Please Don’t Send Me To Africa…
Below is the chorus of a song that I used to listen to as a teenager driving around in my Ford Mustang. I was amazed that I could find the lyrics to this song after 20 + years, but I am convinced you can find just about anything on the internet.
"Please don't send me to Africa
I don't think I've got what it takes
I'm just a man,I'm not a Tarzan
Don't like lions, gorillas or snakes
I'll serve you here in suburbia
In my comfortable middle class life
But please don't send me out into the bush
Where the natives are restless at night"
Do you think God has a sense of humor? When I would hear this song in my younger days, I would think to myself, “That would be huge if God asked someone to move to Africa”. Little did I know these lyrics by Scott Wesley Brown were the preface to the next chapter our family is about to discover.
The second line really hits home…”I don’t think I’ve got what it takes”. Have you ever felt that way? I realize I have nothing to offer apart from God. He is only asking for me to be His vessel. After thinking about selling everything I own, uprooting our household, leaving friends and family, being apart from our church home after 18 years, it all gets very overwhelming. However, when I remember that He sent His only Son to die for my sins, saved me from eternal life in Hell and is preparing a place for me in Heaven…is it really too much to ask that I use what God has given me to share His love? Jesus Christ is the reason I can say, “O.k. God, send me to Africa!” However, I will pray that he will save me from the lions, gorillas and snakes!
Wherever we are serving, I think we should ask ourselves, "Am I using what God has given me?".
