It’s easy to do ministry when you are out on the mission field.
Many times our contacts and programs we are working with have already been set up for us before we even get to the next country.
Our leadership plans where we will be staying, how we will eat, what we will be doing, and how long we will be staying, so our lives are pretty easy, we just have to show up and do what needs to be done.
It’s in these times that it is easy to say that we made a difference and have a lot of stories and physical evidence to show for it.
However, the mission field, for many of us, is not everyday typical life.
In real life, back at home, there is no one to set our lives up for us.
No one to plan who we will meet, and what we will be doing from day to day.
It is in living our lives that I believe real ministry takes place, the kind that really matters, though often it seems less valuable and the outcome is harder to visibly see.
This past month, Leah, James, and I set out on a journey that took us through Namibia and Zambia.
Our goal was to live ministry, as we would back home, from day to day, not planning exactly what was ahead, but trusting God to lead us where we were supposed to go and what we were supposed to do.
And like life, there were ups, and there were downs, but as I sit back at debrief in South Africa, I know that this small journey, like the moments of my life, was worth every second.
I would be lying if I was to say that I learned some huge lessons about life and about God.
In fact, most of the things I learned and did were tiny compared to what others have done this month.
The one thing I learned was to be.
So often in life, I get caught up in doing.
I try to do what other people think is right, I do what I’m told, do what I’m supposed to, do what will get me one step ahead, do what makes me feel good, and I do all this because in the end it matters to me what others want and think of me.
So often I do all the “right” things, all the while never even thinking about God, because I am more interested in the approval of the world and those around me.
I let religion decide what is right and what is wrong, I let what other people think and expect decide the outcome of what I do, and when the day is done, though I think I did all the right things, what did I let God decide?
Life, though we wish it could, does not go by like a fairytale.
There are days when God chooses to use us for huge things, and there are days when we feel like He isn’t even there at all.
These ups and downs, however, don’t make our lives any less significant in His eyes.
This is how our ministry was this month.
There were days I felt useful, and there were days I was consumed in my own desires, wondering if I was really doing anything useful at all.
But it was through this that I learned to be.
I learned to notice the small things, the things many would look at as insignificant, even miniscule, and see Gods hands working.
That buying a loaf of bread for a begging family, touching the hands of a blind mother, having conversations with travelers and sellers, smiling at someone who is sad, and pushing a child on the swings, is just as much ministry as the million other things that get noticed and praised.
That we don’t have to go on a mission trip to accomplish Gods will or do huge things to make a difference.
It is in living our lives, however that may be, that real ministry happens.
When we choose to let God decide our actions and circumstances, instead of trying to gain the approval of others.
Though my actions are small, the purposes of Gods heart are huge.
