Embrace the Pain - September 25, 2007

 

Embrace the Pain

Raising support for faith ministry is terrifying.  If you are thinking about doing it and you are scared, you are normal.  If you aren’t scared you may be a little strange.

Once you have confronted the issue of the biblical basis for raising support and found it is sound, once you have determined it is indeed God’s calling on your life personally, and once you have decided you are going to stick with it as long as it takes, there is one final hurdle that will make or break you.  It is the issue of pain.  Pain is the big one.  It is the overwhelming, the brain paralyzing, the universal missionary-devouring enemy of all time. 

The pain happens because raising support, like many Kingdom concepts, runs radically counter to our culture.  In fact, it is downright repulsive.  It calls for dependence on others and we are brainwashed to be independent.  It calls for patience but we want it all now.  It calls for courage; we are cowards.  If you doubt or flatly deny that you fear the pain raising support, you aren’t being rational or truthful and that will hurt you in the long run.

Think about the little medieval monk who paid his keep in the monastery by begging from house to house. Can you imagine anything more degrading?  That is the picture the average church member has of you raising your support. To live out that image you must thrive on pain.

A good analogy of thriving on pain is the way a sailboat gets where it is going.  There are three forces at work when a sailboat moves through the water:  There is the force of the wind, the resistance of the water and the attitude of the sail. Let’s apply them one at a time:

The Force of the Wind

Let’s say the wind represents the power of your calling and the drive behind your dream to serve in ministry,   God told the apostle Paul, “. . . be my witness to all men of the things (you) have seen and heard” (Acts 22:15).  That calling was the wind in Paul’s sails. It is very likely the same kind of wind that drives you in your ministry dream.

The Resistance of the Water

The resistance of the water represents the pressure and the pain of uncertainty, the humility and outright rejection you face, not only in raising your support but in your whole lifetime of confronting fallen culture. 

I find it fascinating how Jesus faced pain. He had to know the blows, the welts, the lacerations, the spikes and the humiliation of hanging naked between two criminals was going to hurt.  During those last days, however, he did nothing to escape it.  In fact, everything he did was calculated to guarantee it.  When witness hurled false charges he clammed up and didn’t deny them.  When they accused him of saying he was the Son of God and King of the Jews he readily admitted it. He mustered and engaged all the physical strength he had in order to endure the beatings and then haul his own cross up that hill. 

The Attitude of the Sail

The Attitude of the sail represents your mindset.  Jesus set his mind to embrace pain as a key element in redeeming his church.  Now, in fact, he is calling on you to the very same mindset.  You get to suffer with him in the process of redeeming his church. 

Would you agree the Great Commission could and should have been done centuries ago?  It hasn’t been done because church has been in non-compliance with Jesus’ final instructions.  Individual believers are in non-compliance.  The western church is rich, fat, lazy, self indulgent and can’t be bothered.  We have God’s promise that if the church were to comply it would be enormously blessed.  Individuals would be enormously blessed.  As it is, they suffer for their non-compliance and probably don’t even know it. They rarely think about it.

The one mindset that will put you squarely into your designated role in the scheme of redemption is this: In order to connect the church with the promised blessing you will not only suffer pain, you will be a pain.  Jesus’ death and resurrection was a huge intrusion on the world’s comfort zone.  The gospel is an intrusion.  Evangelism is an intrusion.  The Great Commission is an intrusion.  Raising support is an intrusion.

I have a friend who lives in Hawaii.  One day I asked if he liked to surf.  He said, “Me? No, I get in water and I can’t breathe!  Besides, there are things there that want to eat me.”  I thought he had a couple of good points.

In order to raise support for faith ministry you go against forces that at best want to hurt you if not kill and eat you.  Pastors and mission leaders don’t return your calls and don’t  respond to your e-mails.  Relatives avoid you. You have friends who graduate with marketable degrees, get real jobs and pity you for your silly idealism. People not only don’t support you, they think you are nuts for planning to go where people might kill you for preaching Christianity.  That is serious resistance and real pain, and ultimately you could leak real blood.

But here is the good news: The pain doesn’t last.  From the outset it looks like it will dog you forever, but it will not.  It is like the pain of childbirth.  When the little bundle of joy is birthed, the pain is quickly forgotten. 

Hebrews 12:2 gives up Jesus’ secret to embracing pain: 

“Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”  NIV

- -Jerry Long

May, 2006