Twenty-five years ago I stood at the altar and said “I do” to Ray. The call to mission was strong... a cord that had drawn us together. We couldn’t wait to head to the field and change the world for Christ.  

Bright-eyed and with the confidence of newly-educated youth, we set out. The first endeavor we set our hands to was put on pause due to lack of funding. In the second, we faced a betrayal by our leaders. In the third, incompetence from the home office threatened to undo what we’d been working years to establish. 

With each setback, our confidence in ourselves waned. Was it us? If we had done something differently, could we have prevented these results? Additionally, the longer we served on the field, the more our eyes were opened to the harm caused by well-intentioned cross-cultural workers, both to their teammates as well as to the local people.  

We began to second-guess ourselves, our call, and our effectiveness. Confidence in our abilities had been replaced with caution. And yet, ultimately we saw God at work, weaving all of these messes into beauty and expanding the impact of the ministry despite it all. Looking back now, it all makes sense (even though at that time it shook our confidence). 

Ultimately we have learned that our confidence in ministry must not spring from confidence in ourselves, but from an unshakable confidence in Christ, His calling, and His plan for us. Our plans for ourselves and our ministry don’t always match with His plans, but His are always better than ours! As we see again and again in Scripture, He works though the weak and unexpected: Moses the murderer, Rahab the prostitute, Gideon the fearful, Ruth the foreigner, David the shepherd boy. Our Christ-confidence (rooted in Him and lived out by faith) reflects His glory to the world just as it did in these Bible heroes’ lives. 

It’s when we realize that we don’t have much to offer that we position ourselves in a posture of dependence that frees us to be used mightily by God. Don’t look to your own abilities, look to God. As Psalm 16:8 says, “I keep my eyes always on the Lord. With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken.”