I see missions work, and even our life in Christ, like building a house. We must start by digging a muddy hole and laying an ugly, boring foundation. If we’re building a brick house, we must do the tedious work of putting up a wall one brick at a time. We put in a window only when the wall is high enough to support it.
Sometimes it seems that we in church missions work want to put in the spiritual equivalent of a window before we’ve built a wall under it. And when that doesn’t work, we just abandon the project and go somewhere else. Our ministry focuses on laying each brick in the right place at the right time so the house gets built and stands. We must do even seemingly unimportant tasks now so in the decades to come God can move where we’ve worked.
We must do the right things each day. As we follow the Lord, He’ll give us work that makes sense only if we keep the big picture in mind. He loves to have us walk by faith in Him, so He doesn’t share every detail of His master plan. We must be willing to follow His lead step by step to walk in His fullness. In our ministry, we’re determined that, by His grace, we’ll walk with Him and be found faithful in our generation.