I would like to share with you about somthing I’ve learned from the 25th MC. I pray that the spark will not just last for days or weeks, but draw me close to God and change my attitude in serving Him from now on.
If you had attended any sessions in last couple of days, you could easily understand that Pastor was not trying to tell us anything about how to be a missionary or the needs of all these fields. On the other hand, he just tried to redress our root issue as a follower – our relationships with God.
Lesson 1: Before we try to bring anyone to God, we must bring ourselves to God.
Having a close relationship with God does not equal to serve Him busy in the church. I have been quite busy lately and many nights when I started my devotion opening prayers, I fell asleep and said amen in the next morning. When I looked back to my attitude in serving Him in last couple of weeks, I probably cared more about ‘I’ than ‘He’. That’s mainly because I did not have a close relationship with Him and I projected my focus in a wrong place. As pastor said, God does not really care about my works, he does care for my character. I probably shared this 100 times in Sunday school and bible studies, however, it doesn't mean I can do it daily.
Lesson 2: Devotion is not ‘Very Important’ but ‘Indispensable’ (like breathe) in our life.
My mentality for “very important” = ‘I do not need to do it. Pastor reminded me that our devotion is ‘indispensable’ with our daily live. I hope that I can have a daily devotion not because I have to do it, but because I love to do it – like NBA basketball – I love this game – I hope that there are games there 24 x 7.
Lesson 3: Love = Action
When I knew the needs of brothers or sisters, but might not be able to help. I would hope that God could open a door for them. Sometimes I might even pray for them. I thought I was doing just fine. The Good Samaritan example told me that it’s not enough. Even though I may not be able to help brothers or sisters, but I should offer them to pray together in order to bring this brother/sister closer to God and bring this issue to God. Sometimes I felt embarrass to offer prayers to those brothers and sisters who I am not close to, but actually I could be the person in the parable that surpass the person who's in needs.
Lesson 4: My comfort zone.
This is just my interpretation, I am not sure am I right. You might have the same feeling as I did when Pastor called brothers and sisters to come out to make commitments to God at the end of every single session. I was very uncomfortable in the first 2 sessions as I told myself – ‘I could just make the commitment in my heart and God knew my decision and I would not go out’. Of course there’s nothing wrong about it. Before I went to bed on Saturday night, and this question kept coming back to me. Why I did not go out? Was it only I thought I could just make the commitment in my heart and nothing wrong about it? I thought it could be other reasons – pride, comfort zone, culture, etc. Then another question popped up in my mind, if I couldn’t leave my comfort zone around my brothers and sisters, how could I leave my comfort zone when I was in other areas. Being a missionary always requires to expose to other cultures and these cultures may require ones to leave his comfort zone. We may need to step out of our comfort zone when we do the EE visitation. I remembered that I had a EE street survey with another brother and a sister couple of years ago. We were in Bethany and I felt extremely embarrass when I was in Bethany and we asked people around in Bethany that could we do a survey with them. Of course, we rejected by many people. I did not do anything for more than an hour because I could not overcome my fear. (self-pride) On the other hand, the sister was so brave that she took every chance that God provided to her. Another brother was pretty uncomfortable in the beginning, and he finally stepped out of his comfort zone and used his broken Mandarin to talk about the Gospel. Believe it or not, I was strongly motivated by his effort because he not only overcome his fear, but also his language barrier. He only cared about the glory of God at that moment instead of his pride or fear. Then God prepared a target for me and I barely finished the survey with him. I thought I overcome my fear.
However, when Pastor called us to make commitment and show our love to brothers and sisters around on Sunday, I made the same mistake again. I kept praying to God that please give me strength that I could go out to the stage or I could leave my seat to show my love to just one brother around me. If you sat near to me yesterday, you would see a statue standing in the same place for 30 minutes and did not even move a step. I failed on this task again. I hope that I could pass this test next time. If you are around me next time, please come to my seat and help me to overcome my fear.
By Ray
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Raymond, after reading your lessons learned, I very much admire your courage to share this with us. It's not only a summary of the teachings in this Mission Conference, but also a reflection on your spirit life.
Especially the last part of your writing, the "comfort zone". It's tough to confess our failures to the public. I wanted to comfort you with some words, however, who am I to do that?! I, myself, stood like a statue on that day. I tried to charge that on my personality or culture, but you just bitterly excavated the roots of that.
I called out to God in my heart to ask for love, passion, enthusiasm to God and others, and action as well. And I will continue to pray for it. No doubt, God will grant that to us if we ask sincerely.
Post a Comment