On Mission

I have a good friend who is a medical missionary in a developing country. As I sit outside catching some fresh air on this beautiful day, I spot a bird and am mindful that God, who feeds the sparrows, knows and cares about both lesser fears (mine) and greater fears that are presently felt around the world in the midst of Cornavirus. She writes this.

"Are we prepared if this lasts for months? Will it get that bad here? Will we be able to show God’s love when we ourselves fear getting sick? If there are only 150 ventilators in the entire country, how will that be enough for people who need them?”

They say there are a sufficient number of ventilators in my city, for which I am grateful. Still, I do not want to need one, I would rather no one have to need one, in my city or hers. She continues.

“..as the government tries to prevent the spread, people disregard the rules and run away from quarantine centers…..people have done crazy things and really don’t seem to understand the weight of their actions. It is difficult to show grace and patience when people everywhere don’t heed authority. It is a struggle to show God’s love at times.

It is difficult to show God’s love at times. We need His grace to do what He calls us to do.

“Only God can give us hope and peace knowing that we are not alone and that He will carry us through this…. I am torn with how I can help others realistically and safely, medically, practically, and supportively….Every missionary family around us seems to have their own perception of how they will weather this storm. And it can look very different as to how we all behave on a daily basis. This by itself can cause tension and disagreements. ”

Mission fields, whether we are talking about an unreached tribe in Africa or our own kitchen tables, are not exempt from disharmony. It is possible for us to have the same goal, and yet differing views as to how to get there. Yet even with our differences, we are unified by the first sentence of her last paragraph.

“Only God can give us hope and peace knowing that we are not alone and that He will carry us through this.”

May God grant us hope and peace, and may we open our hearts to receive it. We want to live wisely. We want to walk in faith not fear. Jesus has dispeled our greatest fear in these times, the fear of death.

“...and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” John 11:26

Since for a Christian, there is no death, there is no fear of death (we need not fear that which does not exist). Still, there are things we may be tempted to fear, things we are promised grace for rather than exemption from. Pain and suffering. Loss and grief. And while sometimes our fear of hardship may nearly disappear as we fix our eyes on the eternal, there may be other times faith carries us not above, but through our fears.

How I wish that I could give my friend (and even my own soul) some great assurance that not only will we get through the storms, but that the storms won’t be that bad, or that maybe they won’t come after all. But she and I both know that this would be false hope, and quite different than the hope our faith is grounded on. So instead, we point each other to the promises of scripture. To the One who has spoken these words.

The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; - Nahum 1:7

..for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” - Hebrews 13:5.

And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. 2 Corinthians 9:8

It is after all, His work. His mission. Submission is simply us coming under, or in line with, His purposes. We may not always see how He is working all things together for His good, we can still trust that indeed He is. There may be times we feel as the early followers did.

Afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken struck down, but not destroyed.. 2 Corinthians 4:8

May we take hope in the promise that follows.

For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

2 Corinthians 4:17-18