Ordinary obedience is overlooked

I've continued thinking about the same topic I wrote about ten days ago: what to share during our home assignment. Some friends have been encouraging me to talk about ordinary life-stuff. One of them wrote: 

"...real impact often grows out of ordinary obedience, lived out over time." Just read this sentence in Martyn Iles' intro to his latest "At the Crux" podcast episode....referencing Daniel whose "faithfulness, integrity, and consistency were already visible" from the beginning (not just in the lion's den incident).

It's thought provoking, but also encouraging—that if we are faithfully seeking God and seeking to serve him in the everyday, it will shine through to others, even when we're not specifically speaking about our faith.

Here's an "ordinary" meal we had one 
night. I did make the bun from
scratch, though.

Therefore, I need to ponder: is it meaningful, as a missionary reporting back to supporters, if we talk about the ordinary things we do? Do we actually need extraordinary stories, or is reporting back about our daily life and work actually more meaningful and more encouraging? I'm thinking it might even be more relatable to those we speak to. After all, we're doing work that is more like what the majority of Christians do: working as a teacher and administrator, an editor and team leader, not church planters or evangelists. And on Sunday we're just a part of a church, much like most Christians are on a Sunday.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote this in our monthly news/prayer letter:

Here are some small ways we served others in March:

Wendy drove a car full of people to a women’s retreat. During the retreat she helped her roomie who was sick and held a colleague’s baby while she went to the toilet. She listened to a friend talk about her concerns about her boyfriend. The nights before and after the ladies retreat we hosted a young Australian lady who rode to the retreat with Wendy.

David drove a bus full of students to an athletics meet, hung around all day and into the night, before driving them home again.

We attended our church’s Wednesday prayer meetings, listened to and prayed for various church members.

David led worship on March 22nd and Wendy played. Later in the week one of the other pianists told us that the song “Meekness and Majesty” had been playing through her head all week (it was new to her and most in the church).

We spent several hours with a colleague in OMF leadership, enjoying fellowship and sharing one another’s burdens over food and games.

Wendy baked for our monthly church morning tea (David washed up).

David helped missionaries access the storage facility OMF rents not far from us to help meet the furnishing needs of various missionaries who were moving.

Wendy listened to a lady at church whose husband has recently had significant surgery and another lady who is seeking God’s leading in her career and personal life.

Most of this doesn’t seem all that significant. We’re not bragging about these things and definitely aren’t looking for applause. You have probably done similar things this month. It is good to remember that Paul told us to “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2 NIV). John Stott’s commentary on that verse is, “To love one another as Christ loved us may lead us not to some heroic, spectacular deed of self-sacrifice, but to the much more mundane and unspectacular ministry of burden bearing.” Let’s continue to love another in the small things. 

 Most people can relate to the above fairly ordinary activities. It's not all we did in March and I haven't listed the things that fall under our usual job responsibilities. But these aren't extraordinary and it's almost embarrassing to list them out like this.

What do you think? I'm sure that most of us don't realise how much of Christ is shining through to others and in many ways it's probably good that we don't, otherwise we might think it's because we're pretty special and get big heads! 

But it begs the question: are we metaphorically putting some actions on a pedestal and hiding others away in a drawer? That kind of dichotomy is unhelpful, I think. It encourages us have a dualistic system in our head: going to church and talking to someone about my faith is more important than faithfully serving my friends and family in practical ways. 

And it probably also means that we think of some jobs are more important than others: that a pastor is more important than an electrician, that a worship leader is more important than the church cleaner. And thus "missionaries" are elevated unhelpfully...ah, but now I'm heading into my own hobby horse territory, a topic that I'm writing about in my (possible future) book.

And so, we continue to ponder what we're going to share during our 11 weeks in Australia, when we take on the temporary role of "missionary speaker."

Single parent hat is on

Good memories of Christmas with my
in-laws in 2014.

From today I have my single parent hat on for most of the next two weeks. David's flying to Australia this evening to spend time with his dad and family (see why here). He gets back next Thursday late and flies again next Sunday with the wrestling team to their international three-day meet in Korea. The latter has been planned for some time, the former only two days ago.

I don't like being a single parent. If you've read my blog for long you'll know that (see here), but admittedly it is getting easier as they get older.

But just like choosing to come back to Japan in obedience to our call even when my feelings weren't there yet last year, I choose to do this without protesting (though I may complain about my boys on occasion). I choose to be thankful for my husband who we love so much that he is greatly missed when he is away. And I pray he will be a blessing to his family and others he encounters while he's away. 

I also pray that he will have all the energy he needs. Just the journey there is arduous: two nights, three planes, three or more trains, and a 300+km car trip at the end.

I've also just rediscovered this song, I think I'll be playing it a few times in the coming days.

Stepping into the river

Going back to Japan feels a little bit like what these guys were asked to do:

When the soles of the feet of the priests carrying the Chest of God, Master of all the earth, touch the Jordan’s water, the flow of water will be stopped—the water coming from upstream will pile up in a heap.

And that’s what happened. The people left their tents to cross the Jordan, led by the priests carrying the Chest of the Covenant. When the priests got to the Jordan and their feet touched the water at the edge (the Jordan overflows its banks throughout the harvest), the flow of water stopped. It piled up in a heap—a long way off—at Adam, which is near Zarethan. The river went dry all the way down to the Arabah Sea (the Salt Sea). And the people crossed, facing Jericho.

And there they stood; those priests carrying the Chest of the Covenant stood firmly planted on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan while all Israel crossed on dry ground. Finally the whole nation was across the Jordan, and not one wet foot (Joshua 3:13-17, The Message).

"Joshua told the people, ‘Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you'" (Joshua 3:5, NIV).

Indeed, if they hadn't trusted God and refused to put their feet in the water, they never would have seen the amazing things that God had in store. And this was just the beginning, God took them into the land he'd promised and did amazing things on their behalf in defeating the residents of the area in order to give Israel their own land.

I'm led to believe that the Jordan has steep banks, so by committing to put their feet in the water they were basically throwing themselves into the whole flooded river.

You might wonder how this applies to me? Well I'm not rushing to get back to Japan. I'm happy enough when I'm there, but Australia ultimately has my affection and it's hard to leave. However, I'm doing what I'm called to do and that is hop on that aeroplane. The previous two times we've done this after a year in Australia have also been hard, but the Lord has been gracious in giving me a great emotional sense of "you're in the right place", but not until we arrive in Japan. 

So often I think we confuse good emotions with the right thing to do. Sometimes doing the right thing doesn't come with matching emotions, not until later. Sometimes it is just the hard thing to do.

I don't know if that communicates what I'm thinking or not. We have conflict with children going in the background here and I'm not 100% healthy and my brain is a little muddled, but I did want to get my thoughts out there as something that's been on my mind for a few weeks now.