The Reluctant Missionary Part 3

Unintended consequences.  I seem to hear that term more often these days.  Usually, the writer or speaker is referring to some good deed that has negative side effects.  In missions, our efforts to help people, especially with their material or physical needs, can foster a dependence that is unhealthy for the people in the long run.  Early missionaries discovered "the hard way" that some people would profess to follow Jesus for the economic advantage it gave them.  When missionaries had to withdraw their support, the people went back to their former ways.  What was meant for good had undesirable and unintended consequences.

The story of Jonah illustrates that our failure to join God in His mission to the nations can also have unintended consequences.  When God sent the storm to get Jonah moving back in the right direction, it wasn't just Jonah whose life was at risk.  The lives of his shipmates were also in danger.  The cargo was thrown into the sea so that its owner suffered financial loss.  The crew was faced with the dilemma of killing a man to save their own lives.  Jonah's rebellion did not affect just himself; it affected the lives of others around him.

Our decision to join God in reaching the nations (or not join Him) affects not only ourselves but also our families, friends and churches.  When my wife and I were in the process of making the decision to go as missionaries wherever God might send us, one of the concerns we had was the welfare of our children.  We wondered about the quality of medical care in other countries.  We worried about their schooling.  We debated the effect of growing up in another culture on their social development.  God graciously answered all our concerns.  But now I think, "Why didn't we worry as much about the impact a decision not to go would have had on them?"  Who knows what could have happened to them if we had stayed in the states?  They could have succumbed to evil influences here just as easily as over there.  And what kind of role model would we have been if we had disobeyed the clear call of God?  How could we have helped them find God's will for their own lives if we were not obeying His will for ours?

When churches consider getting serious about missions, they often think about the impact the effort will have on their finances.  But they don't usually think about how failing to join God where He is working will impact the spiritual development of the people.  When the church fails to take risks in following God, the people learn to be calculating and selective in how they personally follow God.  What "storms" have we suffered because as a church we have focused more on ourselves than on the peoples of the world whom God wants reached?

Instead of thinking, "What will it cost us to go?" we should be thinking, "What will it cost us if we don't go?"  Instead of thinking, "What will happen to me?" we should think about what might happen to those we love.  Try praying about that.