Since God’s ways are often slow, it seems we excel at trying to speed Him up. Abraham did so with Hagar and Ishmael and Rebekah did so in helping Isaac trick Esau into giving up his blessing. Because of God’s election of Isaac over Esau, it would have happened eventually somehow. Rebekah and Isaac didn’t have to resort to deception, but they were helping God out.
I find it hard to know when to wait on God to work His purposes and when to launch out in faith. Great perils await us when we go to either extreme. Some people wait and do nothing, expecting God to do everything. Others are always doing things, sure that “God helps those who help themselves”. So how do we know which to do? These extremes are apparent in support-raising strategies. Some missionaries just pray and have faith that God will miraculously provide for them. Others believe in rolling up their sleeves and asking people directly for support. Who is right? Both models “work”.
My only answer to this dilemma is that it takes discernment to make these decisions, the kind of discernment that only comes when there is intimacy with God. Obviously, thinks like deception are always wrong and can never be justified (Oops! Does this apply to missionaries who use deception in going to a closed country?). Somehow we have to discern between what God expects us to do and what He does. In some cases that isn’t so hard, but in others it is difficult. We should be wary of speeding God up unless we have done a lot of praying and seeking counsel. Or else we risk playing God. The stories of Abraham and Isaac reveal that it often leads to significant pain.
Don’t you think the Jesus strategy was created for a hostile environment? I mean… he WAS in a hostile environment!!
We need to face that we, perhaps, have missed it somehow, since the hostile world thinks we are trying to change people’s religion and is mad about that, instead of believing we are trying to liberate them from religion completely, which is what Jesus was doing.
Let’s die for the right thing!
As for support… wasn’t Jesus modeling a hospitality-of-the-lost combined with the pitching-in-of-the-team’s resources way of support? There are no appeals recorded… nor prayers for others to give… Only that people joined the band and pitched in… and a prayer for daily bread. Perhaps his trips back to home base in Capernaum were opportunities for the guys to go fishing? Have we pulled out the wrong message from the fishing stories?