Surrounded by kids ages 5-15, teaching English in individual classrooms, swarmed everywhere we go by little arms wrapped around our legs and heads uplifted for kisses…our month in Thailand has been a blur of lessons, laughs, love and one big lie that has reared its ugly head.
Our team has been teaching at a Buddhist school this month right next to a Buddhist temple. Our daily hosts are not Christians. The kids do not know about Jesus. They fold their hands and do their chant to Buddha everyday before lunch.
The hardest part is, none of the students or teachers we have been working with know enough English to have even a basic conversation.
I have never experienced a month with such difficulty in communicating. Trying to explain simple games and concepts is next to impossible.
The lie that was creeping in is this:
- If you are not preaching the Word of God, you are not building the Kingdom.
In my head, I know it’s not true, but in my heart there was a slight twinge of fear, thinking I would be looked down upon because I have not been spreading the Gospel this month.
Fear that I have been failing to fulfill the ‘good missionary’ stereotype.
This morning I sat reflecting, asking the Lord what He has been doing, how He has been moving and what He wants me to grow in from this month.
Throughout our time, He has been revealing to me that He’s had our team here for a particular reason. He has planted seeds. He has placed us here as lights to shine in the darkness.
“The light shines in the darkness and the darkness can never extinguish it.” John 1:5 (NLT)
But this morning He addressed this lie further and caught me off guard with a surprising concept,
You don’t always have to tell the truth…..
(Huh? Did I miss part of that God?)
Daughter, you don’t always have to speak truth from the words in your mouth. I want you to live truth. When you live through my truth, you speak Christ to others.
You share Life by showing Life – a life hidden in me.
The fear, the big fat lie that I’m not furthering the Kingdom…
…it all disappeared as Abba began reminding me of the ways in which He has been working through us this month. The ways we have been furthering His kingdom.
Instead of sharing Christ – the Way, the Truth and the Life – through my words, I have shown Life. I’ve shown Him to my students, the teachers, our hosts and even a Buddhist monk through my life hidden in Him (see: Buddhists encounter the Creator of beauty.).
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“Now all glory to God, who is able, through His mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. Glory to Him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen.” -Ephesians 3:20-21 (NLT)
