The Faith Challenge
Can I trust God with my future? This question captures the essence of this challenge. At first blush the obvious answer is, “Yes!” Of course we can trust God. He is in control. He is trustworthy. God knows better what we need than we do. (Proverbs 3:5-6)Trust in the Lord with all your heart ... and He will direct your paths.
But have you noticed how the second and third blush begin to color our response? Shades of “what if,” “what about,” “how can I,” “I can’t,” quickly condition our trust response. We begin to evaluate the unknown future in light of the known past. How we feel about our past strongly affects our thinking about the future. In that subtle moment we shift our trust to our own inadequate ability and limited experience. Our past does not include a background in frontier missions, the refugee diaspora, human trafficking, social justice, faith-based missions work or a UPG (Unengaged or Unreached People Group). But know this; if you get involved, your skills as an American equip you well to make a difference.
Faith is actually a wonderful gift afforded us by God himself. The dimension of time makes faith possible. It is necessary to exercise faith because we cannot see the future. Faith would not be necessary if we were not time-bound. God does not need faith. He sees it all – past, present and future – eternity. We cannot see clearly into our future so we are uncertain as to which direction to go. Our great, incredible privilege is that the very God who created it all and sees it all is simply saying, “Trust me. I can see where your next step should be. (Psalms 85:13)The Lord ... will make a path for your steps. (We just have to be stepping.) I’ll help you get there if you just trust me, if you just have faith.” It is not faith in your abilities or past experiences. It is faith in the One who can see the next step he has carefully designed for you. (Hebrews 11:6)Without faith it is impossible to please him ... He rewards those who seek him
If you desire to make a difference in the halls of eternity, take the next logical step to explore how you might serve in the missions enterprise. It may only be a small step like entering a profile at missionnext.org. But take it. There are needs to serve out front or behind the lines in significant faith-based mission causes (I Samuel 30:24)For the share of the one who goes down into the battle shall be the same as the share of the one who stays behind; they shall share alike.. There is nothing more thrilling than to see God working in you for a kingdom advance.
Faith is stepping out into the invisible, not the non-existent. We will never see it all clearly this side of glory. We may come up short when we compare our abilities with future challenges. Hindsight can be our weakness. Foresight is God’s specialty. What we cannot see, he designed. Where we have not gone, he is waiting. Can I trust God with my future? Yes, because it is my small part in his grand future. A good next step is to safely explore at missionnext.org options for service in the missionary enterprise.
Real comments posted anonymously:
God is waiting on me and is already at work there. I will be open to stepping out in faith to find that place He wants to use me. Right now I don’t know where God is calling me or when. I just know He is preparing me. He has me both literally and figuratively living in the desert.
Dave wrote in 2023:
A friend of mine, now working in Cambodia as part of World Team and originally via MissionNext, gave me your website address and now I’m reading through it. I have a question about one of your statements, which is “your skills as an American equip you well to make a difference”. Does this mean you will consider only Americans in MissionNext opportunities? I live in South Africa.
Response:
The target audience of MissionNext is Americans. That is because of the practical limitation of labor law that US sending organizations can only sponsor people at are American citizens or have a Green Card. For those that are not citizens of the United States or Canada, the process requires that candidates take the initiative to make contact with organizations and their jobs that appear to be a fit.
You are welcome to post your profile on MissionNext to see organizations and jobs that you are well equipped for. Then contact them directly. Many will find a way to make it work for good candidates like you to serve on cross-cultural teams. The worldwide labor law situation as it is does not excuse on the imperative on you to make disciples of the nations. We encourage you to push through.