Today I was the ultimate missionary. I chopped down dead banana tree leaves with a MACHETE. My thumbs now have blisters. My white t-shirt stained with sweat and mysterious banana juice. Every chop and shaking of the tree brought looming fear of spiders or ants falling on me at any second. I somehow escaped unscathed.
I know that this is not the reality of always doing mission work, but it is what many people imagine I do on a daily basis.
Here’s my reality…
Oswald Chambers said that “the goal of the missionary is to do God’s will, not to be useful or to win the lost. A missionary is useful and he does win the lost, but that is not his goal. His goal is to do the will of his Lord.”
Learning what mission work looked like was a big part of my World Race 11n11 trip I went on last year. I realized that missions is a lot more than posing for pictures with kids and building houses for those in poverty. I think that if we’re not careful we can walk a fine line with a hero mentality. We think tell ourselves that the Gospel is comfortable and we put mission work into a box of “cans” and “can nots.” and we actually end up limiting what God wants to do.
We can sometimes look at things in a tangible way only. What can I tangibly do for you? You need a house? I have hands to build you a house and it will give me satisfaction to build that house. But what about when building the house becomes more about satisfying what we want, rather than what God wants from us.
Maybe ministry looks like sitting with a missionary who lives in country over a cup of coffee encouraging and reviving them to continue the work they are doing there. Maybe it looks like prayer walking through a community because you don’t have a translator and you end up playing charades with people to communicate. Maybe it looks like building a house and being okay if it doesn’t get completed in the time frame you specifically planned for. Let’s practice our perspective to be what was God doing in our hearts, in our interactions, in our behavior and attitude towards others.
I was reading an article posted from the perspective of a Christian in another country and how he has seen missionaries act who come to his country:
“Don’t get distracted with helping us only. Giving us money in a time of need is an honorable thing. Fixing our roof is something we will never be able to repay you for. But giving us Jesus is what’s gonna change our life. So use all those things to tell us about Jesus. Otherwise, we’ll just think you’re a really good person raised by amazing parents, and move on with our life.” (Danijel Zahorjanski)
