There Will Always Be Trouble.

I thought I had something to offer on this #missionsFriday, but alas, it escapes me. I just keep thinking how we allow certain circumstances and situations to upset us and outrage us over others. We let one thing slide, yet won't let another go. And if we can look past the emotion of the matter, we just might discover that perhaps we are responding with misappropriation. What upsets us the least should cause the most outrage. And vice versa. What complicates all of this is the filter and understanding that we bring to the conversations that pertain to the matter at hand.

Yet all too often, we forget the bigger conversation. We forget the bigger matter. We forget the people who are engaged in making a difference for eternity that are under much more scrutiny, regulation and oversight across the globe while spending exorbitant amounts of time and resources to change someone's reality.

I'm all for making one's reality better. And I should be even more about changing one's eternity. The struggle is real and life gets in the way. For all of us.

In the meantime, though, there are missionaries around the world who are stepping into worse circumstances than those who are leaving troubled environments. And for them, we pray.

We pray, this #missionsFriday, that God would do the miraculous in the lives and ministries of those on the mission field, especially in dire and troubling environments. Pray that God would guard their lives and families as they reach out to the lost, dying and hurting around the world. Pray that souls would be changed for eternity, regardless of how desperate their realities may be when it comes to daily living.  May the joy of the Lord be their strength and hope, even in spite of hopeless circumstances.

For while we may all of a mission in this life,
May we be about God's mission for the life to come.
For the cause of Jesus Christ
And the advancement of the Gospel.

- PNC