Was I Listening?

So if there is a cost, a total price for our time on the mission field, it makes sense that the price went up the longer we stayed. That is only partially true, there are lots of variables, but when I gave up my career to go on the mission field it was unlikely I could go back to the position I was in no matter how long we were gone.

I think every missionary at times questions if they are supposed to stay on the mission field and how they will know when it is time to go back to their home country. For me I loved it so much if God was trying to tell me to leave the mission field before we did He would have had to yell quite loudly for me to hear him. But as I look back, I wonder if at one point God was yelling.

We served with Calvary Chapel. I love the Calvary Chapel movement, Calvary has a great view of the use of the spiritual gifts and the perfect insistence on the truth of the Bible. If you have never been to a Calvary Chapel check it out sometime. The church service is a Bible study. Calvary Chapel not only teaches from the Bible, they teach the Bible. And lives get changed.

One of Pastor Chuck's sayings was "Where God guides, God provides". I don't know if he made that up, but he said it often enough that in my mind he is the owner of that statement. That is why the following story is kind of funny, in a sad sort of way.

After my wife and I had been missionaries for a year or two I mentioned to our leader that our support level wasn't high enough to not use up our savings. (I had predicted our savings would be used up in two years, God stretched it to seven years) I told him it meant we would have to leave relatively soon. We didn't know it but our area leader talked to the ministry leaders and they did some checking and said they could get us financial support through Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa.

That was a strange feeling. We were very excited to think our time on the mission field would be extended, the financial support would do that. But equally as important, if not more so, was this symbolized our "acceptance" as missionaries. It was like the mission agency saying "we want you here, we value you".

Our area leader brought us the applications, we filled them out and returned them and waited for a final answer, they assured us our request would be approved. We waited and waited and finally, after a few months I asked about the outcome. We were denied the support.

You can probably imagine what that felt like.

I guess because I was dealing with the emotions and financial aspect of that decision I didn't catch the most obvious (and now kind of funny) relevance. Now looking back it is pretty clear. If one of the tenets of the ministry is "Where God guides, God provides" and the ministry doesn't provide, then do you think God might have been trying to tell me something?

If I would have clearly understood that God was trying to say, if God was saying we were supposed to go back to the states at that time, we would have returned after two years. Of course I wonder what would have happened had we returned after two years instead of seven. But I loved serving the Lord so much He obviously needed to send a louder, clearer and more obvious message to me. Although in retrospect, I can't imagine a more clear way to convey the message than the way He did.