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In my first year as a new believer, I found a tiny book under the table in my friend’s place. I picked it up and could not put it back. It is called “They are waiting” by the Chinese missionary Asbjørn Aavik that walked with Marie Monsen for those of you who have heard about her. The book touched me so much that I went to the Christian bookstore and asked if they happen to have more, since it was an old book.
They had 10 copies left, but stored in the basement, not on display. I bought them and gave them to everyone I knew and asked them to pass them on to others when done. For what if we could only feel the heartbeat the Lord has for those who do not yet know Him.
The book is sharing stories of people who died waiting for someone to come and tell what eternity holds. Also, those who happily heard and received but wondered why they did not come earlier.
Why did they not come for those who searched for truth but could not find it and died waiting.
The context is the great revival in China during the early 1900s. Aavik talks about both our heritage and our responsibility. Our responsibility for the unsaved millions waiting and the heritage that we must pick up and continue with.
And the work that keeps us awake.
Missionary mind is unrest. But, you say, should a Christian have restlessness? To become a Christian is it not to get rid of all restlessness? Is it not to get rest — to get peace?
Does not Jesus say: “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” And don’t we say the same thing when we invite tired, restless souls to Jesus?
Yes, I completely agree. Here our experience of salvation is completely consistent. It is to become a Christian. And that was the most blessed day of our lives. The day he lifted the burden from our shoulders – the day he gave us his peace and the peace of heaven.
But while God gave us this peace, an eternal unrest was born in our soul. It came with a new life.
This unrest is God’s eternal unrest. But, you say, is there restlessness with God? Can he then be God? God — isn’t it going up into bliss — into eternal joy? Look, we cannot explain that. We are on earth and God is in heaven.
But in the 15th chapter of the Gospel of Luke, Jesus has drawn a strange picture of his Father in heaven. And this picture of the father is a father in unrest and scouting, waiting anxiously. “When the son was still a long way off, his father saw him — —” that tells us that from the day the son left, the father has continuously scouted out the way the son went – scouting and waiting.
It is God’s unrest. The unrest for the child in the faraway land. The child who disrupts and destroys the inheritance. It is God’s vision of a world on its way departing from him, which is his unrest. This unrest is what God wants to share with us. It was born into us with the birth of the new life — and is completely natural for every child of God. This unrest is one of the finest fruits of the new life.
John Wesley first traveled abroad for a brief time as a missionary. When he left, he said: “The world is my sorrow!”
Alexander Duff said: “There was a time when I had no care for my fellow men. That was the time when I had no care for my own soul.”
Count Zinzendorf said when he had become a Christian: “Now is the country, my fatherland, that needs the gospel most.”
Paul said: “I am in debt.” This is restlessness. And restlessness creates the missionary mind.
The eldest son in Luke 15 is a terrible picture of a child who lacks this mind. He was at home with his father and was well. But we search in vain for a word that tells us that the son shared his father’s restlessness. He must have noticed how the father often looked out over the path the child was taking. He could not help hearing the father’s sigh of heart in the evenings when they closed the gates and put out the lights, and the child had not yet returned.
The reason was: There was no heart connection between father and son. There was no intimacy. Therefore, the father could not share with his son. And the son did not understand his father. The behavior of the eldest son when his brother came home tells the story. Because he had not known the unrest and anxiety, he did not know the joy of returning home either.
We have brothers in the country far away. Brothers who went – and go.
Do we own the unrest for them?
But, you say, where is the happiness in the Christian life – does not unrest chase away happiness? My friend, this unrest does not rob happiness. It is there and creates a deep and holy undertone in your life with God. Joy, happiness, peace – these are the high, clear tones. The unrest, the holy unrest, these are the deep tones of sorrow. And without these deep tones there is no harmony. At least something is missing.
The Indian missionary Stanley Jones also visited China. Among everyone he met, everyone he spoke to, there was also a member of the government.
“I am a freethinker,” said the Chinese. “But if I believed as you Christians — in a heaven and a hell — yes, then I would have to be ten times as zealous as you are.”
It was a pagan judgment upon us Christians. Brothers and sisters of grace! Where is the unrest for all these millions who live and die without once hearing the name of Jesus mentioned? And so, the word of God says: “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12.)
About the Author: Marianne, a disciple-maker serving in Norway has graciously volunteered her time to invest and encourage our underground family.
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