That Weird Feeling after a Mission Trip

When I would return home from my mission trips to India, there was always some readjustment to make.  Even after one week, I would still have a weird feeling.  You know, that weird feeling you sometimes have after a mission trip?  Like, your normal is no longer normal?  I just want you to know that if your life feels a little bit battered after a mission trip, congratulations!  That's supposed to happen!

In traveling on mission, I learned that a mission trip is the perfect opportunity for God to turn your world upside down, and I have had the privilege of experiencing that feeling myself.  It will wean you of the addiction to technology and artificial social networks.  

By spending a week eating, sleeping, and living in close quarters with those that were serving beside me revolutionized how I related to others.  It broke my attachment to emails, texting and cell phones, because I realized that in those exchanges I was longing for something deeper. 

Fervent prayer can cure you of your obsession with endless knowledge and dead orthodoxy.  In James 5:16 we are reminded that, "The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working."  I didn't need to read another book about spiritual discipline or participate in another program.  I got to live it.  Since prayer was a means of survival on the trip, I actually experienced the Father's heart and walked away a different person.

In India, the abundant joy of the people we were serving helped displace my cynical worldview and general distrust of others.  Laughing and praying with them restored freedom to my faith and chased away a snobbish uncertainty of the church. 

But when I returned home, I didn't know what to do.  How is such an experience maintained, I wondered, and should it be?  Everything felt weird and uncomfortable; some things seemed even ridiculous (do we really need 50 different kinds of breakfast cereal to choose from?).

I believe we need to "fast" from our culture.  We take so many things for granted—like countless choices of places to eat out, much less the fact that we'll actually have food in our bellies each day.  While a mission project is just one means of this, even so, the "fast" is crucial to our spiritual growth. 

When we stand together with others in need, we learn that real life can't be contained, distributed, and purchased in mass quantities at your local grocer.  The real kind of life that we're looking for is a “narrow road” that few find. (See Matthew 7:13-14)  It's the sort of thing that you need to really search for, and when you find it, it demands everything of you.  You sell all that you have for it.  And as you lose everything that seems to be your life, you gain what is most important—your soul.  

Now, please don't misunderstand, I'm happy to be back where I can understand the language, drink and bathe in clean water, and soak up the air conditioning.  Yet, part of me longs for the not normal.

Because it seems that God works most powerfully when I'm out of my comfort zone, being stretched.  I don't know how to do this without going on a journey that calls me to sacrifice and surrender. 

A mission trip helps you do that.  It reminds you that your agenda isn't always God's agenda. You end up feeling like a whole person.  I don't know about you, but I need more of that in my life—more of my world getting turned upside down.  I need to remember that Jesus' definition of abundant life looks more like dying or being battered than it resembles a perfect resume or portfolio. 

And I need to remember that feeling a bit messed up after such an experience is a good thing.  It means that I was not made for this world. (See Philippians 3:20)  It reminds me of a story I heard years ago in Sunday school about a mustard seed and a tree, and a kingdom that is coming.