I’m not a beggar, and I know that, but at times on this journey I’ve needed to remind myself of the fact.
Americans know how to work. It’s one of the things that we are so respected for internationally. The high value on work ethic has created for us remarkable school systems, one of the world’s largest GDP’s, and a culture of people who are ‘human doings’ rather than ‘human beings’. In many ways, our society regards the value of individuals by the list of tasks accomplished, profits garnered, and achievements earned. This mentality is not altogether bad, but it must be recognized as one perspective among a sea of others if we are to see outside of it.
The reality is that there are jobs that need to be done that do not inherently have a profit. There is a breakdown in the capitalist mentality when the “consumer” of a service is a widow who has been comforted, a child who needs a home, or a woman being pulled from sex trafficking. Inherently, these “consumers” of humanitarian aid cannot fund that aid. The welfare of individuals needing help cannot always be made into a machine to produce profit. Because we tend to value individuals by their ability to produce, to rely on themselves, and to pull themselves up by the bootstraps, it can offend our minds to get a letter asking for money from an “able-bodied worker”.
Enter Natalie Gale. Educated at a prestigious (and costly) college and coming from a solid family, she is a picture of an “able-bodied worker”. After graduating college, it is her duty as a citizen to go get a job and take care of herself. Yes…and No.
“Why can’t she just work like the rest of us?”
“Why does she get to do the missions and we have to work?”
“Why does she think she can have my money?”
These questions are legitimate, but come from a victim mentality. The reality is that none of us “have” to work; we get to work. It is not an issue of semantics, but of intentionality and motivation. Work is an expression of intimacy and worship if we allow it to be. We are not trapped as slaves of men. We are children of God, who can work with rejoicing, knowing that our whole lives are about the purposes and plans of a good God.
“So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God” — 1 Corinthians 10:31
“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving” –Colossians 3:23-24
“Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people” – Ephesians 6:7
Mission work is hard work. It is heart-wrenching, beautiful, messy work. It is work where results are not counted in items sold or in tasks accomplished, but in hearts mended and hope poured out. It is work that is costly in many ways, and often doesn’t repay financially. It is work nonetheless.
The reality is this: I can work for money, and likely I will for the rest of my life. Missions [for now] looks like the World Race for me. Later, my mission field may be my patients, my children, and my neighbors. I am an able-bodied worker, and as such, I am choosing to use my talents, my training, my skill, and my life in this season to serve those who can’t pay for the help they need.
This, my friends, is a position we have all been in. It is not one of us that can afford the help we so desperately need. Revelation 3:17 puts it this way, “For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked”. This is every one of us… because all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). This is the reality of our own brokenness: incurable by human effort, precise systems, or moral guidance. The scar of sin went as deep as our DNA, pervading our lives with an unrelenting reminder that all was not well. We all needed rescuing. In this position—poor, naked, pitiable, blind— it was God himself who became the first mission worker. His mission was you. His mission was me. God came in the form of a man, taking on all human weakness, to enter into the messy, beautiful, costly work of redemption. It was because we could not pay for the rescuing that we needed that it was given to us for free. The life and death of Jesus Christ, the perfect God-Man on earth, was the fully body transplant that we each needed.
For a heart of stone, he gave us a heart of flesh and a new spirit. (Ezekiel 36:26)
For a nature of wrath and a history of disobedience, he gave us a new life and loving-kindness surpassing the borders of time (Ephesians 2: 1-7)
He chose to value the lives of those who could do nothing for him in return. He placed the highest importance of the needs of those who offered nothing in return.
It was because Jesus chose to bring hope, justice, redemption, mercy, and reconciliation to us that any of us can join in with the message of reconciliation. Because of this, I am asking. I am neither demanding nor forcing, but instead, I’m simply asking. I want to be able serve those who cannot pay for the help they need. I want to share the message of the ultimate sacrificial love of Jesus that rescued us each when we could not afford the cost of our own rescuing. To be able to do this, I am asking for support in prayer, finances, encouragement and community, because we all need rescuing we cannot afford on our own.
