Vision

It’s been awhile since I last blogged and thought I’ll take this opportunity to do so before things get busier! 2010 is truly underway and much lies ahead of us! If all goes according to plan, this year will be my final year working as an engineer before going to study at SMBC in 2011. It’s exciting but scary at the same time! Exciting because a chapter in my working life will be coming to a close as I look forward to starting another chapter of my life to pursue what I’m truly passionate about. It’s scary because there are still some big questions that I do not have answers to at this stage. Questions such as: “Will we have enough financially to support ourselves in 2011 and pay college tuition fees? When is the best time to tell my parents about quitting my job and studying college? What if my parents object, and what can we do to help them to understand? Despite not knowing the answers now, I know God does and He determines our steps! It will be an exercise of faith to see how He answers and provides. Pray that these things don’t become obstacles but opportunities for God to be glorified through them.

Whenever I think of the challenges that lie ahead, I am also reminded of the need to have a sustaining vision to stay the course. There is a line from a U2 song which goes like this: “At the moment of surrender. Of vision over visibility” which I like because I am reminded that often we do not have a clear picture of what lies ahead of us in life and it requires eyes of faith to see what God is doing in our lives, and surrender ourselves fully to His will. We can find comfort in this because He knows what He is doing and what He does is for His glory and for our good.

While I was in Ethiopia, I remember a conversation with the missionary I was staying with about my future plans. I remember Jonathan asking me “What are you going to do to keep the vision alive?” At that stage of my life, I had just finished uni, I was jobless... had no secure income... not yet married let alone engaged... no theological training... so serving God overseas long term was going to be a very long road ahead. I knew it would be so but what struck me about that question was did I need to do anything or will everything just fall into place eventually? As I reflected on the past decade of my life, I can honestly say that without vision, I would not have continued on this journey to this day. So what kept the vision alive? I would say it was the very same thing that got me started, and that was the God-given and God-infectious vision of other missionaries who have a passion to declare God’ glory among the nations. I had the privilege to attend a mission’s prayer group for a year after I returned from the short-term trip to Ethiopia. It was run by a retired missionary couple to Ethiopia, Bob and Joy. I got to admit it felt really weird being in group of older folks but I loved their prayers! You could tell these guys really believed the SIM motto “By Prayer”. Despite their old age, they did ‘Missions’ by prayer. Their passion was infectious! I stopped attending that prayer group after a year, but Bob and Joy continued to faithfully send me the newsletters of SIM missionaries that they prayed for. It didn’t struck me until recently when I reflected on this that they had been sending me prayer “packages” almost every month for the past 7-8 years! And over those years, they have helped kept my vision alive as I journeyed with other missionaries through their prayers letters... reading of their struggles and joys as they experience God in their ministries to the nations. These letters were to me windows of opportunity to look into the world of missions and see what God is doing in the world. It was exciting stuff and made you want to get in on God’s plan for the world!

I once read in a Mission’s magazine that we need to ‘catch and ride the waves’ that God gives us or else we’ll miss out or get dumped by the waves! God makes those waves not us. We revolve around His plans not Him around ours. He just wants us to trust Him and ride them. Many of the missionary families that I have been following through their newsletters over the past 8 years, some of whom started on the mission field then, are now returning from the field for various reasons. As I reflected on this and think of friends who have recently gone out on the mission field this year, I cannot but feel a sense that as the wave of the generation before us are now returning, that God is rising up a wave of a new generation to go! Each generation leaves a legacy. I wonder what legacy this generation will leave with the next.

~Pete