When I signed up for the race I thought all year I was going to be a super missionary. I imagined healing people, seeing people delivered of shame and demons, and witnessing some crazy, unexplainable, supernatural things.
Well quite the opposite is true. The race is over now now, and I can look back and recall on two hands the amount of people I’ve seen miraculously healed, or delivered of a demon, freed from oppression, or even receive salvation.
At times I will let the lies get the best of me. “You didn’t DO anything.” “This was a waste of your time.” Who are you fooling, you, a missionary?”
But this year wasn’t about meeting a quota, or checking boxes off a list. This isn’t even about me. It never has been. I had it wrong all along. This is and always has been about JESUS. He called me. He equipped me. He was by my side working in and through me the whole time. I was just more focused on me and less on the kingdom.
I came on a mission trip prepared to change people’s lives. But I received a hard reality. The people I met changed my life. I can look back and remember each month, who I met, conversations I had, and divine God encounters that forever changed my heart. It wasn’t me changing them. It was Him changing me.
I was silly to think “I could change them” to begin with. It’s never me who does the changing, it’s Him and the spirit inside us.
God brought me on a journey, to restore my love for Him, for myself, and for his people.
I came to homes, businesses, and villages expectant to fix people, change them, and save them. In most cases in most places the people are fine. They just need to know someone loves them. I came in with the posture of sadness, feeling “bad” for them.
But why did I feel bad?
I compare their lives to people in America and it looks different so “I feel bad.” Yes America is blessed beyond words, but it’s America I feel bad for. The people of the nations don’t need things to make them happy. They don’t have much, or require much. But they have joy, and they love Jesus. It’s simple. We just make it complicated.
Loving people shouldn’t be complicated. Love is the premise of the first two commandants.
Love the lord with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.
And the second is like it, love your neighbor as yourself.
If you love you God FIRST, loving people should be a natural overflow. But my mission wasn’t necessarily to love anyone, it was to feed them, build things for them, and spend time with them. “Loving” them was truthfully not my point of focus.
Scripture says, “They will know you are my disciples by the way you love them.”
God showed me along this journey it doesn’t matter how much money you have and it’s not about giving free hand outs. It’s about spending time with people. You can share your love with someone by spending time with them. You’re showing them you care. Time is something you freely give away, and something you can never get back.
I would encourage you through my lessons learned, Don’t turn people into numbers. They’re not just next in line. People are worth it. I want to ask you., What motivates your heart. Do you really love people? Are the motives behind your choices to make yourself “feel” better? To appear more “holy?” Is it about what “Christians” do?
Or do you simply desire to share the love of the father with them? To sit with them, listen to them, hear their name, or their story?
Every time you choose a number as if to say who is next is line, remember every number has a name. Every name has a story. And every story matters to God. Instead of trying to change people- let God change you. Just focus on noticing people, loving them for who they are, and just spending time with them.
