My husband and I were pastors of a migrant community in the City of Buenos Aires, for 37 years. During that time I experienced a radical call to God’s mission—one more conversion in the process to the lordship of Christ.
I understood that the church was the arsenal of men and women who had to be prepared to do whatever God asked of them. I discovered that it is easier to have a Sunday meeting than to disciple a new–born believer into a faithful and effective worker. With much weakness, we began the process of seeing them go out into the lands of God’s direction among unreached peoples.
At the same time, I began to get involved in the national missionary movement in Argentina. I met the foreign pioneers who sowed and watered our land and its fruit, as well as national pioneers who had been going to foreign fields since the 1980s. I found that with many more limitations, with less experience, and with more uncertainties, these workers came out envisioned, full of passion, open and hungry to learn to take steps of unconditional obedience.
Single, married, with or without children, most of them had been ministers in their churches before going to another culture. They had trades, professions, ministries. They worked with people and left growth and fruit. They were sacrificial, selling their homes, quitting their jobs, giving generously despite their own needs, faithful in service, and faithful to the calling.
I saw them leave and met many of them at the airport on the day of their departure. Those airports were altars of consecration; they burned their ships there. They didn’t know if they would come back; there weren’t full salaries; there was no financial security. Between tears and hugs, they felt dignified by the invitation of the Lord of the harvest. Most of them are still on the field today. Some returned and continued to be fruitful. Others returned to die in our land, and still others did not return alive; only their ashes were brought “home”.
Today, I serve a new generation of workers, more in number, more in capacities and skills, with more creative opportunities, and more innovative projects. But I see significant weaknesses with these workers: weaknesses of character, of interpersonal relationships, of throwing in the towel, of arrogance, and the one that worries me most, spiritual weakness.
It is true that our growth of life in Christ is continuous to the end of our days, but God always calls and enables. He uses people as means and instruments of formation. In this era, there are many opportunities, much diversity of skills training from academic professional to short-term volunteering. We thank God! But Jesus never based his mission on our abilities but on his own Person and the power of the Holy Spirit.
I believe the post–pandemic world made a turn towards the final outcome of time, as the whole earth groans for the redemption and manifestation of the children of God. We have many workers returning prematurely, many families that are broken up in the fields. Children are losing their identity and purpose, and some deny faith in their crises. Of course, God does not want this. These workers and their children are beautiful and sacred. God gave them honor and health. God doesn’t call us to lose our families for his work.
I visit the fields. I spend a short time with my friends and the needs are the same: to recover the life of God, the presence of God, the meaning of the call, to remember the commitment, to recover intimacy with God, and food for the spirit, and soul, and body. We weep together. We pray to the Father to bring clean water, forgive sins, restore communion, transform the affected heart, will, mind, emotions, and to restore lives. I know, even without going to the field, it can happen to all of us. We can lose ourselves in doing, forgetting his call to be with him.
Jesus gave us the how–to in Mark 3:13–15, but we forget it. Be with him to be sent out. We will never justify reversing that divine order, never. Here we find the spiritual principle of abundant life, of walking daily guided by his voice. Jesus sustained himself in the long nights of prayer. He poured his life out telling the Father what he had experienced during the day, amid human miseries, amid rejection by the religious leaders, in the midst of a handful of disciples who had no spiritual understanding. But He also took from the Father the direction and agenda of the day that began, the place, the time, the hour and with whom he would meet for eternal life. We do well to follow his example.
We lack total surrender, and our autonomy brings us great problems. In our sufficiency we deceive ourselves. Sometimes we use God for our own gain more than to know him and love him. How will we give to others if we don’t know him in a revealing way, persistently?
Slowly read and meditate on Ephesians 2 to see yourself in God’s eternal plan and purpose.
Nothing fills our lives more than his Word. It is the most extraordinary power to discover all that God intended and designed for us to live. Jesus modeled on earth, with his life, how we should live, think, choose, decide, act, feel, speak, relate, and how to obey his commands naturally.
We discover that by his Word, as we come to know ourselves in this deep and intimate relationship with him, our obedience arises from love, arises as a consequence of knowing him more. As we know him more, we love him more, and by loving him more, we are more open to obeying whatever he asks. This obedience is made more and more natural by the deep work of his Word and Spirit as our new identity is forming in him.
So, the call, the invitation to dedicate our lives to him, will never be a burden, but a gift of love. Because he resolved our future and wrote of us before the world was created. He thought of the most exact and delightful ways for us to serve him out of love. He gave us the portion of joy at every instance of our little obedience. He showed us a path more excellent than ours. Burdens only become heavier when we are distant from him. Serving him must always flow out of our love relationship with him.
In reality, the call was always first to him, to his life, to his voice, to his full presence. From there, our doing will arise. Jesus set the standard for how to live and serve him, to stand still until we receive power from on high. This stillness that seems to waste time is the solid foundation for our character, personality, temperaments, strength, vigor, planning, strategies, vision, and action. Without the power of God, without genuine, renewed life, without a healthy identity, without resolving internal conflicts, old and new, we can do nothing.
We remind ourselves, again and again, that the person of the Holy Spirit is continually working in us to bring Christ into being. The Holy Spirit equips us to “be and do” beyond us—our humanity limits us—his power extends through us. Our lives speak the message before we open our mouths. People read us, discern us. The life of God is never covered or hidden, because we are letters read.
Let us enjoy the abundant riches we have in Christ, for a full and abundant life, no matter what. We carry his fragrance, his invitation to eternal life.