Just because I'm losing
Doesn't mean I'm lost
Doesn't mean I'll stopLost
Cold Play
So is it safe to call me a missionary yet?
I mean I am about $900 (and thats if everything pledged comes in) away from my first deadline, which is quickly approaching me on the December 18th.
Is it safe to say that I will be leaving in January with the rest of my beloved P squad?
I guess I just gotta have faith.
What is faith? And why must missionaries depend so heavily upon it?
Let's rewind about a week, give or take a few days, ago. I had just had an encounter that would literally shift my whole view on what I would be leaving behind and what I would be stepping into.
This encountered included someone very valuable in my life, finally letting me know that the did not agree with what I was doing, didn't think I could achieve this, the World Race.
It was a major tie that I had here in my home town…..and it crushed me.
I spent a day or two just grieving before I could really process what this meant.
First grieving that I would not be supported, even emotionally, in this journey by someone I come to trust and hold very dear in my life.
Second grieving that they did not believe in what I was doing. That yes, I can't do this, something so above and beyond me. But also the fact they didn't believe that I could have enough faith in God to do this.
After grieving, I had to sit down and be real with myself. What does this mean now?
I will not lie and say that not going didn't pass over my mind a couple of times, cause it did.
I valued so much the opinion given to me, that I let it affect what God was saying to me. Deep down in my spirit, I felt the Lord saying, "Do you trust me?"
My response, "Well yes."
"Do you trust that I said go? Do you trust that I will provide?"
Again I responded, "Yes."
"Are you willing to look like a fool so that My glory will shine through?"
Being who I am, my smart response, "What does that have to do with any thing?"
And I knew even as I asked that question, that God was asking me to have so much faith that I must look like a fool if He did not come through.
To go against someone who I truly value, to keep pressing in even though I have a big amount to raise before I go, and even though my circumstances don't seem to be looking so hot, that I still trust that He said "Go."
He is asking me to have mustard-seed faith.
You see, having mustard-seed faith doesn't only mean having little faith, it means having undividable faith.
I believe that through this process, through this eye opening experience, God is equipping me to be the missionary I need to be rather than the one I have been romanticizing to be.
He called me, so now He must equip me.
A missionary must have faith. Missionaries depend so dependently on God, faith isn't some theological word or some nice word you can hang on your wall as decoration.
It is requires real grit.
Real going against the grain.
The sand paper that smooths the wood.
It is the refining of completely trusting the God we serve. It is a requirment to be the missionary that He calls us to be.
So as I look to Him and trust in His provision, I am learning faith.
Its never easy, its demanding, it requires us to look like fools. But it always pays off, God always comes through.
I must trust Him in this. I must have undividable faith. I must be Kingdom minded, and trust God.
Because HE is faithful!
He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”
Matthew 13:31-32 (ESV)
