The morning dragged on and I was feeling frustrated. It seemed just as hard to keep my own focus on the long list of to-do items as it was to keep the girls focussed on their maths pages! Am I doing enough…? Shouldn’t I be achieving so much more? I thought of the house-church I had visited with my friend in March, so I sent a quick text asking if he was going tonight. “Of course you should come” he replied.
The passage was 1 Corinthians 1, and as we examined it together, I found my spirits lifted. Various phrases stood out to me: “He will also keep you firm to the end” (v8), “the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom” (v25), “God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.” (v27). It was encouraging to be reminded that as much as it is important to work hard, my ultimate calling is to live in fellowship with Christ, and that it is God who is truly the faithful one (v9). If I remain in that fellowship, he will use even my weaknesses to bring him glory.
In this season of partnership development, I have been learning a lot about building and maintaining relationships, and no doubt I still have a lot more to learn! It always requires a certain amount of risk to form a new friendship; and then trust must be built. The things I do and say throughout this process are important, but ultimately it is the character of who I am that will count – both now and once we get to the mission field. Whether we are sharing at churches and connecting with people here in NZ, or training church leaders and reaching out to Buddhists in Thailand, everything is built on relationship and must be rooted in my relationship with Christ.
