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."

Living with the not-knowing

I have had a fairly quiet start to the year. Truth be told, I'm still getting used to the quietness that has settled on our lives now that our kids no longer live at home. It's been nearly two years since our last offspring left home, but the ripple effects of that are still making themselves felt. I'm not sad—it's a joy, after all those years of parenting them, to see them making their own way in the world. And, most of the time, I also enjoy our quieter household.

These were my tiny broccoli
seedlings back in October. Now
they are more than 40 cm tall and,
I'm hoping, going to produce some
edible broccoli soon.
Small things shouldn't
be overlooked.

I have been thinking a little bit about "ripple effect" and also the euphemistic phrase "God's economy". Both of these touch on the idea that we really don't know how God is working behind the scenes of what we see and do. "God's economy" is sometimes used to flag that he works in mysterious ways that don't at all equate to how businesses are run in this world. We don't know how our actions affect others or what future results will be of the small (or larger) things we do today.

I see people writing about "creating core memories" for their kids...but I think that we probably can't know what memories our kids will take away from their childhoods. Usually we remember things differently from our parents and often the things that become deeply meaningful to us later don't seem like much at the time. We try our best as parents, but we simply don't know what our kids will take away from any interaction we have with them.

Likewise, I really can't pinpoint which (if any) of the following things I said or did yesterday had an impact on those around me:

I walked with a Chinese neighbour to the train station and back, at the train we met a friend from our church, another missionary (a prearranged meeting) and we travelled together to a gathering of missionary women. And of course we talked throughout the journey. I know how better to pray for these ladies after we've spent this time together. One of them had never been to one of these gatherings before and I was glad to be a friend by her side as she met a bunch of new people (and some she already knew).

I prayed for some of the women in small groups. Here are some things I prayed about for others: 

• an Iranian brother-in-law who is concerned about his family, 
• a young mum who was tired and wondering how best to use her time and how not to worry about the future,
• an elderly mum in another country with dementia-like symptoms, and
• a mum-of-teens who is seeking God's wisdom about future ministry.

I had wide, varied conversations throughout the morning and through lunch—some deep concerns on people's hearts, as well as about a trending chocolate brand and chocolate-coated strawberries and the showing off of some granddaughter photos!

I said "see you sometime" to a friend who is leaving Japan, and might not be back.

One lady, who I have shared deeply with in the past about some of our struggles with parenting a neurodiverse child, asked me for one piece of advice as she looks towards launching her own child to independent living in the coming year.

Then, after dinner, we logged into our church's online prayer meeting last night, as we usually do on Wednesday nights. It's a mid-week check-in to our church family and I usually come away feeling more connected and blessed by it all. Last night we prayed for some of these things:

• a daughter who is concerned for her aging parents overseas,
• a lost work key,
• an online English class for not-yet-believers that started in Sydney,
• people we know who aren't yet Christians, or who we long to see grow in their faith
• a couple of visas people are waiting on, and
• a family who have a loved one in a coma.

During the day I did lots of other "little" things like wish my mum and happy birthday, communicate with friends about their visit to our place for dinner on Saturday, and answered a question about a writers meeting next week. Not to mention the everyday things that I did for my husband like wash dishes and prepare dinner.

Not really much of anything that you'd "write home about".

Only God knows what the meaning of all this is. Only God knows what the women I interacted with yesterday at our meeting took away from the meeting, if any of my interactions with any of them were an encouragement or help. Only God know how he'll answer our prayers, though hopefully they were an encouragement to those who were prayed for. For my sanity I have to leave that with God. I have to live my daily life trusting that God will guide me and enable me to serve him in the big things and the small. And that he will take my small offerings to use for his purposes in other people's lives.