Village To Village - Lottie Moon

1840–1912

As you wend your way from village to village, you feel it is no idle fancy that the Master walks beside you and you hear his voice saying gently, “Lo! I am with you always even unto the end.”

Every so often you’ll see a Christian interviewed on TV, and in the course of conversation, they’ll say something like, “The Lord told me that I should. . . .” It doesn’t really matter what the resulting action is. The Lord told him or her to change jobs or to write a book or to call a friend that person hadn’t seen for a while. Whatever it is, the interviewer usually finds it strange. There’s a smirk, a roll of the eyes. “You mean God talks to you?”

And we, the Christian viewers out there in TV land, are saying, “Well, yes! Of course! Why wouldn’t he talk to us?” It’s not strange at all. God has always spoken to his people. It’s usually not audible—it’s a feeling, a whisper in the soul—but we know his voice.

That’s what Lottie Moon describes in this simple quote. She was a dynamo of a missionary, reportedly four-foot-three and very smart. When she finally got to the mission field at age thirty-two, she poured herself into the work, dressing and speaking as her Chinese neighbors did. Always outspoken, she challenged her coworkers, her missions board, and the churches back home to do more to win the world for Christ. She often expressed frustration when things weren’t being done efficiently. For one thing, she saw that women missionaries were kept from doing effective ministry because of outmoded customs, even though the women of China were a vast, unreached mission field.

So we might picture her power walking to yet another village to do God’s bidding, and wondering in her wending what challenges await her there. And there, beside her, she senses the Master himself with a message of comfort, a message of support.

Where are you going to be “wending” today, tomorrow, this week? What will your mind be mulling over as you go? Frustrations? Disappointments? Worries? Look over and see Jesus matching you stride for stride. He is with you, and he’ll be with you always.

Go and make disciples of all the nations . . . And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

Matthew 28:19-20