They are mobile like the wind.
They belong to the nations.
They need no passport.
People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence.
They are free yet they are slaves of the hurting, dirty and dying.
This is a generation that understands its global calling. These people do not consider themselves citizens of any particular country, but rather citizens of heaven and as such they are free to touch the entire earth. They are the sojourners and nomads. They’ve figured out that what God’s doing is not confined to a particular city or country or culture. At the same time God is with the suicidal high schooler in Seattle, he is with the HIV-positive single mother of six in Mozambique. And because they want to be with him where he is (John 17:24) and because it seems he has chosen to give an extra dose of himself and a special kind of mercy to those who are hurting, dirty, and dying (Luke 6:20, etc), they will follow him into any and every corner of the planet.
Home isn’t a city or an address. Home is in the following. They have allowed themselves to be broken for the brokenness in the world. They give of themselves freely. They are slaves of all who are in need, because really, they are the slaves of the God whose heart beats desperately for them. And in this they have found a different kind of freedom. (1 Peter 2:16, Romans 6:22)
This freedom isn’t of the American dream “do-whatever-you-please” variety. This freedom means freedom from a small story, freedom from living confined to your own little world. They have prayed the most dangerous prayer of all, “Your will be done,” and are willing and ready to follow the Spirit wherever he leads. Even (and perhaps especially) when he takes them into the darkest places of the world.
God, make me the kind of person who sees you in every hurting and dirty face. Enlarge my vision to see the entire world as my mission field. I want to chase after your heartbeat wherever you lead…because when I am tethered to the wind and holding nothing back, I am free.