One of the things God has been showing me lately is how necessary a strong spiritual foundation is to serving Him in any capacity. It’s like I keep trying to isolate church, and prayer and Bible reading, and work, and support raising each into their own individual environments.I have a tendency to try to live as if one thing doesn’t have an impact on another, as if I can skip prayer and devotion and still be able to raise support, or be useful in the church. But I’m begining to see is that if I sleep in and miss my devotions, or if I slack off at work, or if I tune out dad’s message at church on Sunday, or ignore my responsibilities in support raising, or put together a half hearted message for youth group on Thursday nights, or skate by in any one area of my life, everything else suffers as well.
It’s all or nothing. Either I am living for Christ, in the word, serving Him boldly, faithfully and diligently, or I’m just barely getting by. I’m either soaring or crashing. And though it’s a struggle to get into the right mindset, and to get into actively striving to follow Christ, once I do, that’s when I start to see God work, and that joy and excitement can keep me where God wants me to be. This sort of all came together for me the other day when I was reading through John, and came to the part where Christ said:
If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.
As I read this, I was considering the problem of raising support, as I have found myself doing more and more lately. I like to plan out strategies, make plans, and try to follow through. I like to work it out on my own, and pray, hoping that God will bless my efforts. The solution however wasn’t in my plans. The solution was to abide in Chirst, and let His word abide in me, then He promised to do whatever I asked. And I have been, and still am asking that He bring in the support I need to serve Him in Japan. I alwas figured it wasn’t an unreasonable request, I want to go serve God overseas, but I can’t till I raise the support. But that’s a secondary issue. The real issue is that I can’ t be a missionary and serve God if I’m not abiding in Christ. I could win the lottery and move to Japan, but I wouldn’t be any sort of a missionary if I wasn’t abiding in Christ. If I wasn’t trusting Him, and striving to follow His example, and studying His words, and living them out, I wouldn’t be of any use on the mission field.
So maybe, just maybe, the reason I’m still here, and not there, is so that I can learn to abide in Christ. So that I can learn to abide in Christ by doing my devotions every single morning of every single day. So that I can learn to abide in Christ as I strive to work hard and diligently at the Jesus Film Project, 8:30AM to 5:00PM Monday through Friday. So that I can learn to abide in Christ in while preparing and teaching lessons, and disciping high school students on Thursday nights, and abide in Christ by fellowshipping with people at Church on Sundays, so that I can learn to abide in Christ every second of every day in every activity, so that when I get to Japan, and face the toughest challenges and most demanding hardships I have ever faced, I will do so not trusting in myself, or relying on my own skills or abilities, but that I will do so abiding in my Savior, who has already conquered the world, and has made me more than a conqueror with Him. Praise God that He doesn’t send me off to Japan without preparing me.
For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.
Psalms 84:11