In April, more than a year after this pandemic began to change our stories, and when we really started to ask: how much longer? I came across an article by Susan Narjala about inefficiency. Susan has worked (still works?) as a missionary in India. She talks about how she used to live a very efficient life, but how that changed when she got to India.
Indeed, missionary life does feel very inefficient at times: even in Japan. When you think about it God's idea of mission does seem a bit odd at times. And many a church has failed to support missionaries because of that simple thought: that it looks far more efficient and (is often) cheaper to support a local, than to send in a foreigner to spread the word about God's good news.
Just yesterday I received a blog post in my editorial inbox by two of the thirteen missionaries we have in OMF Japan who are "on the field" but not in Japan, because the borders have been shut to people seeking new religious workers visas for much of the last 18 months. The missionaries write about how they'd sold their house and bought aeroplane tickets, but gotten stuck where they were. That is but one story of many during this pandemic of frustrated plans (missionary and non-missionary alike).
In the Western world we value things like busy schedules, productivity, and high income. We tend not to talk so much about those times when things don't match that: when people lose their jobs, when there's down-time in a work schedule, when illness prevents people from living up to their "potential", and failure to jump through society’s hoops on an acceptable schedule (e.g. education). Indeed, I wonder if that is why artists and other creatives are often undervalued: they don't look productive and indeed the creative process is often slow and seems inefficient. We complain when our plans are disrupted and feel like we've failed or are somehow less valuable.
In many ways I count the opportunity to live life as a missionary as a privilege. We are under no illusion that we're earning our own living, that we're independent islands (dependency on our prayer supporters), or that we are functioning as efficiently as we could in our home countries. All these things keep us leaning hard on God and prevent us (mostly) from believing in our own strength. Hopefully they all help us grow more Christlike!
If we read God's Word carefully, I think it shows us that the value we place in efficiency is often misplaced. In the Bible we see inefficiencies everywhere. Examples aren't hard to find. Here's a few that come to mind: Why did Abraham and Sarah have to wait until they were elderly to have their one child? Israel had to wait a long time before God called 80-year-old Moses to free them. Jesus certainly didn't live a life that reeked of modern-day efficiency. His schedule wasn't full. Obviously God's ways are different to ours. The aforementioned article quotes John Piper:
"God almost never takes the shortest route between point A and point B. The reason is that such efficiency—the efficiency of speed and directness—is not what he's about. His purpose is to sanctify the traveler, not speed him between A and B. Frustrating human efficiency is one of God's primary (I say primary, not secondary) means of sanctifying grace."
A local flower, that is a native to Eastern Australia!
Susan poses a scary question: "Am I normally so entrenched in efficiency that I don't desperately need God?"
It's a good question for any of us to ask. Especially when we find ourselves wondering about the inefficiencies that are thrown our way. The pandemic has given us all many. Personally, our family has thrown some extras too. Let's face it: parenting isn't really a picture of efficiency.
Martin Luther has some wise words when we're feeling a bit at a loss, when we're wondering if we're really doing the best we can:
"What you do in your house is worth as much as if you did it up in heaven for our Lord God. We should accustom ourselves to think of our position and work as sacred and well-pleasing to God, not on account of the position and work, but on account of the word and faith from which the obedience and the work flow."
And John Piper again:
"By all means, make your list of to-dos for the day. By all means, get as good at that as you can get. . . . Go ahead and read a book about it. Then walk in the peace and freedom that, when it shatters on the rocks of reality (which it will most days), you’re not being measured by God by how much you get done. You’re being measured by whether you trust the goodness and the wisdom and the sovereignty of God to work this new mess of inefficiency for his glory and the good of everyone involved, even when you can’t see how." quoted in the article first mentioned above.
This blog post is a study in inefficiency in itself. It was begun in April with a confluence of several things, along with various circumstances at the time: I read Susan's article, but also had recently written a blog post that included a metaphor about jellyfish, and then discovered this verse on my desk calendar:
"Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of his knowledge in every place. For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing." 2 Cor. 2:14-15 NKJVBut alas the blog post was never completed, until now!
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (vs. 8–10 ESV).
