The year 2015 ended with the special pleasure of having a visit in our home with long-time friends, Steve and Deanne Turley. Steve and Deanne are veteran Assemblies of God missionaries who have served in Belgium for many years. The time together with them reminded me of everything special about Christian friendships that the years cannot dim: free-flowing conversations that are serious and substantive. Conversations that are honest, yet full of confidence in God’s providential mercies. These providential mercies have been made evident in years past and will certainly continue to be made evident in the upcoming years, including the year of 2016. Time with Steve and Deanne reminded me of the special place this couple has had in our lives and how God providentially used them to send us to Brazil 23 years ago. The same providence that has been at work in my life is at work in your life as well. Each of have a mission to accomplish. This post is my attempt to assure you that, “He who began a good work in you will complete it.” How? I cannot say. Will He? Of this, I am certain. My own story is a testimony to His faithfulness. Before telling my story, let me define briefly two important concepts, mission and providence.

Providence. God’s providence is defined by the Westminster Divines in the following way: “God’s works of providence are, his most holy, (Ps. 145:17) wise, (Ps. 104:24, Isa. 28:29) and powerful preserving, (Heb. 1:3) and governing all his creatures, and all their actions. (Ps. 103:19, Matt. 10:29–31)^[1]” Simply stated, providence is the teaching that God has all things under His control, including the details of my life, for good and for ill. Because it is God who is control, I can be sure of three things:

• I can trust God’s providence because He is all powerful. The God who made the vastness of the universe can and does control the sometimes seemingly chaotic details of my life and your life.
• I can trust God’s providence because He is all wise. I think that I have an idea as to how the universe should be best governed, but the fact is that I am woefully limited by my finite sinfulness. God knows no such limits. He really does know what is best for me and this vast universe that He created.
• I can trust God’s providence because He loves me. Jesus said that He would not leave us as orphans. We are His and He is ours. In all things, we have the confidence that He will never leave us or forsake us.

Mission. What is mission? There are a host of understandings of what this simple word means. Those understandings range from the simple idea of being sent to do a task to the possible actions and activities that might characterize and compose that task. However, for the purpose of this blog post, I am using a simpler understanding of the term, a definition of that comes from the world of leadership training. Your mission is what you should be doing, what you should be doing in every area of your life.

The word mission is derived from the Latin word, “missio” to be sent. This in turn begs the question: Sent to do what? What should I be doing? Answer that question and you know the mission for your life in every area of your life. Speaking from the perspective of Christian ministry, Aubrey Malphurs gives this helpful definition: “A mission is a broad, brief biblical statement of what the ministry is supposed to be doing.”^[2]

Substitute the words family, person, company, organization, etc. for the word ministry, and it will make no difference. The operative word is “should.” Your mission, before God, is what you should be doing in your life and with your life.

This inevitably leads to a couple of basic questions:                                        “How I can know what is my mission?”                                                                       “How can I remain faithful to that mission once that I know it?”

I will address the question of how you can know your mission in a separate post. But for now, I assume that you already know what your life mission is but you are facing barriers that seem insurmountable in seeing that mission accomplished and become a reality. This was the case in my life when God used Steve and Deanne to rekindle my call to missions. I will share more about that chapter in our pilgrimage to missions in the next blog post. Be sure to check back next week for Part 2 of God’s Providence and Your Mission

^[1] The Westminster shorter catechism: with Scripture proofs. (1996). (3rd edition.). Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.

^[2] Malphurs, A. (1998). Developing a dynamic mission for your ministry (p. 33). Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications.