I’ve always loved to travel. I haven’t traveled extensively necessarily, but I’ve been to enough places to know that I love the feeling of knowing that I will likely encounter a new person, place, or idea. I’m usually a mess just days before traveling—thinking about a million and one details that I’ve already thought about at least a million times and trying to make sure that everything is in order for a good departure and still in order upon our return. Travel is an opportunity to not only learn about others but yourself as well. Inevitably there will be delays, mishaps, and especially going to a place where you cannot readily communicate, misunderstandings. You learn how you deal with those challenges in a way that you cannot expect to encounter in any other domain of life. Often they come rapidly and are seemingly beyond your control.
Travel today is blithely easy. We complain about the logistics, the delays, and the inconveniences, but in all reality, it’s nothing as it was even 50 or 60 years ago, nothing to say of 100 years ago or more. Between communication, real-time data, and comfort and speed unimaginable just a century ago, we have the greatest facility to travel that has ever existed. We are pushing the boundaries of where we can go and how quickly we can get there.
I remember hearing a pastor once say that we cannot satisfactorily complete the great commission without a passport. I recognize that the hassle of traveling still exists, but the relative inconvenience and burden of yesteryears’ travel are gone. There really is no reason that every Christian, and especially every full-time Christian servant, should not have been on at least one missions trip in their lifetime. This is more than just travel to fill up a passport. This is more than just to have a cultural inundation or explore apparently exotic locales. This isn’t even to feel sorry for those people that you’ll encounter. Likely, they’re not nearly as miserable as you’d think or the media would portray them to be. This is a sincere desire to see the world that needs Christ. Beyond the vignette that we get on American television. Beyond the stereotypes that persist in our culture.
In those difficult moments of travel, when you truly realize just how small your world is, you truly will learn about yourself. Your vision is far too small. Your aims are often so misguided and egotistical. Your life really could be so much more if only given to the Master. You learn that there is a world that does not possess nearly the wealth nor advantages that yours may have, but the innate need for Christ is universal.
I’d challenge you to get outside of your world for at least 3 weeks at a time. Much less than that you’re just a tourist. Don’t be guilty of not seeing the true nature and condition of the world around you. You don’t have to leave your home country to see the need. Often, however, it helps to gain a little perspective and clarity. Lift up your eyes. The harvest truly is plenteous. The laborers are few—in number and little in strength. Only the Lord of the harvest can do His work. You’d be surprised what He would do in your heart in a different culture and land if you’re eyes were just open.