Missions

“What is happiness?”  (It is) a feeling that one is being authentic in the living of one’s life…a feeling that one is contributing to life in some way - that one’s life is making a difference.” - Dr. Kathleen O’Dwyer.

“The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible…the whole antithesis between self and the rest of the world… disappears as soon as we have any genuine interest in persons or things outside ourselves” - Atheist Bertrand Russell.

      We each seek satisfying, delightful experiences.  In fact, many of our choices are based largely upon the pleasure we anticipate.  Sadly, the happiness we often find is fleeting, little more than temporal gratification.  Our appetite for deep satisfaction leaves us feeling restless, searching constantly to quell the troublesome crave. 

      Each Christian comes upon a “Damascus Road” experience, that cataclysmic moment where our search is arrested.  Richard Stearns (author of The H0le In Our Gospel) walks us through his own in Chapter 6 (A Hole In Me).  Considering himself a budding intellectual, he enrolled in Cornell University (Ivy League college).  It seemed his dreams were unfolding perfectly, that he was nearing “the good life.”  It is also where a “self-important, self-reliant, scientific worldview” fostered a “rationalistic fortress,” smacking of insensitive arrogance (pages 80-82; see also 2 Corinthians 4:4 & 10:5), ultimately led him to internal crossroads.

      God, however, did not seek to humiliate or defeat Stearns but to win his friendship and understanding.  He sought to awaken within him a sense of moral shame thereby bringing about a transformation of his heart.  The final goal being redemption and reconciliation.  This process He initiated through what began as a blind date (pages 76-79).

      Within the context of relationship is where we find the power of persuasion most potent.  Winning arguments belongs on the platform of debate.  Winning hearts happens in the womb of friendship.  It is how God designed us.  And it is within the environment of relationship we learn the importance of obedience.

      Stearns discovered that, although obedience to God was vital to the new relationship, his own brokenness brought a disheartening sense of discouragement.  But God enables true followers to mend their brokenness through obedience.  “Obedience is a splint God places on a broken life so that it might mend…(a) way of rehabilitation that God has chosen for us so that we might mature into Christlikeness…until love dominates our choices” (Wayne Martindale, et al., The Soul of C.S. Lewis).

      Citing the three commands - Love God, love others, and make disciples - Stearns recounts his journey of faith and consequent adventure.  Missions, whether local or abroad, is simply about living out our faith.  It is about transcending the daily grind, entering into the virtue of authentic happiness, of experiencing profound depths of joy.

      Loving God, loving our neighbor, and making disciples are essential principles Jesus set forth as foundational stones.  World Vision is the arena God called Stearns to live out these principles.  What is your arena?

Jeff