A Call to Unnatural Obedience: When Faithfully Following Jesus Doesn’t Feel Easy

I curl up on our couch across from this dear friend after our families finished dinner together. We met through her husband—our first Kenyan acquaintance in this country we now call home. She subconsciously rubs her first-time pregnant belly while I wrangle my kids into their pajamas. The four of us discuss their work with an unreached people group here in Nairobi.

They share stories of hilarious cultural mistakes they've made while also recalling impossibly hard situations they've had to navigate. There are no miraculous accounts of major heart changes yet—simply stories of consistently loving the people the Lord puts in their midst. With heavy opposition and a lack of immediate fruit, surely these friends must feel specifically led to work within this culture—but then we get hit with the biggest shock yet.

"I never felt 'called' to this particular people. I still don’t," she admits with a chuckle.

My husband and I glance at each other, eyebrows raised in clear surprise, before I ask: "What makes you keep going, then?"

She pauses thoughtfully, then replies without a hint of pretense, "Honestly? Because of the love of Jesus. He loves them, and he enables us to love them, too."

Later that evening, after we've tucked our two children in bed and prepped for another day to do it all over again, I'm struck by this couples' resolve to continue serving and loving this people group when their “yes” to Christ has been anything but natural. I wonder what it takes to display that kind of steadfast submission, especially as my body and emotions crash on the couch after a long day of loving my own little people—who are precious but still sometimes extremely difficult.

A call to faithfulness in the mundane

The past few years, I've wrestled with the Lord over a desire to do something “more” while knee-deep in diapers, sibling squabbles, and taxiing people to and from. I love my children, but I don't always like getting their poop stuck in my fingernails or repeating myself to distracted little ears a million times a day.

My natural inclination is to go out and “do,” yet time and time again, God's answer to my questions and desire for something different is the same: Be patient and present with my children and husband.[1] Open my home as a safe place for others to experience the gospel.[2] Seek him with my whole heart, soul, and mind.[3] Display a deep faithfulness and obedience in the monotony of my current spheres of influence and well-trodden paths.[4]

It is in seasons like these—where obedience doesn’t always feel glorious or lead to immediate fruit—that God is most showing me how to live a life of humble service for his glory. 

The unseen moments in Scripture

In this day and age of flashy Instagram pages and large followings, it’s easy to be drawn to the heroic characters in the Bible as well—the leaders, the warriors, the martyrs. But the more I've studied in between the lines of their bigger moments, the more I've noticed how much of their lives was spent in both unnatural and unremarkable circumstances.

When Daniel wasn't in the lions' den or interpreting dreams, he was being trained to serve a pagan king in a foreign land, stripped of everything previously known to him.[5] Before Ruth was listed in the lineage of our long-awaited Savior, she was picking dropped grains in the sun-pierced fields of Boaz.[6] On Paul's journey to Jerusalem, he was held in custody in Caesarea for two years and then later placed under house arrest in Rome for another two years.[7]

I wager these biblical heroes didn't love every season they found themselves in or even clearly see God's hand in how they got to that place of service and obedience. We naturally tend to emphasize roles that seem more important or opportunities where we always thrive, but perhaps God wants us to first and foremost be obedient in the small things: "One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much" (Luke 16:10). 

My friend, whose son is now almost one, is still working amongst the S* people. She spends her son’s nap times learning the people’s language and working on projects that will honor their culture. She also does everyday tasks such as laundry and washing bottles, trying to balance where her “yeses” should and should not be given. Her season of ministry has shifted, but her faithfulness to the heart of Christ has not, whether at the kitchen sink or the streets of Kenya.

Like her, may we continue fighting to joyfully show up, even when we don't feel like it or wish it looked a little more polished. May we serve our families and communities faithfully, out of the overflow of being loved by God. May we continue laying our lives down at the altar of our El Roi—“a God of seeing" (Genesis 16:13)—one small, unnatural step at a time.

*Name of people group hidden for security purposes.

[1] Colossians 3:12-13

[2] Isaiah 58:7

[3] Jeremiah 29:13

[4] 1 Timothy 5:10

[5] Daniel 1, 2, 6

[6] Ruth 1-4

[7] Acts 23-28