Friday, March 12, 2010

Day 12: International Ministry (Rev. 5:9; John 4:35)

• Relationships between students and church family
• More conversation partners
• For positive ways to communicate the gospel to the students

When Tirzah and I moved back to Maryland after seminary we came as CBF missionaries focused on being "advocates to the invisible poor" in the Washington DC/Baltimore corridor. Money was tight but the ministry was very rewarding - each day Tirzah would drive into the city to work first hand with men and women who desperately needed someone to love them in the name of Christ; to pray with them, to feed them, to clothe them, etc. One of the things we would do together was "church training" and many of our weekends were filled with driving to various sites to help other believers understand what it was they could do to help.

Before leaving on a trip to VA while balancing our budget I discovered that we basically had enough money to (a) pay our monthly bills or (b) go on/pay for the weekend retreat. We talked about our options, prayed together, and felt that we ought to still go away to speak at the missions retreat. I sent away our bill payments and right before leaving for VA Tirzah checked our mailbox only to discover a letter with a check from an old friend. A quick calculation showed that the check covered every bit of the "extra" that we needed to fund our missions trip with 4.00 left over. I jokingly told God that he had forgotten to "carry the one" in his own heavenly check book spreadsheet and that "getting the amount within 4.00 wasn't too bad."

Well, the joke ended up being on us…right outside of the missions retreat center we had to drive for a few miles on a toll road…the total cost? 2.00 each way.

God is good, and God has continually shown us that he is faithful. However, there is danger in the mentality that if you tithe you "get more back"…the bible and history rejects such narrow thinking. Tithing is personal, is complicated, and is required, but it never should be viewed as an option that gets a better return than the local bank offers. We should never give to get. We give because in doing so it reminds us that what is "ours" really isn't.

The bigger danger comes when we forget who it is that truly provides. My Wachovia savings account and my Guidestone IRA have nothing, in the grand scheme of things, to do with my security. I, like most of you, am only one medical or personal disaster away from financial ruin. It is God who gives life, God who holds life, and God who takes life. Giving my stuff away - my money, my time, my very life - helps me remember this truth a bit more clearly.

If our God truly owns the cattle on a thousand hills (Ps 50.10), and if he is concerned with the birds in the fields (Matt 10.29), then we can trust him to take care of us. It is, after all, all about God…and thank God for that.

~Brandon Turner