Category: From the Blog

Looking back over the past few months I’ve seen the Lord help me make many personal decisions that prepared myself for sharing the Gospel in St. Vincent and other Countries. But none were more important than deciding to work out of home.

And it’s one I hated with a passion

Allow me explain…

I’m a person who loves being busy…to the point where my effectiveness on a day would be decided by how many things I was able to accomplish. Now there’s nothing wrong with this, however I took the added step of defining effectiveness as “doing work outside of home.”

As this definition of effectiveness grew I began looking for ministry (any ministry) that kept me from being at the house [1].

1. English as a Second Language teaching
2. Mentoring
3. Reading Help
4. After School Programs
5. Computer Tutoring
6. You name it, I would do it

The thing is no matter how many ministries I was involved with there was always a desire for more…

Just a few more hours in the afternoon
Just one more hour in the morning
Just two more ministry opportunities that week and I would be happy

As the school year came to a close God did something really scary…He called me to walk away from all of those ministries. And instead invest my time at home on things that prepared me for a future teaching ministry

1. Bible Study that became the foundation of a sermon series from the book of James
2. Turning a recent class I taught on Christology [2] into handouts for a small group Bible study
3. Development of discipleship material on Evangelism, and Leadership
4. Reading of Christian books
5. Furthering my education through study of Greek and Theology
6. And taking my writing very seriously [3]

In other words doing things that focus on teaching the truths of Scripture.

It is true that spending my day on research, Bible study, and writing means there isn’t a whole lot of interaction with other people. And yes there are moments I get bored and just have to “leave the house” [4]. But being able to place all of my energy on the one thing God has called me to do (teach the Bible) makes it all worth it.

And guess what I learned…there’s a big difference between busyness and effectiveness.

As an illustration allow me to use a normal Wednesday morning when my time revolved around volunteering with one now:

Before:

1. 8:00–8:30 Travel to School
2. 8:45–9:30 Reading tutoring with student
3. 9:30–10:00 Drive Home

Now:

1. 8:00–8:30 Communication with prayer supporters, news article reading
2. 8:30–9:30 Bible Study for James Sermon
3. 9:30–10:00 Bible Study for Foundations [5]
4. This is after my 4–5 mile run at 7:00 (devotions at 6:00)

Do you see the difference?

I’m not saying that everyone in the world should work from home because they can’t. But instead want to remind you busyness (doing many things) doesn’t necessarily mean happiness. It’s much better to invest all your time and energy into the thing that God has called you to do

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[1]: this is by no means a disrespect to my parents who I live with, or individuals who work out of home. God has since shown me this was a selfish attitude that only wanted to feed my own pride

[2]: doctrine of Christ

[3]: as many as three posts a day

[4]: I’m well aware there are many parents who dream of being bored someday

[5]: small group material from Christology notes

What a difference a week makes….

Last Wednesday was hard because even though I knew the Lord wanted me to travel teaching Bible in other Countries, the door just wasn’t opening.

The truth is there were opened doors, but not many that fit the kind of ministry I felt God was calling me to [1]. Adding to the frustration, a ministry that would have fit perfectly recently brought someone in who met it’s needs (a few months earlier it would have worked out).

On Tuesday (July 28) I asked the Lord for guidance because it was getting kind of frustrating. His response was “keep pushing.” 

Now I have no problem with continuing to communicate and push towards a goal…but that Tuesday night I needed a reason to keep pushing.

See in most cases we push towards a goal when there is hope of accomplishing it.  In my case this wasn’t true, so there was a strong temptation to just “cut my losses” and pursue a new ministry opportunity. Yet knowing God’s way is always better than mine, I committed myself to pursuing that opportunity.

The next morning (July 29) I spent time praying that the Lord would give me wisdom about the ways that I was supposed to keep pushing, and sent an email to a missionary on that field. A response got me excited…but it was to let me know they were still praying about an opportunity [2]

Around 1:00 that afternoon I was getting ready to leave the house but noticed that the email program on my laptop had been shut down. After checking for emails I found one from the missionary saying that something had just come up, and he wanted to call me at 1:30!

Roughly twenty minutes later he explained over the phone that another missionary on the field was having to return to the US because of physical problems. He literally walked into this missionaries office less two hours after getting my email asking if there was anyone who could take over his ministry!

