Why God Calls Us to Dangerous Place
One of the most frequent questions we hear is, “Why do you go to places like Iraq?” It seems that Iraq is always in the news for the wrong reasons: terrorism, corruption, war, ethnic conflicts.
Kingdom Channels goes to places like Iraq to serve those displaced by war. But why? Can we not fulfill God’s call in our lives in places that aren’t so risky? We could ask: why does God call us to dangerous places?
It’s a valid question. When we follow Jesus into dangerous places, it’s not just we who go; in a very real way, our family, friends, and support group “go” with us. The trauma, pain, fear, and danger we experience deeply affect those we love and care about. Is it worth it? It would be so much easier to just ignore the immense challenges and human suffering in this and other areas, to turn away and focus on what is safe.
I have friends who have followed the call of Jesus into incredibly hard places; places so dark, shattered, and evil we wonder if redemption is possible anymore. But through traveling in some of these places myself, I have begun to look at the New Testament with new eyes.
Why are we called to hard places? Because Jesus was called to a hard place. And he never calls us to a place he hasn’t walked first. Jesus lived, worked, and died in a dangerous place. He (and his disciples) experienced poverty, hunger, exhaustion, hatred, mobs, a tyrannical government, and ultimately Jesus was executed. He did not hesitate to enter hard places.
His disciples experienced the same trials. Thomas followed the call of Christ to India, where he was murdered. Peter was tortured on numerous occasions, and finally executed in the worst manner imaginable: crucifixion upside down. Each of the 11 disciples were murdered because they followed Jesus to a hard place (except John, who was banished to a remote island).
The Bible is centered around people God called to dangerous places. Daniel, David, Joseph and Mary, Paul, Nehemiah, and Abraham are just a few of these. Many paid the ultimate price.
We go to dangerous places because Jesus loves the people that live in dangerous places. This is easy to understand: I intuitively know Jesus deeply cares about the refugee children our organization works with each day. I know Jesus cares about “Nadia” (real name withheld), who lost her family to ISIS and was taken captive, where she was abused for years before escaping. I know Jesus loves “Amed”, who came to our English center for quite some time before being able to finally tell his story of escaping ISIS. That Jesus loves these people is not hard to understand. It is easy to be motivated by this fact, to go and care about these and the millions more like them.
But that’s not the whole picture. Jesus also loves “Mohammad”, a teenager who fought for ISIS for 4 years before finally surrendering because he was nearly starving to death. When I was in Iraq last, he had just come from battle 6 days before and was severely wounded by coalition air strikes.
And Jesus loved Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the recently deceased ISIS leader, a man responsible for unbelievable atrocities, who showed no remorse for massacring thousands of men, forcing their wives into sexual slavery to his soldiers, and stealing young boys to be soldiers in his army.
Yes, Jesus loves even these. Jesus risked his life and ultimately died for them. And Jesus invites us to be involved in his work of redeeming the entire world, even those places like Iraq—even evil people, even those who could not possibly deserve him. But Jesus is waiting for his people, you and me, to carry his redemption and love to these hard places. For “how will they hear” unless someone goes to them?
In our normal lives we have come to expect safety, but this is not what we see in Scripture. Jesus has not called us to a “normal” life, but a life that is committed to following his call, wherever that may be.
If what we believe is real, our Christianity should work in Lancaster County and in Somalia. We are as free to follow Jesus in North Korea as we are in Ohio. We have created this assumption that following Jesus is “safe”; but we were never called to a “safe” path. We are called to the path of Christ; Jesus’ path is many things, but physical safety was never guaranteed.
Jesus’ path is infinitely better than our present “safety”.
His path is redemption, restoration, hope and justice.
Jesus' path is impossible, yet possible: those who walk it, therefore, have the power to turn the world upside-down for his Kingdom.
The path of Jesus could arguably be considered traumatic, yet it is healing. Think of the intense trauma the disciples went through. Think of the horrific things their families had to experience because they were radically committed to the call of Jesus.
This is why Jesus says, “count the cost.” No one said it would be easy, safe, or secure. But we are promised that Jesus will walk with us (and before us), just as he did for the children of Israel in the desert. We are promised that he is good, and that the journey was never about us at all, but about him and his glory.
Once we change our mindset, going to dangerous places suddenly doesn’t seem that crazy anymore. If Jesus has called us there (and he has said “go to all the world”), we can walk that path in perfect peace, no matter what happens to us.
According to Jesus, the entire world is worth redeeming. God’s Kingdom is the most restorative, powerful force this world will ever know; it is the only thing that can truly change dangerous places and bring lasting hope and peace. Jesus is the answer for these places. He is the only thing that can change destruction into life.
But we cannot be the hands and feet of Jesus to these people if we are thousands of miles away.
~A Kingdom Channels Staff member
For further reading: The book Why God Calls Us to Dangerous Places by Kate McCord explores these concepts in depth. It is a resource we recommend and use as part of our staff preparation.
