A month ago, SEND U conducted a mid-career retreat for those missionaries who had served at least 15 years with our organization. This week, as I was reading about Solomon in 1 Kings, I was struck by how much this leader accomplished by the time he hit “mid-career.”
When Solomon had finished building the temple of the LORD and the royal palace, and had achieved all he had desired to do, the LORD appeared to him a second time, as he had appeared to him at Gibeon. (1 Kings 9:1–2)
A final post on the topic of life as a marathon from Philip Jackson, a colleague and friend of mine from Macedonia. Phil serves as the field leader and church planting team leader in the city of Skopje. Phil also runs marathons, and his first full marathon was the Athens Classic Marathon.
Lastly, and appropriately, the final message that hit home from the whole marathon experience was the powerful encouragement provided by imagining the actual finish. While running the weekend-long runs in training for the Athens race, invariably I would imagine myself running into the classic stadium and running under that finish line banner. And invariably my eyes would tear up and powerful emotions would come over me. Note that this was while I was training at a place (along the Vardar River in Skopje) where other runners were running along the same path, and there I was with tears streaming down my cheeks. That happened numerous times and sure enough, on November 13 when I stepped across that finish line, my eyes teared up and powerful emotions came over me…just as I had imagined. The point, however, is not that my imagination equaled reality, but rather that the thought of what was to come gave me powerful energy to keep going…to keep running until one day I actually did cross the finish line.
Again, the parallels are obvious. Here is a powerful motivation for us, one that is highlighted again and again in Scripture. We endure life’s long race with much greater success when we take time to think about the finish line or our final destination. One day, Jesus will be standing and waiting for you! When you take your last breath on earth, you’ll walk or run right into His arms and hopefully, you’ll hear “Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into your rest.” (see Matt 25:21 and other blog posts on success)
The seventh post in a series on defining success for a missionary. Part 1 demonstrated that we, like Paul, can be confident in our ministry, despite all our detractors and critics. In Part 2, we saw in 2 Corinthians that Paul repeats the phrase “commend ourselves,” to identify key criteria that he uses to demonstrate that his ministry is credible and successful. In the third, fourth and fifth posts, we looked more closely at Paul’s criteria of successful ministry, that of clearly proclaiming the Gospel, seeing lives changed by God’s power through our ministry, and joyfully enduring hardships in ministry. In the sixth post, we looked at some typical, yet flawed definition of success.
Last week, I suggested that we as missionaries are pretty adept at coming up with ways of determining whether we have been “good missionaries.” I gave my top 10, many of them coming from my own experience. Any one want to add to this list? No need to stop at ten!
The sixth post in a series on defining success for a missionary. Part 1 demonstrated that we, like Paul, can be confident in our ministry, despite all our detractors and critics. In Part 2, we saw in 2 Corinthians that Paul repeats the phrase “commend ourselves,” to identify key criteria that he uses to demonstrate that his ministry is credible and successful. In the third, fourth and fifth posts, we looked more closely at Paul’s criteria of successful ministry, that of clearly proclaiming the Gospel, seeing lives changed by God’s power through our ministry, and joyfully enduring hardships in ministry.
Who gets to hear “Well done”? We all want Christ to say to us, “Well done, good and faithful servant!” when we stand before him. But few of us spend much time thinking deeply about what “well done” actually means for us as missionaries. What do we need to be doing in order to receive Christ’s commendation? Some might protest that the question about “doing” clashes with the concept of grace. But Paul says in 2 Cor 5:10, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.” There will be a judgment of works for believers, and according to 1 Cor 3:12-15, the quality of our participation (or lack of participation) in the building of Christ’s church is definitely subject to this judgment. So if we don’t take the time to think what Christ might be expecting of us, how else do we determine whether we are a “good missionary”? What are some of the definitions of success that we live by? Maybe recognizing some of these inadequate definitions will be just as helpful as studying the Pauline definitions of his success as a missionary.
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