The next day I spent over an hour on Skype talking with the returning missionary about the ministry, and how the Lord could use me there. I couldn’t help but wonder during that conversation what would have happened if I stopped pushing.

If that email had not be sent Wednesday morning

The missionary wouldn’t have remembered me when his co-worker was going back the States

And the returning missionary wouldn’t have known I was extremely interested in helping on that mission field

The truth is I came very close to giving up on that mission field but am really thankful I didn’t…because it reminded me how God works when we are faithful to Him.

 

 

[1]: lasting six months, focused on discipleship, meeting a real ministry need

[2]: I have great respect for this missionary because he was honest with me about there not being immediate needs, but still prayed about whether there were some ways the Lord could use me there

This morning I brought my largest suitcase into the bedroom and asked a very serious question

If I have to live out of this for six months, what should go in it?

One reason for doing this is a short-term service opportunity has come up, [1] but as any missionary can tell you, it’s not abnormal to be away from home for months at a time.

After giving a basic answer of “clothes and electronics” to the serious question you think it would get a lot simpler…but of course it didn’t [2].

An hours work resulted in my fist “trial run” at a bag that could be lived out of for six months. But it also helped me learn something.

I have way too much stuff

Now I probably accumulate things that are different from most of you; running gear, running shoes, books, and electronic gadgets (I like to call them “ministry tools”) but most of us in a moment of honesty would admit many of the things we accumulate aren’t needed to survive [3].

This is why the hardest part of the process wasn’t what would go in the suitcase…It’s what I would leave at home

Yesterday I wrote a blog post discussing how serving the Lord in foreign countries means walking away from many conveniences we experience in the States (cable TV in particular). While this is hard, sometimes it’s even more difficult to walk away from our possessions.

But this painful experience is actually a blessing because it allows us to look at those possessions differently.

1. Do I really need that fourth pair of shoes?
2. Or my twenty disk dvd collection?
3. Or that running shirt to go alone with the other five?
4. The answer to this and many other questions is “no”

The funny thing is as the process continued it got a lot easier because I developed a clear understanding in my mind of what was truly needed to survive.

Does that mean I’m excited about leaving more than 90% of my wardrobe and almost all of my cool toys at home? Of course not!  But I’m still setting those things aside because I don’t really need them. And God is glorified greatly when we embrace a simplified view of life.

 

[1]: hope to share some more info about that this week

[2]: imagine deciding what five shirts (seven max) you would like to bring

[3]: we can live without them

In early July after deciding God wanted me to begin sharing the Gospel through short-term ministries in other Countries I knew some sacrifices would have to be made.

It’s really easy to forget just how blessed we are in the United States to have things people around the world don’t

1. Like fast-food restaurants
2. Or large stores like Walmart, and supermarkets everywhere
3. Or highways, and roads that are kept in good condition
4. Or our everyday lifestyle of convenience [1]

To be honest I’m able to sacrifice almost all of America’s conveniences, but the one thing I really struggle walking away from is television

Now I’m aware that you will find television almost everywhere in the world today. However it’s a far cry from the kind of television most of us experience in the US.

My parents house in West Virginia has only basic tv since we aren’t there much, which ends up offering about three different channels. It is of course possible to survive on three channels (four if the antenna works just right) but that’s hard when there are hundreds of channels (many of them High Definition) at home.

The real problem with sacrificing television though is for me it’s much more than just entertainment.

After a hard day of work people do different things to relax. For me relaxation has always involved crashing on my bed and or in a chair to watch television. In later years Netflix has replaced tv, but it’s the same general idea 🙂

Please understand I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with watching television as long as those programs glorify God. However the Lord recently started convicting me because stress or bad days almost always resulted in a Netflix binge.

This is where for me things crossed the line from entertainment into becoming a “coping mechanism” to the point where any distress would bring an almost immediate desire to watch television and “escape” the pain of that moment.

So in preparation for the mission field I’m sacrificing television. Oh I’ll probably still watch it a little bit every day, but it will become my third or fourth option after being stressed-out instead of the first thought that comes to my mind.

After reading Scripture

Or enjoying a good book

Or taking a walk and talking to God about my frustrations

Or even (Heaven forbid) talking to other people about what’s stressing me out so much!

Again there’s nothing necessarily wrong with crashing on the couch at the end of a long day. But when that’s our minds first response when encountering pain maybe it’s time for you to walk away too.

[1]: anything you need is just a ten or fifteen minute ride away