Be faithful today

“Finally, brothers, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored, as happened among you, and that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men. For not all have faith. But the Lord is faithful. He will establish you and guard you against the evil one. And we have confidence in the Lord about you, that you are doing and will do the things that we command. May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ.” – 2 Thessalonians 3: 1-5

In my last post I said, “I’m going to need at least another month of reflection time to truly soak in all His teaching.” Well, it’s been about a month since I last posted, so I guess I was right in some respects—I apologize for not updating sooner!

I’ve been back in the States for about two weeks now, and the thought of having spent six weeks in Sydney, Australia is still unreal to me! What an incredible privilege. I know I was there; I’ve seen the photos, and I have the memories of all that occurred during our time in Sydney. But sitting in my apartment in small town Montevallo, Alabama, I am still amazed at all God did this summer!

My prayer was, to in some small way, impact Australia for Christ. I believe I had expectations going over there, but for the most part, those were immediately thrown out the window. ‘Be faithful,’ God continued to whisper to me.

Be faithful to what? What does faithfulness look like in a foreign country, on the other side of the world?

It means living out your faith: investing your time to commune with Christ, and then pouring yourself out to a few. It’s life on life discipleship: living out what you believe, not once in a while, but every hour of everyday. Faithfully getting up in the morning and going to campus—not because of me, or because my leader told me that’s what’s on the schedule today, but because Christ calls us to seek the lost and encourage believers. Through this, God showed me the importance of reproducing my life!

This was incredibly difficult in Sydney. Ministry is different, campuses are spread out, and students rarely stick around past 2 or 3 o’clock. So how were we faithful to meet up with students? Anyway we could: soccer matches, soup kitchens, Pitt Street Mall, lunch, dinner, coffee…I learned to be casual, but intentional. If Christ is the center of my life, I’m going to talk about Him: how He is shaping me, changing me, etc. We all worship something, and what we worship we will bring up in conversation. So I found myself easily talking about my favorite food with a stranger, but not going much deeper than that. In a post-modern culture that believes ‘Christ is good for you, but no thanks’ you could be talking about your favorite flavor of ice cream for the whole six weeks…I had to be immersed in the Word of God, building my convictions on His Scriptures. It is much easier to share about the immeasurable power of my Lord Jesus Christ when I have been meditating on passages that speak of His overcoming the grave!

I believe we were faithful with what God gave us to do during our time in Sydney, but I also believe that God did much more in us then through us this summer. I believe we did the work of missionaries: we went to campus, we shared Christ—but God works outside of our work. So to say that ‘we did,’ is to dishonor the work that God did—and is continuing to do in our absence. He taught me so much more about His kingdom, His purpose, and His ways, then I taught anyone. And I’m thankful for that.

Two weeks post field…I knew I would miss going to campus, I would miss seeing the beauty of Australia, and I would definitely miss all my new SOW friends! I had been preparing for this though. But more than anything, I miss our community so very much. As believers we have the privilege of biblical community! God went to great lengths to pursue His people (at the cost of His Son) and He uses those people to pursue and invest in a younger generation of believers. For six weeks, with eleven of my closest friends, I got to participate in doing this daily. They encouraged me by the Word of God, they prayed for me, and as a team we labored and learned together. But just because I’m back in the States doesn’t mean this has to stop. We are spread out across the Southeast right now, but my prayer is that we will take what God taught us this summer to our campuses in the Fall. May we all see God’s kingdom come on Earth as it is in Heaven.

Thank you for coming on this journey with me, God Bless you all!