Elisabeth Elliot's "THe Savage My Kinsman" sheds some light and insight into my naive ignorable knowledge and perspective about missions...
From her Introduction...
The word "missionary" may call to mind preaching, teaching, church-building (and even this often means merely a physical plant, rather than a spiritual building), medical work, baptizing, catechizing, social improvement-almost any form of philanthropy. I found myself quite unable to undertake any one of these activities. A strange position for one who was called a missionary. I began to search my Guidebook to learn whether my definition had been an accurate one. The word "missionary" does not occur in the Bible. But the word "witness" does. I found many passages indicating that I was supposed to be a witness. One in particular arrested me. It stated that to be a witness to God is, above all, to know, believe and understand Him. (Isa 43:10) All that He asks us to do is but means to this end. He will go to any lengths to teach us, and His manipulation of the movements of men-Aucas, misssionaries, whomsoever-is never accidental. Those movements may be incidental to the one thing toward which He goads us: the recognition of Christ.
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10 "You are my witnesses," declares the LORD,
"and my servant whom I have chosen,
so that you may know and believe me
and understand that I am he.
Before me no god was formed,
nor will there be one after me.
11 I, even I, am the LORD,
and apart from me there is no savior.
12 I have revealed and saved and proclaimed—
I, and not some foreign god among you.
You are my witnesses," declares the LORD, "that I am God.
13 Yes, and from ancient days I am he.
No one can deliver out of my hand.
When I act, who can reverse it?"
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And from her Epilogue...
'How we long to point to something-anything-and say, "This works! This is sure!" But if it is something other than God Himself we are destined for disappointment. There is only one ultimate guarantee. It is the love of Christ. The love of Christ. Nothing in heaven or earth or hell can separate us from that, and because God is God and loves us He will not allow us to rest anywhere but in that Love. We run straight to Him when other refuges fail. Our misconceptions are corrected in Him, our failures redeemed, our sins cleansed, our griefs turned to joy. But first "the life also of Jesus must be manifest in our mortal bodies." First the drama must be played out-through suffering, weakness, failure, death and resurrection...
God keep us from sitting in the seat of the scornful, concentrating solely on the mistakes, the paltriness of our efforts, the width of the gap between what we hoped for and what we got. How shall we call this "Christian" work? What are we to make of it?
We must not proceed from our own notions of God's action (it will appear He has not acted) but must look clearly and unflinchingly at what happens and seek to understand it through the revelation of God in Christ. His life on earth had a most inauspicious beginning. There was the scandal of the virgin birth, the humiliation of the stable, the announcement not to village officials but to uncouth shepherds. A baby was born-a Saviour and King-but hundreds of babies were murdered because of Him. His public ministry, surely no tour of triumph, no thunderous success story, led not to stardom but to crucifixion. Multitudes followed Him, but most of them wanted what they could get out of Him and in the end all His disciples fled. Yet out of this seeming weakness and failure, out of His very humbling to death, what exaltation and what glory. For the will of God is not a quantitative thing, static and measurable. The Sovereign God moves in mysterious relation to the freedom of man's will. We can demand no instant reversals. Things must be worked out according to a divine design and timetable. Sometimes the light rises excruciatingly slowly. The Kingdom of God is like leaven and seed, things which work silently, secretly, slowly, but there is in them an incalculable transforming power. Even in the plain soil, even in the dull dough, lies the possibility of transformation for, as the psalmist wrote, "All things serve Thee."
The missionary, with all his sin and worldiness, stands nevertheless with Christ for the salvation of the world. As I learned when I was with the "savages," they do not need Christ more than I do, for we are all of us sheep who have turned every one to his own way. If I know who the Shepherd is and how to find Him, it is surely my duty to do what I can to point other sheep to Him. The effort to do this must not be seen in "either/or" terms-either it is flawless, and therefore a success, or it is flawed, and therefore a miserable failure.
Every time my hopes are dashed I am asked to exchange my small view of "good" (when things work my way) for God's view of it, express in Romans 8: "God who searches our inmost being knows what the Spirit means, because he pleads for God's people in God's own way; and in everything, as we know, he cooperates for good with those who love God and are called according to his purpose...that they should be shaped to the likeness of his Son." That, in the last analysis, is for us the only good-that shaping, no matter what it takes.
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