. During my first pastorate, I regret that “Lottie” still meant little to me, as our church gave scant attention to what was then known as the Lottie Moon Offering for Foreign Missions.

During my second pastorate, though, Lottie Moon took on more significance. Confronted by a Woman’s Missionary Union director who challenged me to love missions “if you’re going to be my pastor,” I began to learn about God’s work around the world.  It was also during that ministry that I married my wife, Pam, who had been raised as a GA and an Acteen, and who greatly loved the story of missionary Lottie Moon.  Knowing Lottie and promoting the offering named after her were no longer optional. 

Now many years later, Lottie Moon is increasingly important to me – not because of stories I have read, but because of people I have met.  I think often of a van driver in an Asian country where Pam and I traveled in my role as consultant for the International Mission Board.  Were a man judged eternally on his willingness to assist others, this man would be first into heaven.  But, this kind man did not yet know Jesus – and apart from Christ, he had no hope.  Who will continue to reach out to him?

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This past Sunday, I preached the book of Jonah, the story of a not-so-excited missionary and an incredibly compassionate God.  “The reluctant prophet,” we often call Jonah.  It seems to me, though, that “reluctant” may be too kind.  Simple reluctance doesn’t always result in intentional, unashamed, run-as-fast-as-you-can-in-the-other-direction disobedience.  Nothing within Jonah wanted God to offer mercy to the Ninevites, opponents of Israel well known for vicious treatment of their enemies.

So the prophet ran.  Down to Joppa, down into a boat headed to Tarshish. A great wind arose, and a fierce storm developed – so great that the boat was about to break up. There, in a picture almost hard to believe, the prophet slept soundly while a raging tempest sent by his God terrified everyone else on the ship.  Even the pagan captain was amazed: “How is that you are sleeping? Get up, call on your god” (1:6).  The sailors would soon learn that the one sleeping in the bottom of the boat was the cause of their trouble. 

We can only wonder how a prophet called of God could sleep so deeply in his defiance. Perhaps Jonah was simply exhausted from his fleeing; if so, disobedience wore him out. Maybe he was so burdened and convicted over his wrong that his body just gave out.  Little in the rest of the book, though, suggests that was the case.  In fact, the story ends with a dejected prophet more concerned about a dead plant than about human beings.  Whatever the cause for his fatigue, Jonah slept soundly while the people of Nineveh were destined for eternal darkness.  

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Today is Thanksgiving, 2010.  Families are gathering. The feast awaits. Most of us will celebrate traditions throughout this day.  Relationships will be renewed, and memories will be relived. 

But on this Thanksgiving Day, I’m bothered. I probably should have been concerned in years past, but the discomfort is especially strong this year.  I could surmise as to why I’m bothered, but the bottom line is this: I take for granted so much of what I should be thankful for.

Today I give thanks for Randy, my seventh-grade classmate who shared the gospel with me in the early 1970s.  I had never heard the gospel to that point, though I grew up in the shadow of more than 150 evangelical churches within driving distance of my home. Randy loved me enough to be persistent but patient, compassionate yet clear, gospel-centered and grace-filled as he told me the story of Christ.

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