I know a few missionaries, and prayer is constantly what they ask for. What they see in the lives of the people in their assigned countries are addressed by prayer. But in the denomination I followed, missionaries are becoming scarce. The money to send them is not as plentiful as it was. The work is being scaled back.
Part of that is the economy is the continued problems in the American economy. Part of that is also a shift in priorities of people, and that one is caused by fear replacing faith. But there may be other factors involved. I am no longer with that denomination, so I don’t contribute as I once did. However many times that happened with others leaving the denomination, there was a hole left each time.
But the answer is not money, as the missionaries I know don’t ask for money, they ask for prayer. But they also pray. I don’t know how often, how fervently, or when in any given day they pray, but I know that they know it’s an integral piece of what they do. And that is not just true for missionaries, but for all believers.
I can do whatever work I want for my King, but until I do the work He wants, I’m not serving, not really. It’s like when my daughter helps me do a job, but only the way she wants. It sometimes makes my job harder. I let her do it because I want her to want to help others. But somewhere down the line, there is a lesson that she will need to learn that help is help when I do what’s needed, not what I want.
As a servant to the King, this is especially important to me. I have a responsibility to serve my King in what He directs. I’m not unique in this, I’m just acknowledging that I recognize the responsibility. I would like to be directed at dramatic things, big things for my Master. But right now, it’s small things, like prayer. What I see is that my Master, like Chambers says, wants me, not my work.
In Matthew 9:38, Jesus is just going on about His ministering, and seeing the crowds, He says to His disciples, “The harvest is abundant, but the workers lack. Therefore ask the Lord of the Harvest to send out workers into His Harvest.” The solution is prayer. Perhaps the disciples would the be ones sent (i.e. Matthew 10), but the sending is preceded by prayer. And the sending of the Twelve was temporary; break during the ministry they normally followed. But for some it was not. The Gegaderene Demoniac was sent to the Decapolis to tell of the things that God had done for him. He was given that task instead of being allowed to follow Jesus around (Mark 5).
My sense of reality is a dangerous thing. When my Master directs, calls, and sends me, I can’t evaluate it on the grounds of what makes sense to me. I’m not here in North Nevada because of what makes sense to me. I decided to obey, and then things began to be arranged on my behalf without my control. But obedience was preceded by prayer. I prayed for direction and direction came. It came in stages, and I moved ahead only in those stages given that timing. This is an example of doing it right; one among a throng of examples of doing it wrong.
Prayer is where my Master wants me to spend my effort. Once in His hand, tuned to His voice, then the actions I take in this community will reflect His will. Without prayer, it is my own wisdom and ability that I work with, and the results will definitely show it. That’s not what I want, not really. Although, my human self-centered soul would love to have my Master’s results come out of my effort. It doesn’t work that way, and thankfully it doesn’t. The results my Master brings about come out of His work and my obedience leads me to the background.
That may sound odd in our culture of seeking that 15 minutes of fame spoken of so much. But I can’t save anyone from hell. Why would I want attention from others? The attention needs to be on my Master who does save people from hell. If I distract anyone from Him, I will be removed by my Master. The life of those distracted people around me depends on Him removing me, the distraction.
So, I point to my Master. I direct praise I get toward Him, but I do so in a way that removes me from center stage and pulls me into the background setting where I belong. I can’t just willy-nilly praise Him when I am praised, that only tries to intensify the attention I get with false humility (which is really obvious, and usually turns me off of personality-based ministries). I have a responsibility to others to magnify my Master to my exclusion.
One important way I do that is to own publicly my weaknesses. When I am clearly weak and imperfect, then any praise for what is accomplished through me has to go to my Master, there’s no other explanation. This is one of the important reasons for the accountability I have through this blog. I own my weaknesses here on the world-wide web so it will be blatantly obvious to even the most casual observer that I can do nothing and my Master does everything.
Pray that the Lord of the Harvest will send out workers into His Harvest. More workers are needed, so I must pray. By the way, so the power of prayer is understood, my daughter is now doing dishes; right now. She protested, but I just went on with the blog. She got up, went into the kitchen and started doing them. That was not me, I left it in my Masters hands. Now, if He would just get her to put the dry ones away first (one step at a time, one step at a time).
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