Hard Work

There are many things that people think of when they think of missions. Often you have an image of sharing the Gospel through a translator, doing music and skits, preaching, and other similar things. These are part of missions, a very important part. What is overlooked though is that there are a lot of other things that go into missions that are just hard work or maybe a lot of down time.

Over the course of the last week, I have spend several days working in a town where the temperature flirts with the 100 degree mark daily, torn down a roach infested house, built two new houses, made 3 trips to the airport and one to the emergency room with a sick team member and spent a day in Antigua waiting while team members shopped in a market that I have been to countless times. These are all part of an ordinary week. sometimes, the only time that I share the Gospel is in conversations that I have with team members.

You might ask why those things are important or why am I wasting so much time with such little impact. The answer is because a lot goes into to preparing the way for the Gospel to be shared. Sometimes you have to build trust with people so that they will listen to what you have to say. Other times, people want to know that you love them before you can have any influence in their lives. You always have to help the people look after the people that come to help you out. None of these things is what you typically think of when the word missions is said.

Just like everything in life, missions is suppose to be about bringing glory to God above all and secondarily about helping Him bring people into His kingdom. If my goal is to accomplish a certain task, I will be frustrated often. My goal has become to ask God to show me how to do everything for His glory and to do it in a way that allows people to see Him in me. I am sometimes tired, sore, or bored but I have learned that I can have joy in the midst of it all. My job is to position myself in a place that Jesus can work through me. Do the things He gives me to do without complaining and do it to the best of my ability. If I can keep my eyes focused on Jesus, anything I do will build His kingdom.