Finding Our Value

I feel so much better about myself when I feel useful, when I can point to tangible, concrete things in my day and say, “I accomplished that.” Whether its going into work, filling the car with gas, or changing a light bulb, I feel better about myself when I get things done. It’s good to get things done, but without immediate and definite results for my actions I start to feel miserable. I get this sort of “wasted day” feeling, and I feel like I have to go through my day and find the stuff I did to prove that I was somehow productive or useful that day. I’m not really sure who I’m trying to prove it to. Am I trying to prove it to myself, to other people, to God? I don’t want to feel like a useless human being, and I don’t want other people to see me that way, and I want to be able to justify my existence before God and say, “Here’s why I’m a good person. Look at all this stuff I’ve gotten done.” I want to be valuable.

Erin and I are having a hard time with this desire to feel valuable at the moment. We’ve left our jobs, our involvements, and many of the things that gave us value in order to raise support full-time until we get to France. At first leaving everything felt freeing, “won’t it be great to make our own schedules,” we said to each other. But it was amazing how quickly the freedom to make our own schedules became the guilt of not being able to tally up our accomplishments. Where’s our value when we can’t quantify and evaluate what we are doing? It’s a struggle, a daily struggle.

But this is where the Gospel becomes Good News to me. 1 Timothy 1:9 says, 

“God has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time….” 

I want to create my own value, but the Gospel says God gives me value. While I’m trying to defend my value before God, He is trying to show me my value to Him. The value I have is the value He gives, not the value I think I can earn. We are worth the infinite value of His Son, because that is the price He has chosen to pay for us. No matter how useful I feel or how many accomplishments I can tally, the final say on what I’m worth comes from God, and the Gospel says it’s more than I could ever fathom. 

What happened at Boot Camp

Last Monday night, after 7-hours cruising in the faithful Honda, we arrived at the Comfort Inn in Harrisburg, PA. What were we doing in Harrisburg you ask? Well, we had the privilege of going to an intense 2-day training called Boot Camp. It is for Christian workers from dozens of different organizations, denominations & associations, who, despite those smaller differences, share many awesome things in common, including the very practical need to raise their own financial support in order to do God’s work. And that is precisely what Boot Camp was all about, how to develop partners who will send all these workers into the harvest fields. 

Here is a photo to prove we were there.

Can you find us?

The best part for me about Boot Camp was really examining God’s Word in all the instances it talks about ministry and how God’s workers are to be provided for. 

I was so encouraged to spend so much time in God’s word, to really soak in it. It strengthened my understanding of why we develop Partners, because our Partners are going to hold the ropes for us, literally not figuratively. They are going to be our dearest friends, the people who invest in us and the people we invest in, here in the U.S. 

But also, and this was a newer concept for me, we are doing a great service to our Partners by providing an opportunity for them to give and grow in generosity and cheer. God loves generosity and somehow, I don’t fully understand it, but somehow by opening our wallets it also opens our hearts more fully to God’s purposes and also to God’s blessings. Jesus rewards our sacrifices. Like He explained in Matthew 19:29, after the rich man went away sad after Christ told him to sell all that he had and give to the poor, Jesus explained to the disciples that...

“everyone who has left houses, or brothers or sisters, or father or mother, or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.” 

I am so joyful that our Partners are not just providing for and blessing us, but God is doing the same for them.

Another of the passages I really like is Proverbs 11:24–35 

“One man gives freely, yet gains even more; another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty. A generous man will prosper; he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.”

We learned a lot more at Boot Camp, but today I just wanted to express how awesome God’s Word is. It really is the bread of life. Now, I think I will go make a sandwich for Ryan and I so we can be nourished by that as well.