As a young college freshman away from home for the first time, I remember watching my parents driving away leaving me standing alone on campus. It was the beginning of a new phase of life and, frankly, it was a very different feeling.
While I had been looking forward to the new opportunities and the challenges of that new phase of life, it was very different when it was suddenly there and my parents’ car was disappearing from my sight.
I remember climbing the stairs to my dorm room and sitting at the desk, wondering, “What now?” I arrived on campus a week early for a job opportunity, so the dorm and campus were quiet.
In that moment, I remember writing a letter to my parents. While I don’t remember the exact words, I do remember sharing that I already missed them and sharing my thankfulness for them as parents.
That letter was one way to stay connected from a distance. During college, I called home once a week, collect, which meant my parents paid for the call when they answered. There were no text messages or WhatsApp conversations in between.
Letter writing is pretty much a lost art in this world of instant communication. Yet there is something very personal when we receive letters, especially handwritten letters, that we can hold on to and read again.
I think of that letter to my parents whenever I read a line from Steps to Christ, a book I return to at least once a year. In the last chapter, we find this quote:
"In every one of His children Jesus sends a letter to the world. If you are Christ’s follower, He sends in you a letter to the family, the village, the street, where you live. Jesus, dwelling in you, desires to speak to the hearts of those who are not acquainted with Him. Perhaps they do not read the Bible or do not hear the voice that speaks to them in its pages; they do not see the love of God through His works. But if you are a true representative of Jesus, it may be that through you they will be led to understand something of His goodness, and be won to love and serve Him."
As North Pacific Union begins a new quinquennium, the mission field God has called us to is vast and diverse. The challenges of reaching this mission field are great.
We have small towns and large cities where many people live, work and play. We have diversity in political and religious beliefs. We have many people groups living throughout this territory.
All of them need to hear about Jesus. We are called to share Jesus with them.
The words from Steps to Christ remind me that one way we do this is through our lives. We are letters to the world — letters that point people to Jesus. Letters are sent and delivered. As Christians, we are sent into the neighborhoods, workplaces and communities where we live.
In the last instructions that Jesus gave right before He was taken into heaven, He told the early church, “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all of Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8).
What do we continue to need in this new quinquennium? We need a daily infusion of the Holy Spirit, and we need to go wherever God sends us as letters to the world. God is calling us to be letters that point to Jesus with a united voice — letters that invite others to a deeper relationship with Jesus.
Inspired by what Jesus has done for us, let us live as those letters each day — together for the mission ahead.
