the rambling missionary

by erika haveman

Trying to move forward when your life is fully dependent on something completely unpredictable is exhausting.

This whole experience in waiting for my R-1 is attempting to reflect my life with Jesus.  It’s totally impossible to say where my life with Him is going.  I cannot tell you what I’ll be doing or where I’ll be in a year from now.  Heck, I don’t even know where I’ll be 5 weeks from now. There are options and possibilities, sure.  But can’t I just have a job that I go to every morning where I can see changes I’m making because I’ve checked off so many things on a list?  Can’t I have that?  Please?

I know it’s all about being satisfied with where I’m at, and ultimately I am…but am I?

2 Corinthians 5:7 says, “We live by faith and not by sight.”  In this passage Paul is actually having us consider what comes after we leave this earth.  He was reminding us that during hard times our eyes are to be on the greater things yet to come.

Great, Paul.  Great.  That’s great.  Eternal perspective.  Got that down.

But what about today?  What does that mean while you’re living?  What does this look like in the every day, mundane, breathe-in-breathe-out moments of our life?

To love people.  This is the best way to live.

So what choices in your life do you have to make, and what choice will embrace this answer?  What choice will maximise your opportunities to love people?  And what do you do when there are apparent limitations?

My life right now has some of those limitations.

1. I am not allowed to enter the USA (where I should be doing my job).
2. I need more support in order to actually do my job.

I read an article the other day suggesting one should take an average of 18 months to support raise before entering the ministry as a full time missionary.  Nobody suggested this to me.  Rather it was a lot of, “follow what God is speaking. He will be faithful!”  Yes, He will be.  He is.  This is the nature of who He is.  But when it comes to partnership with Him God does expect things from us – besides “serving Him.”  I put “serving Him” in quotes because we need to see support raising as an extension of serving God.  When we see things from this perspective we realize that support raising is necessary before starting work with any missions organization*.  I’m starting to understand the necessity of this and coming under a conviction that this needs to happen more often than it might.

This is simply my present example, but I recognize that all of our lives have legitimate limitations when it comes to living by faith and loving people.  Now I dare to challenge our idea of “limitations.”

Are they, in fact, limitations, or God given disciplinary measures?

Discipline is not the equivalent of punishment.  Does discipline sometimes result as a consequence to one’s action?  Sure.  But discipline is something God most commonly offers to us as a way to see a present difficulty (Hebrews 12:4-13) in order to strengthen us for things yet to come.

Tonight I watched the opening night of Passion Conference in Atlanta where Christine Caine touched on this idea of endurance in a world of immediate answers.  The concept of enduring is painstakingly foreign to most of us and personally it is something that makes me shudder.  I want my visa now.  I want to be in Montana now.  I want to be teaching the Bible consistently now.  I want to be making a real difference now.

Most of the time what we want to be doing, if it falls under the loving God and loving people category (Mark 12:30-31), are good things.  But enduring doesn’t promise, in fact it opposes the idea of, receiving a quick fix simply because something is “good.”  Christine suggested something along the lines of, “endurance over 20 years doesn’t happen over night; it happens over 20 years.” Enduring through discipline does promise that God will manifest His purpose for your life within the time that God needs it to be finished (for more on this read Romans 5 and 2 Peter 1).  And that finish probably won’t be until the day you breathe your last breath.  Following God, living by faith and not by sight, guarantees you’ll never retire because you’ll always be wondering on something.  You’ll always be waiting for an answer to another question.  You’re always going to be living a life dependent on something completely unpredictable.

You need to simply decide, in the midst of whatever discipline God has graciously offered you, how you’re going to maximize your efforts to love the most amount of people.  Within the “confines” of where you’re at, how will you serve God effectively and efficiently?  What environment offers you the farthest reach yet closest embrace?  Your life doesn’t have to undergo a monumental change; the change can be choosing to pick up a job a few hours a week where you serve people yet don’t leave your own hometown.  You’re reaching lots of people yet embracing where you live.

As I move forward into this new year, still waiting on the same thing I’ve been waiting on for the past…well I’ve lost count how many months I’ve been waiting for my visa… I’m left to consider how I can make the most of the situation that God has me in.  How can I work out my faith and honour the life God has entrusted to me?  How can I invest in my future knowing that endurance is necessary to fulfilling God’s purpose for me?  How can I live with a Godly ambition, keeping eternal perspective in how I live to love God and others?  These are the questions I’m choosing to seek answers to as I begin 2017.  Will you journey with me?
*Not all non-profit ministry organizations require you to support raise on your own, but many do.