Walking.
Praying.
And hearing nothing.
Slowly, step by step, I read about the broken people around the world. It was our annual Missions Conference at Moody in 2014. The goal of the week was to raise up 100 people who would give their lives to full-time missions. The leadership committee put up posters with information of the 100 most unreached people groups. This is where I found myself walking, praying… and overall feeling like a failure because God had not called me to such a task that seemed worthy of value.
As I look back, I’ve often felt inadequate in my journey of faith. Many times I’ve thought, “If I just reach this plateau of faith, I’ll make it.” But over and over again, when I reach that point, I find that this self-imposed standard has now been lifted by another 100 feet.
In Scripture, we often read about heroes of the faith: Paul did this, Peter did that, and someone over there just did something else amazing. I don’t know about you, but when I compare myself to those guys and girls, I just feel inadequate.
The thing that I often forget is that for every highlight, there were days and years of quiet faithfulness that prepared those people for their amazing moments.
Ben Darge, one of our recent graduates, and I, have been reading through a book called Kingdom Man. It brings up the mandate we all have to influence those in our lives for Christ and His kingdom. This led me to pray and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal those areas in my life. To my surprise, memories came back of all the ways God has used me. In no way had I done it perfectly, but God showed me how I had faithfully worked to care for those in my life.
A mentor of mine recently asked me to pray for contentment with what God has for me. I needed to be okay with whatever God had for me and let Him control the outcome of it.
I encourage everyone with this: Don’t be so worried about what the man with ten talents is doing or not doing, when God is calling you to be responsible for your two. Let God be the judge of what is valuable.