New Perspectives

Tracy and I just completed the Perspectives class on missions this past Monday, along with six others from our church. Meeting weekly since January, the class reinforced and challenged our perspectives on God’s work in the earth in significant ways. I’d like to share two impressions this class made on me.

I marveled at the truth that our missionary God’s purpose since the beginning of time has been for all peoples of the earth to come to know Him. The Hebrew people were called to be missionaries to the peoples around them. At the temple’s dedication, Solomon prays, “. . . so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the LORD is God;“ Psalms is full of verses pointing to all the peoples of the earth coming to glorify God.

The second impression proved rather timely at this time in my life. Zambia is a country swimming in needs—financial, spiritual, emotional, and physical. In lesson two I came face-to-face with the truth that meeting needs of a people is a poor motivation for going to and remaining on the mission field. One of our instructor’s commented on one of my papers, “We knew some people who went to Africa in response to the ‘needs’ there. They didn’t stay very long.” So, I had to examine my motivation for going and make sure it was in alignment with desiring to see God’s glory revealed to Zambia’s people.