We Americans, particularly American males tend to be competitive. We are score keepers by nature of our culture. I am often asked upon my return from mission how many people – actual bodies – we saw come to the knowledge of the saving Grace of Jesus.
I must confess, I often fall into the trap of believing the work we are doing is not successful because we did not see many people come to know Jesus. Samuel ( again name changed to protect from persecution) a native pastor here in India, said repeatedly yesterday how rewarding it is to share the gospel, to plant the seed of the word of the Good news of Jesus. I watched Steven who I referred to in the previous post get flat out excited by all of us sharing the gospel.
The great part is I had prayed the night before for a word from God to affirm we are doing what He has planned – what is pleasing him. I did not have to wait long, just a couple hours until we stopped on the road to a village when Ralph( name changed) a native church planter that I had only met a couple hours before, told me how encouraging it is to them for us to come and work alongside the local national pastors.
Two affirmations for the price of one prayer. Gods local church planter saying thank you for the encouragement and another who is a national native trainer of pastors – a true hero & warrior of the faith- stating over and over the results are not up to us. Our role is to be obedient, show up, and share.
I do believe we need to regularly look back and check our results to be sure we are bearing fruit, but our responsibility – our role- is not to keep score but to simply be obedient to the call on our life and leave the results up to The Lord.
let me challenge you to get out and till some soil, plant some seed, water some young Christians, do what pleases God and tell people about Him. Let the Holy Spirit do its work. And for the record, we have seen quite a few folks pray to receive Christ each day!! But, as for encouragement – one of our ladies got to sew with the girls of one of the rescue organizations – where girls are rescued from the sex industry. You haven’t seen encouragement like watching a bunch of young women who have been rescued from the sex trade giggling like a bunch of junior high girls with some Americans – that’s good stuff right there!
