Here’s another short but sweet post for y’all (Don’t worry, the 1500+ word posts will soon return, no doubt)!
So yeah, it’s easy to think ministry is working in a soup kitchen, helping abused women get off the streets, working with the homeless or orphans, etc. That’s certainly true, and they’re all great, necessary, and wonderful forms of spreading the Hope and Truth we know.
Some may feel that the mission field can only be found overseas, or even in the slums of the city; perhaps also even in areas in our own country that have been ravaged by natural disasters. Again, true and noble are those pursuits!
Want to know where ministry took me this past month? Well if you read the title… yeah, you know.
My team had an open invitation to go boxing. Now uh, if you know me at all, you’ll know I’m not uh… athletically inclined, let’s say, and I CERTAINLY know nothing of the finer points of boxing. Oh I can swing my fists at the air like no one’s business, but there’s more to it than just that! More stamina, more strategy, more versatility, etc.
But you know, when God provides an opportunity and you know He’s calling you towards it, if you’re in step with Him, your ability doesn’t really matter; your willingness and obedience DOES. The rest will follow.
I will be the first to admit, I looked like a fool on that practice field, and the body aches were REAL in the following days. In spite of all that, though, doors WERE opened, connections were made, and opportunities abounded! And it was all because I/we all did something a little off the beaten path that we were called to.
So how about you? Has an opportunity presented itself to you? Seem a little odd, “not-you”, or uncomfortable? I encourage you to give it new thought and take it to God in prayer, seeking the real answer! You don’t know the fruits you are missing out on, the seeds you could be sowing, or lives you could be impacting if only you just take thay step!
My squad mentor painted it in a new way for me the other night. She said that she hopes some day in heaven we get to watch a big movie that connects all the dots of lives we impacted along the way and the lives those lives impacted and so on and so forth!
Your faithfulness even in a little can do SO MUCH!
I’m really gonna do my best to affix this memory to my heart, and strive to become more and more like Paul spoke of in 1 Corinthians 9, “…for I strive to be all things to all men, that in doing so by all means I may save some.” He goes on to list all the things he has done so that he might meet people where THEY’RE at in life, and his mentality isn’t to save thousands upon thousands. No, he says, “some”. Just a few; even just one, or to even just change the way they look at things, for he knows God will take that faithfulness and multiply it!
Seek to be faithful, brothers and sisters, and don’t be discouraged if the harvest isn’t great or there is none to be found at all; the harvest may simply not be ready yet, and perhaps it is not for you to even harvest. I may never know in this life what impact I made on those people’s lives, but I have had a lot of help these past few days from my mentors and have begun to take comfort in knowing what they say is true, that I don’t have to worry about it; I have been faithful, God is faithful, and God will give the increase!
Be faithful with the part you have been given and some day YOU WILL see the true fruit of your labor!
And now, for your amusement: A 7 year old girl doing gymnastic stretches and making us look like idiots. 🙂 (PS, tomorrow we leave Belgrade for Romania!)
