Mission "Everyday"

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.

Colossians 3:23-24 NIV

You’ve all seen memes that go something like this, “What my friends think I do. What my family thinks I do. What I actually do.” Sometimes, I feel that my life is a bit like that. It usually happens when I’m doing some mundane task in life. I find myself in my jeans at the grocery store, trying to accomplish one of the 175 things on my list for the day. I run into someone I know and they ask me what I’ve been up to. I tell them that I’ve been working as a nurse for a Christian ministry in Papua New Guinea (PNG). Then it happens. I see the “what my friends think I do” look. Their eyes glaze and I can see them envisioning me living Survivor style in the jungle, machete in hand, bandana around my head standing next to my mud hut with a dinner I caught cooking over a campfire. When in reality, my life is far less glamorous than all that. I want to tell them that my life, in the USA and overseas, is not all that different from theirs.

Don’t get me wrong, missions definitely has it’s challenges. I’ve scrubbed my clothes in a spring, dragged my water from rain barrels, built fires and cooked over them and lived in a "bush" house. But most of the time in PNG I live in a very simple but Western Style house with running water and electricity. I go to work every day at the clinic and care for missionaries and Papua New Guineans like I would care for them here in the USA. I do laundry, grocery shop and cook meals. I respond to emails, go to church and meet with people. And I am doing the same while I’m back here in the USA helping my family.

You see, I’m “on mission” wherever I am. Many people feel my life is exotic, and in many ways it is compared to most people. However, for the most part, I’m just like you. I have to live in the every day. But the difference is, I seek to live the mission God has for me every day. It may be writing an encouraging note, or sharing what God has done in my life with someone who needs the hope I have to offer from God. It may be doing the laundry, scrubbing the floor or making a meal with a cheerful attitude. I’ve been realizing that ministry and missions have to be integral with your everyday life. They're not something to compartmentalize or leave to the “spiritually elite.” Us missionaries are absolutely human, broken and struggle with the things that every other human being struggles with. We mess up, get crabby and feel frustrated with all the things that life requires day in and day out. However, I want to encourage you with something the Lord has been pointing out to me in scripture. Our work, in the USA or across the ocean, is to serve and glorify God and Jesus gives an example of this and the attitude we’re to have about it in Luke 17:7-10 (NIV) where he says,

“Suppose one of you has a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Will he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’? Won’t he rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’? Will he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’ ”

Did you catch that?  Our obedience is nothing glorious. It’s a duty, but not one done out of obligation, but rather one out of love for Jesus Christ, who laid down His very life in our place so that we could become his friends and children of God. His mercy gives us the ability to follow Him and His grace helps us to serve and obey Him even in the tough or in the mundane. So take heart my friends. You’re not on mission impossible, because everything is possible with Christ, but you are on mission everyday, the mission to follow, obey and glorify God in all you do.