A Messy Paintbrush

One thing I have really enjoyed about this year off from training is the time I've had to read good, quality reading material... books of my own choosing. I really enjoy John Piper sermons and books. Regardless of whether you agree with his doctrine or not, I think it's hard to deny the fact that he loves the Lord intensely. Whenever I read or hear him, I am challenged in my faith. The book I just finished is called "A Holy Ambition" and it is a collection of sermons on missions by John Piper.

While I enjoyed the book as a whole and was challenged and encouraged in many areas, there were 3 areas that especially stuck out to me: the people God sends, the position of a sender, and suffering as a missionary. I'd like to do a blog post on each of these, but I'll start with the people God sends:
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I'm a perfectionist. I'm also a people pleaser. Combine these two, and I hate, hate, hate for anyone to see my imperfections, even myself. Frankly, I just try to do all the right things so that everyone can like me... including God. I could write a whole chapter on how this has affected my life and my relationship with God and about how God has changed me and worked in me through this, but I'll just suffice to say that while I know that I can never be good enough for God (Jesus' blood is the only thing that makes me worthy of his love and forgiveness), I like to think I can be. And there are many times in my life that I have felt satisfied that I am doing all of the right things to be good enough.

How ironic then that being a missionary is what has made my heart truly begin to grasp how imperfect I am. I can't tell you how many times I talk to others about what we're doing or spend time preparing a presentation on our future plans and just feel overwhelmed at my imperfections.

Being a missionary is humbling. It's humbling to know that our lives are on display for all to see. It's humbling to know that others will be giving up their hard-earned money to support us (and it's humbling to ask for money). It's humbling to know that because of this, others will have expectations of us. It's humbling to not own a home and to move around so often. It's humbling to share that God has called us to be among those who go.

And I often wonder why us? I don't really know the answer to this, except that God has given us the ability to do so and the desire to do so, so we will.

Below are the quotes from John Piper's sermon collection that really encouraged me in this area:

"The brushes he uses are messy, ordinary people who have seen the unsearchable riches of Christ and are willing, and often eager, to take these riches to the nations. The brushes are broken, sinning, ordinary missionaries" (Piper 93).

"God intends to use ordinary, messy, small paint brushes on the canvas of the history of missions because every minute stroke of his brush matters" (Piper 93).

"No missionary feels sufficient. But 2 Corinthians 3:5 says, 'Our sufficiency is from God.'" (Piper 102).

"There are no perfect missionaries. Help me [Lord]. To love you more than money. To be real and sincere. To speak your word. To fear no man. To get all I need from Christ" (Piper 104).