The Chinese Surrender (WR)

My month in China won’t quite ring in your ears (or eyes) the way it possibly could have, would I have written it while I was there or in the immediate aftermath. Orrrrr maybe you’ve just been spared a slew of metaphors about crowded streets, honking horns, and smog that would do nothing to move the story along…

Take it how you will, what’s done is done.

My team underwent a new dynamic shift.  We had a member added, bringing the total to 8, then we were chopped in half and sent into separate ministries for the whole month.  My half team was told to walk around, prayer walk, meet people, make friends, do what we can to build relationships and share Christ.

Well doing that is so vague at times that you easily lose vision and drive, and that’s if you’re doing it in a place where people understand your language, or vice versa.  Now take that task and put it in a place where there are hundreds of thousands of people around you, of which maybe 1% would understand a full conversation, and couple of things can happen.

You’re language gets reduced to a “hello” in their language, a smile, and the occasional miming.
Many of us find it difficult enough to have the drive to build relationships and evangelize in our own language, but “Lord, how on Earth am I supposed to share your love in a place where I can’t communicate much, and even if I could I have to be careful about what I say about you if I don’t wanna get kicked out of the country?”

We are all given the task of making disciples.  Some of us don’t take that call, and some of us do.  So the ones that do have it together… right?

Well, not necessarily.  Because what can happen sometimes is we can try to do a Godly call with our manly (or womanly) power and resources.  We can sometimes have some “success” in this.  We may be people that God has blessed with talents and abilities that can carry our outreach to a point that to many seems successful.

But what happens when those abilities are stripped?

For example, I love meeting people.  I have some extroverted “tendencies.”  God has blessed me with a heart for people that has a somewhat easy time making friends and investing in lives.  Now don’t get me mistaken, not everyone likes that sort of thing, but I can’t argue the fact that He has given me that blessing.

We have a tendency to lean on our own strengths, even when we are part of a “God-sized” job, and I’m no different.  God took nearly everything away from me that I (with emphasis) could do in my own strength.

China is the only country that I traveled to that I had no conversations with a native believer.  So, if God’s love was going to be shown, it was going to have to be Him.  I would have to blindly obey, keep a good spirit, and have faith that He would accomplish what He wanted thru what little I could do.  Yeah… uh trust and faith…the same things I say that I have toward His work in my life, well wouldn’t it make sense that I would share that faith for His work in the lives of others?

Well God might as well have shouted that out to me last month.  “Look Matt, you’ve got talents, I want you to use them so much as they don’t get in my way to do what I’m doing.  Use them as I guide you, and that means don’t use them when not instructed to.”

Well last month that was easy, because I didn’t really have much that I could do, but what about whenever I can do more?  What about whenever I get home and beyond?

The same thing applies, and I pray that I take the same dependence that he broke me down to last month into the rest of my days, when I will undoubtedly have more “power” or ability to influence a situation, and on occasion this will mean that I have more of a chance to get in God’s way.

Many of us want to do great things.  As believers, we all want (or perhaps we should want) to use our talents to help further the Kingdom and the cause of our Savior in our lives and in the lives of others.  And that may mean doing a small thing that no one notices or being a part of something that touches and directly effects millions, but of all that perhaps the greatest thing any of us will ever do is to stay out of His way in our lives and the lives of others.

Much of our inaction in life is because we don’t trust that God will provide for the aftermath of what that action or risk could mean.  But sometimes it takes more faith to do nothing than it does to do something.

Do not get me wrong… We aren’t designed to sit on our talents and blessings and never use them, but…

When we learn to be broken down, even to the point of submitting our talents to idleness for whatever time He calls us to in favor of letting Him work, we learn something…

We learn faith.  We exercise the “muscle of faith.” And our faith gets stronger.

We learn that He is worthy to trust.  We learn that it is Him that provides.  We learn that He doesn’t need us, and that can either restore us to, or keep us in a proper perspective of humility.  Which will then lead to subsequent thankfulness and joy that we serve such a great God, and that we “get to” be a part of His plan.  This can then revitalize us to be more joyfully zealous, and ironically enough, better servants when He calls us back into action.

So don’t be afraid to have the faith to do nothing for God, because in that He could teach you that He’s been doing everything all along anyway.