When on a mission trip, it is so easy to lose the passion that we had at first and to become discouraged. We spend our days working in places full of suffering people. The problems seem too big. Our strength seems too small. And so our hands begin to loosen the grip we had on our sword.
Suffering is not confined to a particular people group or area of the globe. As I have walked the streets of Bangkok in the Red Light District and seen the dead eyes of a prostitute, sat in the home of a woman in Klang Rayong who can barely feed her children, held the hand of a child on the streets of Cambodia who has very likely not eaten in days, and ran around with a boy from a slum with clothes far too small for his body, my heart always feels the same sort of desperation. I am desperate for someone to do something to help. Desperate to know what I can do. Desperate for God to act.
Many times I don’t even know how to react. I just ask myself this question: What can I do to really help this suffering person and others like them?
People get hungry again. Clothes wear out. Children forget the stories you taught them. What can we do that actually makes a difference?
It is so easy for World Racers to fall into this trap of discouragement. We think that the work we are doing has no meaning, when in reality we are doing the only thing that has any value: loving. When you open your heart to love people, real change happens.
What was the greatest work that Jesus Christ did while He was on the earth? What one thought occupied His every waking moment? It was love. Love for God and love for people. Love drove Him to the manger in Bethlehem, to feed 5,000 people, to open the eyes of the blind, to step in front of the adulterous woman. And love ultimately drove Him to the cross at Calvary. Love. There is no greater work.
Love is what makes our toil worth it. Love is what brings lasting change. Love will never pass away. Of course you can’t see the results of your labor. We live by faith and not by sight. So walk in love, wherever you are in the world, believing that the Holy Spirit will work and that your love (if it is empowered from God) will do incredible things.
Love will conquer suffering. Love already has. Let us walk in that victory knowing that the God who is love has already borne all of our burdens.
