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Our missions month (June 2022) concluded, with Pastor Nate challenging us to ask God to break our hearts for what breaks His.

True confessions time – when I was first asked to participate in our church’s missions efforts (12 years ago), I did not have a heart for missions. I thought, honestly, the whole thing was boring and better done by others. I was convicted that, as a Christ follower, I SHOULD care. I just didn’t.

So I prayed – one of those short, “throw-away” prayers, along the lines of “OK, LORD, if you want me to have a heart for missions, please give me one.”

I did some “due diligence” – I read some missionary biographies (not boring!) and went to a Sabbath School class on Being a World Class Christian (not boring!)

But I was still not passionate about it.

And then, one day, God did what only God can do. He shared His heart with me.

I was grieving for my father and brother, who died without knowing the love of Jesus. How could heaven be heaven without the people I loved? And God made it clear – that pain, that grief, that was how HE, God, The Creator and King – that was how He feels about the millions of lost people all over the world.

That emotion, that truth, THAT is God’s heart for the lost. God used my grief to show me his passion.

And now I have a heart for the great commission – because lost people break God’s heart.

Have you asked for a heart for the unreached?

*If you want to read a more detailed account here’s a link to an article I wrote for the Sabbath Recorder:

https://theconnecting.church/fathers-heart