a thought in regards to the future work in auckland

As I write this post we are hopeful that we will be returning to Auckland in approximately five months.  I get excited when I think about returning and beginning our work in central Auckland.  So much prayer and preparation has taken place in the last year and a half and I'm eager to get on the ground and start pursuing what we believe God has called us to do.

Alongside the eagerness and excitement though there also exists some amount of trepidation.  We know we have no strength or ability in and of ourselves to bring any success from this work.  We could plant a church and have nobody show up.  Ever.  Our time of raising support has forced us to learn to depend on God's provision in God's timing but I'm not always sure that I've learned that lesson well.  When I think about going into Auckland I wonder how to break through the relativism and hedonism, how to speak to in a way that doesn't come across as trite and cliche to those who have fully embraced cynicism, how to love past indifference.  When I think about these things I'm all to aware of my own lack of love and my own indifference, my hedonism, cynicism,  and apathy, not to mention my feeble words and weak tongue.  In times like these I need to be reminded that this mission we are being called to isn't about us and it's success doesn't ultimately rest in our eloquence or ability.  Tonight I read some helpful words from Christopher Wright on this very issue:

     We are seeking to accomplish what God himself wills to happen.  This is both humbling and reassuring.  It is humbling inasmuch as it reminds us that all our efforts would be in vain but for God's determination to be known.  We are neither the initiators of the mission of making God known to the nations nor does it lie in our power to decide how the task will be fully accomplished or when it may be deemed to be complete.  But it is also reassuring.  for we know that behind all our fumbling efforts and inadequate communication stands the supreme will of the living God, reaching out in loving self-revelation, incredibly willing to open blind eyes and reveal his glory through the treasures of his gospel delivered in the clay pots of his witnesses (2 Cor 4:1-7).  

                                                     - The Mission of God