Life as a missionary on the race is sometimes great but sometimes it’s not good at all. Let me give you an example, I want you to go to the farmers market and buy a few unripe, rock hard, green bananas. Then I want you to boil those bananas and put them on a plate to let cool. Now you can eat those boiled bananas; this is something that I have been given for every meal this month! If you try this, you will notice that there is no flavor and it has the consistency of a baked potato with the smell of desire to go home and eat some real food.
Another exercise that you could do to know how a missionary on the race feels is this, go talk to people who don’t speak English, for 11 months straight. It’s fun and kind of cool at first but then you begin to feel stupid and you are in good company because by their laughter you can tell that they think you are stupid as well. See isn’t the race the best?
Sometimes I get caught up in thinking about the bad things but I don’t look at all of the greatness that God is using me for. I see God using me to mold the lives of kids, bring the gospel to people who have never heard the name of Jesus, and heal the sick. Heck I am probably blessing one of the people that I eat with every night by giving them the half of my boiled banana that I don’t eat. I don’t exactly know what all I do that brings glory to God, but I know that I am following God’s call for my life; I know that my life matters.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the truth for many people in this world. For many people, their lives don’t matter. Before you jump on me for saying that some people’s lives don’t matter, let me explain. All life matters, there is a meaning to life. Some people live a life that is full of meaning, and purpose. There are also some people who just live a life that is lacking meaning or purpose. So many people are living, but their lives without Jesus are meaningless.
Francis Chan once said
“Our greatest fear should not be failure but of succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter”
I think that this is a huge fear of mine. I don’t want to live a meaningless life! There are so many people that would say that they have a successful life but without Jesus, is it really a success?
We have all heard the expression; “you can’t take it with you when you go”. This rings true to me. What have you done in this life that will be meaningful in eternity? Are you planting seeds of the gospel into people that will hopefully reap a harvest in the future? Have you lead someone to Christ so that they can spend eternity face to face with the father? Are you teaching and mentoring a disciple so that they can go out and reach people for Jesus? Or is your life filled with things that will not matter in eternity? What I am really asking is, are you living a meaningful and purposeful life; does your life matter?
In Ecclesiastes, the author says that mostly everything is meaningless, because you can’t take it with you when you go. In this life, there is nothing of this world that will satisfy you, you will always want more. You can take nothing into eternity that you can hold in your hands.
At the end of the book in chapter 12 verse 13 it says,
“Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man”
This is how you bring meaning to your life, fear God and keep His commands.
There is a reason that Rick Warren’s book “Purpose Driven Life” is one of the all time best sellers. People want to have a purposeful life and his book shows people that the best/only way to have a purposeful life is to follow God and His call on your life.
Now I dare to ask you, is your life meaningless?
I find myself doing things sometimes that are completely meaningless. Do you ever lie down to go to sleep and realize that you have done nothing productive all day? I do this so often and I feel like I wasted a day and even worse, I missed out on something awesome that God had planned for me, something that matters. Do you go through the motions of the every day life? Maybe it’s time to make a change, or maybe it’s time to take a risk. God has an amazing, meaningful, life planned for you. I would hate for anyone to miss out on a meaningful life because they were afraid of what other people might think.
I want to challenge you to wake up every day for a week and pray that God would guide you towards His will for that day. Remember, God doesn’t want your past, and He even doesn’t want you to worry about your future. What God wants for you is to be present and lean into His will right now. This will require some boldness on your part because sometimes, God will ask you to do something or say something that is hard to do or say, but if you trust God then you know that His will is perfect. When God asks you to do something, just respond as the apostle peter did, “because you say so, I will” (Luke 5:5). We will not always understand why God is calling us to do things but if we will trust Him as Peter did then we will live a life that matters!
I would like to thank everyone who has been supporting me and praying for me while I have been on this journey. I am excited to share with everyone that I have been accepted to the G42 Discipleship Academy in Mijas, Spain. I will be going to Spain in October and staying for 6 months for this program. While I am there, I will be mentored and taught more of the greatness of God. One of G42’s main goals is to help me begin my lifetime ministry by surrounding me with people who share in my passions for God and His people. I will be preparing and hopefully creating a ministry that will come to life shortly after my time there. I heard God call me to this and I was hesitant to commit to it because I have been far from home for so long already and my original plan was to go back to being a youth pastor. I had my plan, but God also had a plan, and His plan is to give me hope and a future, and to prosper in it. Only 25 people get accepted to this academy every semester and I am blessed to be accepted. I now need to begin raising support to continue to follow in God’s will for my life. I must raise $6,800 to attend G42, and this price includes my schooling, food, and lodging for the full 6 months minus the flights. I would like for you to prayerfully consider supporting me with a financial donation. I am where I am today because of people like you, and with your support, I can do so much more. You are the reason that I have been around the world preaching the gospel, healing the sick, clothing the poor, and bringing the hope of God back into the dark places of this world and with your help, I will continue to do these things. So if you believe in me and my ministry then please consider making a one time or even a monthly donation. There are 2 ways that you can give, the first is by going to http://www.g42leadershipacademy.org/donate at this site you can choose to give one time or reoccurring, be sure to put my name in the name box. This option will give you a receipt and it is tax deductible. The other option would be to give to my gofundme account that you can find at https://www.gofundme.com/22xwcxcg this option is not tax deductible but is also an option.
Thank you all so much for your support, I am very blessed to have an amazing family of support behind me.
