Revised from a blogpost in Finding Mongolia posted on October 3, 2015

This is for you, the one on the front line, the one who is living hard because God told you to. 

Wherever you are, whatever nation you may be in, I’m writing for you. 

Some of you will know exactly what I’m talking about here, and that is who this was meant for.

I’ve said it, repeated it with confidence before crowds of wide-eyed youth, pews full of exhausted adults, and even one on one with those asking about missions. 

But I lied.

I didn’t mean to lie, I once believed it was true, believed it with all my heart. But I see the fault lines in that thinking. It just can’t hold up to the scrutiny of what really takes place on the mission field vs. home base. 

I’ve been weary from watching some of my missionary friends going down,

one 

by 

one.

They are falling because they are a target. 

Like the soldiers on the front line of any war, they are rushing into the places least welcoming by both the seen and the unseen. They walk around with the red laser beam pointing at their head because they are the most wanted. They are on the front line, pressing in on enemy ground. 

It is hard to live that way, isn’t it? Hard to accept that everything on the other side wants you dead. It’s painful to realize, while you are pushing through day and night, fighting, engaging the enemy in terrifying face-to-face combat, many of your dearest friends and loved ones are on the other side of the sea, simply…living. 

Simply living is not un-spiritual. But it also is not missions. 

We can say it here, this will be our safe place to just weep over it. Go ahead.

Imagine a soldier who has rushed in to conquer territory, who watched his comrades die in combat, who walked across a blood-stained battlefield and planted his nation’s flag fresh into the dirt, imagine telling him that he was no different from any other soldier. Picture yourself pointing to the guy thousands of miles away whose assigned work was to type up the orders to send soldiers to the field, or to load ammunition onto the plane for this same war. Looking into the eyes of the soldier who has just lost everything… you say,

“You’re exactly like him…same mission…same war…you are all soldiers for the kingdom.” 

We wouldn’t do it because we know it’s a lie. We know one sacrificed so much more than the other. We know one will never be the same again, and may even be ruined forever because of his war. We know one will keep on working as if nothing has changed…because for one nothing has. 

So let's be real here. Let's tell the truth.

Some are missionaries.

All of us are not.

And, when you really know the result of a missionary life according to Paul, most of us do not want to be. 

Some are a bloody ruined mess exhausted from being a target, sickened by the reality of the front line. Some are worn out from what they’ve seen. Some are ruined by the mission; completely, utterly ruined.

I remember the first time I said it in public and the uncomfortable way it settled down on the gathering of beautiful souls simply there to hear stories of a life overseas.

It is not what they wanted to hear, and I understand that. I softened it by going on to share the ruining was painful and yet wholly good for me. I had lost a perspective I once held, I had lost much of my materialism, a great deal of my faulty theology, and even some of my fear. The ruining was a blessing, but it was also indeed every bit of a ruining.

Perhaps I should have said it more gently, but I was a missionary on furlough - raw and tired and realizing it wasn’t the same for my Christian brothers and sisters back home in the USA. There on the other side of the sea, when I was not on the front line and surrounded by strong Christian friends laughing peacefully, enjoying God’s goodness, I had begun to wonder why it was that we are all claiming to be engaged in the exact same battle. It was not the same.

And I think it’s time to say it out.
To stop informing every Christian everywhere that they too are missionaries.
Because they are not.

I am not saying one soldier has more value than the other.
That is absolutely not the argument, so please hold your debate.
I am saying that one soldier will feel it forever… and one just won’t.

Dear battle-worn missionary, if God has seen it fit to call you to the front line, let me acknowledge that it is hard and it is lonely and it is not the same as what I am doing right now today, working for a sending organization and mobilizing missionaries.

I am not a missionary.

You are.

… stay there.

DO. NOT. GIVE. UP.

When you see so many falling around you… fight harder.