I’m joining Amy at Mom’s Toolbox over the next several months in blogging through the Gospels each day. Won’t you join us?!?
—
“The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.
Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.
{Matthew 9.37-38}
Growing up, I loved it when missionaries would come to our church and share their slides and tell us about their work overseas.
I wanted to be a missionary just like them when I grew up.
From an early age, I wanted to see people come to know Jesus as their personal Savior.
I vividly remember telling my cousin about Jesus one night on our way home from AWANA and leading her through a prayer – I was four years old.
Over time, my passion for missions grew and evolved.
As a teen, I was able to take part in several missions trips. In college, I served as a “missionary” two summers as a camp counselor. And it was during my sophomore year of college, that I once again felt God calling me into full-time ministry and missions.
As I followed God’s calling into missions, I found myself transferring from the Christian liberal arts college I was attending to a smaller, more focused, Bible and mission training college. During my time at the Bible school, I married my husband who had also felt a call to missions, and we made plans to head into tribal missions after my graduation.
Little did we know that God was simply using our passion for missions as a stepping stone onto another path that He had laid out for us. Instead of continuing on with the training to be tribal missionaries as we had planned, God led us to serve at a Christian camp for one year, learning the ins-and-outs of the mission field of Christian camping.
Our vision for missions evolved once again.
Following our one year internship, we decided that we wanted to pursue more training as missionaries within a Christian camp setting. We moved our family to Indiana with the intention of attending a Christian liberal arts college that had Christian camping administration program.
We never did make it into the program, or the school.
God evolved our missions mindset yet again.
We have now been in Indiana for four years. I often wonder if I got the message wrong all these years, but then I read Matthew 9.37-38, and I am reminded that though I am not physically overseas at this point in my life, I am still a missionary.
God hasn’t called our family to serve Him in the jungles of Papua New Guinea right now, but He has placed us in our particular neighborhood to reach our neighbors for Christ.
God hasn’t called us to serve Him at a Christian camp right now, but He has placed us in a local church, and He has called us to serve.
God hasn’t called me to leave my home and travel to a far away country, but He has given me an online ministry where I have the privilege of sharing the gospel with people in 75+ countries around the world from my home office.
I still have a heart for missions, and I pray that God will someday allow our family to serve Him in a full-time capacity. But until then, I am working to be diligent to serve Him here and now, spreading His fame throughout my sphere of influence, and supporting (financially and through prayer) those He has called to a full-time missionary capacity.
—
Thank You, Lord, for the opportunity to have a small part in spreading Your name and Your fame. What a privilege to have a burden for the lost, to see others develop a love for You! I pray that I would live like a missionary every day, remembering that You have called me to share the gospel with those I come into contact with. May I be bold for the sake of Your glory.
—
What about you? Do you have a passion for missions? Do you view yourself as a missionary? What ways are you be intentional about sharing the gospel?
Get a FREE copy of my eDevotional, Reflections on Matthew, when you subscribe to my weekly newsletter:
Pingback: Blogging through the #Gospels {Matthew in Review}