One of my biggest fears for the World Race is that we won’t be anywhere long enough to make a difference. That’s always a hesitation I have with short-term mission trips. Or short-term service trips in general. (sustainability! buzzwords! yay!) Most of what I’ve learned about sharing my faith over the last four years is heavily based on relationships. YES I do still believe this to be crucial to discipleship – after all, discipleship is not just one prayer said at one moment in time but a journey through your entire life with Christ (hello, cheesy metaphors). But that doesn’t mean God won’t use us in those “hot seconds”.
Going into my week-long mission trip to inner-city Philadelphia this year, that was one of my biggest fears – that we wouldn’t be able to form relationships and we wouldn’t be able to see that fruit. However, one of the very first things Pastor Vega (founder and director of Inner City Missions) said to us on our first night in Philly was, “You plant and water seeds. God provides the growth.”
I heard it over and over and over again that week. “God provides the growth.” Our team was hit by discouragement many times during outreach that week. Our attempts at conversation were brushed off, people didn’t want to talk to us, they were hard-hearted and set in their beliefs, they were bitter towards Christianity, they tried to convince us that we were wrong and Jesus Christ was not the Son of God, and we even talked to some people who believed in vampires or were demon-possessed. I was even a little discouraged when everyone I talked to was already Christian. While it was so encouraging to see God moving in Philadelphia, I thought I was there to bring them to Christ, to present the Gospel to them for the first time and to see God work right then and there.
Every time I felt discouraged, I heard again and again, “God provides the growth.” Sometimes it was Pastor Frank, sometimes it was his wife, sometimes it was Harry, sometimes it was a team member, sometimes it was me trying to convince myself. It is a truth I’m trying to understand and believe in my heart.
I need to learn how to trust that God has a bigger picture for each person than I could ever have. I don’t need to see the fruit to have faith that God is always working, and that my labor in the Lord is never in vain. We will plant and water those seeds faithfully, no matter where a person is in their journey with God, trusting that God will provide the growth.
1 Corinthians 15:58
Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
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when I was blog-stalking earlier, I ran across this post about “hot seconds” that really encouraged me to thank God for the moments He’ll give us and think back on what God taught me earlier this year.
