“For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3, ESV).

He is tall, handsome, engaged, inquisitive and helpful. He’s a volunteer at the health center for the uninsured where I serve one night a month. His hope is to enter medical school next year. He asked me about my background, and I inquired about his. He was raised in an American Hindu home with his extended family still in southwest India. He had experienced both Christian and Hindu influence growing up. I asked him which faith he had chosen to follow. “I greatly respect both,” he said, “but I’m leaning toward Christianity.”

Am I leaning toward Christianity?

Is it time I quit leaning—and fall in fully?

In my life there have been two ways of falling into Jesus. The first came as my wife and I surrendered to God’s call to international missions in Nigeria. At the time I was truly dedicated to giving my full life to Him. He blessed me wonderfully during those years, but that ended with family illness.

When the illness waned, I spent six years trying to get back to Africa, knowing international missions meant full commitment to Jesus. I discovered that it could never be, that I would be a Christian doctor in the U.S. only, halfway devoted to Christ, halfway devoted to the world. Then God spoke to me. “I’ve got a mission for you if you will accept it.”

I said, “Anything.”

He then offered, “I want you to learn how to become a Christian doctor and be one.”

I accepted His call and have sought, despite many selfish struggles and failures, to live that mission: to be “all in” for Jesus where He has called me, not just a halfway leaner. It is so easy to be distracted, so hard to stay focused on the One who is calling me forward. Even now, on mission, I am so unworthy to continue, but I must. God has chosen me, as He has chosen all who love Him, for a life of mission, whatever the location or vocation—a mission in which we don’t simply lean but fall fully into Him.

Dear Father,

Let this be more than words.

Amen