From the second my jet-lagged family slogged across the tarmac, missions looked markedly different from the ol’ slideshow in the church sanctuary. 

Namely, discipleship has more in common with growing a tree than microwaving chicken nuggets.  

“Go and make disciples” takes so. much. time, whether in Baltimore or Beijing. Profound change unfolds one leaf at a time, fed and pruned through seasons rainy and dry—especially when seeking to empower nationals rather than foster dependence. 

Behind every world-changing Christian is someone who’s authentically modeled Jesus in all the boring and exhilarating moments. 

Wrestling generational patterns of poverty, especially, feels downright discouraging—like our pregnant national friend who, for reasons of poverty, wanted to end her pregnancy. We had them over for dinner, talked about business planning and gently encouraged them spiritually. 

Were there eternal results? I don’t know. 

Thomas Merton writes,

“Do not depend on hope of results. You may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no results at all, if not perhaps results opposite… All the good that you will do will not come from you but from the fact that you have allowed yourself, in the obedience of faith, to be used by God’s love.” 

Put another way, “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love” (Galatians 5:6). 

In C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce, the narrator encounters “one of the great ones” in heaven. Though she was unheard of to him on earth he witnesses the now “unbearable beauty of her face.” 

Her significance, Lewis illustrates, is that she loved well — as if each person encountered was her own child. It’s that kind of love that changes the world over and over again, however slowly. 

God’s sovereignty helped me walk down the street past every deteriorating shack with a child peeking through, every burqua wrapping a soul. 

I find hope in the bookends of our God-sized Commission: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go… surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-19, 20).