My mom taught me at a young age something I'll never forget but I've since put it into my own words, "if God is after you to learn something, you best learn it quick and cause yourself less trouble."
One lesson God has been driving home to me specifically in the last 2 weeks has been service. You would think that being a missionary, that the idea of service comes with the territory. I have found it interesting how you can easily segment off what areas of life you are willing to be servants in and which you may find yourself not servants in.
For example, helping people with computers. This is an area I've always tried to be a servant. I've tried to serve my wife, and my children. Friends even. But strangers? I was surprised at the fact that I do not have an instinct of service to strangers.
Perhaps the thing I admire most about Cameron Townsend in the reading of one of his biographies, is that he had an instinct to serve people.
We're reading a few books on this topic, and I have since decided this is the area where God is working in my heart to create a discipline to react with an attitude of service in ALL aspects of my life.
I've tried to instill this in my kids, and in many ways they understand it, and in many ways they are still selfish like kids are. In fact one of the significant factors of maturity that I notice, is servanthood. Selfishness is perhaps the loudest indicator of one's maturity, and I have asked God to shine a light on my own selfishness wherever it may crop up.
One such place has been these visas. I have been asking people to help so much with these visas, and we have been calling the embassy for so long, but not once did I ever ask "how can I serve THESE people?" instead I was expecting them to serve me. Provide ME with MY visas. After all I had filled out all the paperwork in advanced, did all the things they required of me, jumped through multiple hoops repeatedly, why could they not supply my visas in time?
And then we realized the visas would not come no matter how much we pushed. That God had to do it. So we turned to Him in prayer.
And we prayed for a long time. And God began working in my heart about service.
Two days ago, I woke up, did my devotions, and a thought came to me "find someone to serve today."
At 10am, I called the embassy to ask about the visas, but as the phone rang I thought "perhaps I can serve this person today?"
and so instead of asking about the visas first this is how the conversation went:
"Hello, this is Chad Owens, I've called many times before. But before I ask you the question I'm sure you're anticipating, could I ask you... how can I help make your job easier today?"
the person on the other end of the phone paused, and was silent.....
so I offered up "I know that a lot of people are anticipating our visas and may be calling you a lot."
she responded "well, it would help a lot if you could appoint one person to call a day."
"I will do that, I will be the one to call, and I'll instruct everyone else not to call. Thank you."
"your visa letters aren't in today Mr. Owens."
"thank you very much. I look forward to calling you tomorrow. I expect they'll be in by then."
And that was our conversation. Approaching people with an attitude of service not only changes the entire tone of the relationship, but it is disarming, it avoids conflicts, it does so many wonderful things, that you'd almost expect Christ knew what He was talking about! (-;
He did, He knew what a wonderful interpersonal skill an attitude of servanthood would have, and how people would respond to that positively, and how it reflects on the body.
I had assumed the embassy was a business with many people, but I soon realized it was the same person answering the phone every day. Had I started off with an attitude of service months ago, perhaps an opportunity to share Christ with this woman would have arisen over the phone.
I do not believe in coincidence. So what does it tell you when 24 hours after I applied what God was putting on my heart in a new way, that our visa letters came in.
The next day when I called, the letters had arrived, I didn't even have to ask the question she was so enthusiastic to tell me.
Not only that, the visas are now safe at home. We have them.
God is teaching us. As missionaries and people we are not perfect. We are having our faith perfected by God. Isn't it wonderful that He cares enough about us personally to disciple us through His Word and through others?!!
Who am I to know the mind of the Lord? I don't claim that the visas were held up because I needed to learn a lesson. That would be making this faith about me... it isn't about me, or us... it is about being blessed to be a blessing, about reflecting God and His glory.
Our prayer is that God would be glorified, that people who do not believe WOULD believe, and that our relationship with Christ would be such that we do not let our nature get in the way of what God would do through us.
