“Convince yourself that the small things are big things.” That was the advice I received month one of the race. This has been something I have struggled with I think every single month.
I want to preface this by saying, I don’t know if this is true for everyone who has had the opportunity to do a missions trip or for full time missionaries but I know it’s true for me. Doing this thing and asking for support is HARD. It’s humbling and it’s scary. By having X amount of people support me I feel like I also take on X amount of expectations for the things I will achieve. Man, I have those expectations on myself! And I want to fill every single one of those for every single one of you. I wish I could tell you that every single day I am able to be a part of a life changing experience. I wish I could tell you that people have been coming in to relationship with the Father by the thousands or that every month I have witnessed people being healed and have been able to see a significant change in the places I have been but that simply wouldn’t be true.
What’s true is that sometimes we stand side by side with our host and help them dig 8 truck loads full of dirt to help level the property. My team might spend a month using a machete to chop down bushes to make way for a wall to be built on the property of a school. Somedays we are a part of a feeding program and put on Bible skits every single day. Sometimes we spend the day covered in sweat moving boards to help the workers build the second floor of a non-profit building. Sometimes I see things that wreck my heart and sometimes I walk past things and they don’t move me. Somedays I get frustrated with a child for not being able to obey and not listening. I get upset that there aren’t always opportunities to share God’s love with people because of a language barrier, government rules or in my fear, I just choose to look the other way instead of reaching out. I’ve complained about the heat countless times and grumbled about waking up to have to go to ministry. I have walked in to Casino’s with known prostitution and prayed for light to fill the darkness. I’ve laughed and colored and made myself look like a fool just to get a smile from a child. I worked my butt off to help lay a foundation for the first church to be built on an island. I’ve witnessed my squad mates buy a crippled man a brand new walker and I’ve handed countless bowls of food into hungry hands. I’ve had tears stream down my face in thankfulness when we found out we had enough food to feed over 500 kids and thought there wouldn’t be enough. I’ve been able to pray over girls who have known nothing but hurt from the people closest to them. I’ve had the opportunity to teach children how to speak english and love them when in my own strength I didn’t have the patience. I’ve made friends with a woman whose life was wrecked by a typhoon and heard how God has redeemed her story. I’ve shared countless tears with my teammates as we encourage each other to press deeper in to relationship with our heavenly Dad. I’ve been able to be apart of a community that I have never experienced before. One that has empowered me with words of truth and life. A community that has taught me so much of vulnerability, mistakes, forgiveness, intentionality, constructive criticism, laughter, and lots and lots of love.
Slowly but surely I’ve come to realize that this is what the body of Christ does. We do the little things. Because doing those little things gives God the room to do the big things. God doesn’t call us to change the world. He calls us to allow him to change us and turn around and invite others to do the same. Sometimes that doesn’t always happen before our eyes and he doesn’t promise that it will. But His word does say, “For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: you shall love your neighbor as yourself” Galatians 5:14 Sometimes love calls for grand gestures, and I can say God has done some big things before my eyes, but a lot of times love is the little things. Jesus made the ultimate grand gesture by dying on the cross to pay for our sins and pave the way to heaven. He truly loved us as himself and proved that by giving his life. But he doesn’t stop there. He didn’t start there either. Jesus didn’t come, die, and then leave. He came, loved, healed, shared his relationship with the father, taught, and forgave. He came and formed relationships with his disciples and loved them through all their shame. The disciples didn’t follow Christ because they would be condemned to hell if they didn’t go. They followed him because simply by telling them to follow him meant he wanted to invest in their lives. He didn’t force them, he just gave them an opportunity. All he asks is that we do the same. “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:19-20 So is the ultimate goal to bring people to the cross to understand the hope and freedom behind that symbol? Absolutely. But doing that involves doing little things. It involves investing in relationships and investing in people who can better invest in the people of the country we are in. It involves love and humility and lots of trust. It involves not always being able to see the growth after you’ve planted the seed. It truly involves believing that all the little things you are doing are big things.
I guess that’s the expectation I want to set for myself. That I love as Christ loves. As small as that can sometimes mean. So maybe I can’t tell you that I’ve witnessed endless lives being changed. But I can tell you that his love is changing me and I am doing what I can to share that love that God so freely gives us and trust that he will do the rest.
