I’ve been thinking a bit about some of the myths about mission and missionaries. You might not agree with me, but these are just a few random thoughts…
Mission is only for the young and unattached, with no commitments. Well, we knock that one on the head. We’re not exactly young. Apparently, according to my mum I’m not middle-aged. I think that has more to do with the fact that I’m her youngest, and if I’m middle-aged, she’s worried about what that makes her! Whichever way you look at it, we are certainly not spring-chickens. And we do have commitments. We have a teenager and a nearly teenager. We have parents who aren’t getting any younger. We had a mortgage. God doesn’t call us to give up on our responsibilities, but He does ask us to take a clear look at whether we are willing to trust Him with our concerns. A number of years ago, my dad wrote a book called “My rights, my God” which was then reprinted as “Jesus says Go”. I’ve found that a helpful and challenging read even though it was originally intended for the student age group. As the saying goes “God doesn’t call the equipped, He equips the called.” There are no age-limits on mission – at either end. I’ve been enjoying reading Facebook posts from the 14 (?) year-old daughter of a friend who has just been to Romania with a youth team. Some of the most effective evangelism of the very young comes from their peers.
Mission is for those who are teachers, leaders, church planters, translators, medical experts, those with relevant professional skills. Again, “God doesn’t call the equipped, He equips the called.” There are definite needs for all of those skills and gifts above. But God values a loving and obedient heart over and above a dazzling CV. Neil’s a quantity surveyor – yup, no idea what that is really. We’ve been married nearly 20 years and I still don’t quite get it. He has business and project management skills, which will be useful. More importantly, he wants to go where God is leading.
Mission is for the spiritually mature and more holy. I’m really hoping this one is a myth! I don’t really feel like a missionary on the inside, and I’m not too sure whether or not I look like one on the outside. But as with pretty much anything God calls us to do, if I felt totally up to the task and thoroughly able to do it, then I’d be starting from completely the wrong place – a place of pride and not of humility and dependence on Him. We are all no more and no less than sinners saved by God’s grace, and anything and everything we do in serving Him, we do from the strength He gives us and the gifts and abilities He entrusts us with.
Mission is for those who go. Well, yes and no. “Going” is sometimes more of an attitude of mind than a question of geography. When Jesus told his disciples to “Go into all the world” at the end of the book of Matthew, they actually started where they were in Jerusalem. We all have a mission-field wherever we live and whatever we are doing. We live in the middle of people who don’t know Jesus. We work with people who don’t know him. We take our kids to school with people who don’t know him. Mission is an attitude of mind, of looking outward. For some of us, God takes us elsewhere. For others, He calls us to mission right where we are. And often that is much harder. In a different country and strange culture, everyone around us expects us to be odd. In our own country and our own culture, we are expected to fit in, yet as citizens of a heavenly kingdom, as children of the King of Kings, as people who are shaped by a spiritual culture, we don’t always fit in. And that is hard. Going might be hard, but sometimes staying is even harder.
At the end of the day, it’s less about whether we go or stay, and more about whether we, to use the words of a very old children’s chorus, “trust and obey”. Over and over in the Old Testament, we see that God values what is in our hearts much more than what is visible on the outside. He tells Samuel to pay no attention to the physical appearance of Jesse’s older sons because “people look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7) God tells the people through His prophets that He is not interested in their sacrifices and outward worship – He wants their hearts. God judges us by what is in our hearts, not by any outward signs of success. It is a truth that is both liberating and deeply challenging. I am set free from having to show the signs of “success” that others around me expect. But I am accountable to the God of heaven for the integrity of my heart. Can I say in the words of Isaiah “Yes LORD, .. your name and renown are the desire of [my] heart”? (Isaiah 26:8)
Will we go? I hope so. Financially it looks impossible at the moment, but we keep walking forward in faith. Will we succeed in what we are planning to do while we are there? I hope so. But for all of us who are saved by God’s grace, success or failure must be judged not by outward results, by deliverables, by completed projects. God will judge success or failure, surely, by whether or not the desire of our heart was to glorify His name and to obey His call.
There was a train of thought going here that has just disappeared over the horizon without me. So that’s it for today. Thanks for reading.