I want to share with you a good lesson that I learned from my time in Nigeria.
While I am home I will be speaking and singing in churches to share about my mission experience and a new vision that I have for Nigeria so please continue to pray for me. I have started a ministry called UNITY (United National Intercessory Time of Yielding). UNITY will be equipping church leaders to start discipleship training and community wide intercessory pray services to bring unity among the believers in Nigeria. So many people in Nigeria have been saved through big conferences over the past 10 years but discipleship is almost unheard of there. The believers in Nigeria don’t understand that they can have a personal relationship with Jesus. They believe that they must attend church so that the pastor can pray for them. They don’t understand that there is more to the Christian life then going to church to get prayed for. UNITY hopes to enable believers to understand what it means to be a Christian and how to start a relationship with Christ. We also hope to teach the communities how to see past their denominational differences to move as believers in Christ as one body in order to bring the changes to that nation that are so badly needed in government. (Eph. 4:2-3,11-16; Col. 2:6-3:17; I Cor. 1:9-10)
Joy In Serving
Before I left for Nigeria a man came to our church and he had a word for me that going to Nigeria was not for the reason that I thought but that indeed God was sending me there to change me. He said that God was going to change me so much that when I get home my best friends will not even recognize me and the reason that God was going to do this was so that people who see the change will know that they too can change because of God’s grace. Many of you may not know my testimony from the last few years that makes this word an awesome word for me, but here is a testimony of a lesson I learned on the mission field which is part of the fulfillment of the word spoken to me at my church.
1Ki 19:1 Ahab reported to Jezebel everything that Elijah had done, including the massacre of the prophets. 1Ki 19:2 Jezebel immediately sent a messenger to Elijah with her threat: "The gods will get you for this and I'll get even with you! By this time tomorrow you'll be as dead as any one of those prophets. "1Ki 19:3 When Elijah saw how things were, he ran for dear life to Beersheba, far in the south of Judah. He left his young servant there1Ki 19:4 and then went on into the desert another day's journey. He came to a lone broom bush and collapsed in its shade, wanting in the worst way to be done with it all--to just die: "Enough of this, GOD! Take my life--I'm ready to join my ancestors in the grave! "1Ki 19:5 Exhausted, he fell asleep under the lone broom bush. Suddenly an angel shook him awake and said, "Get up and eat!"
1Ki 19:11 Then he was told, "Go, stand on the mountain at attention before GOD. GOD will pass by." A hurricane wind ripped through the mountains and shattered the rocks before GOD, but GOD wasn't to be found in the wind; after the wind an earthquake, but GOD wasn't in the earthquake; 1Ki 19:12 and after the earthquake fire, but GOD wasn't in the fire; and after the fire a gentle and quiet whisper. 1Ki 19:13 When Elijah heard the quiet voice, he muffled his face with his great cloak, went to the mouth of the cave, and stood there. A quiet voice asked, "So Elijah, now tell me, what are you doing here?"
I was like Elijah who was just finished. My situation, I felt was so big and bad I believed that God would need to come in a big way to let me know that He knew I was not happy. Let me tell you what happened to me on the mission field so you will understand why I felt like Elijah and how I know I can have Joy while waiting to hear a still small voice. God called me to be a missionary at the age of 9. I had prepared my whole life to be a missionary and finally my time came. In January 2005 I was called and offered a job as a principal at a school in Nigeria. I knew this was God’s avenue to get me to the mission field. I want to encourage you that God works in many creative ways to get you where He wants you to be so if He is asking you to do something that you feel will be to hard or not as good as you hoped then hold on because I promise God has a plan for you. I can testify to this because I am not qualified to be a principal, nor do I want to be a principal. I am a missionary who does many things but a principal is not one of them. I have a friend who is a principal and she is the best principal I have ever met and I have worked with many over the years. The point is that God created her to be a principal and she does it well, I was not created to be a principal although I tried to rise to the challenge but I found it hard to get into the job because I had no interest in doing that at all. But I knew God was using this to get me to Nigeria so I decided that I would take the challenge, sell and give away all I had but just a few boxes of personal things and go to the mission field because I knew serving God would bring joy to me and make everything in my life ok. That didn’t happen and this is part of the lesson that I learned.
My mission experience was very challenging. The people of Nigeria are some of the most wonderful people on earth and God has put something special in my heart for this people group. It was a pleasure to work with them and I had several speaking engagements at conferences and churches where I was able to minister the Word of God and encourage our brothers and sisters in Christ. The problem that arose for me was my hosts were not really prepaid to take in someone different from their own culture. They didn’t know how to help me adjust to their way of life so that was a huge challenge that I had to overcome. There were a few things that I was misinformed about with the job and with the living arrangements. My transportation that I was promised was not what I was told. This caused some major set backs for me as I was dependent on using what I was promised to get to different villages to preach and share the gospel but instead I spent the majority of my time sitting on a porch because being inside the house was too hot and waiting for time to go to bed. All of these things I took as a challenge and at first I felt good about having such a big challenge because I figured it was all part of being a missionary and I used all that time I was just sitting to study my Bible and really learn to hear God speaking to me in new ways.
You know suffering for Jesus? Well, suffering became a way of life for me and I knew that it didn’t have to be. On my arrival I got sick from an allergic reaction to some meds I was taking and then the medicine I was taking to protect me from malaria began to make me sick, I fell in a whole and hurt myself……just small or big things were beginning to happen to me and I was really beginning to wonder if I heard the right call. My support from home, other than my parents was next to nothing. I was not able to be in touch with many people so I didn’t have any encouragement coming from home. (this is very important to a missionary) There was a problem with eating as my host would promise to have the cooks prepare something without pepper, which they eat in and on everything, but she would somehow forget to tell the cook and when it came time to eat the evening meal she would say sorry, I forgot so for that day I would not have anything to eat because there you cook all you have for that day, and this went on for one month. So for one month I ate nothing and even though it was a good weight loss plan it didn’t help me because that whole time I was broken out with hives and becoming more ill by the day. Then there was the problem of trying to do my job which was an impossible task. The request or requirement was that I get 4 students a visa to travel to America and they truly thought that just because I was an American that I should be able to do this. I tried for weeks to explain to them that I was not in any way responsible for the American government issuing visas to anyone but they just couldn’t understand that, and when I say they I mean only my boss and his wife which were my hosts. Their response to me was to yell at me and belittle me for not getting these visas which made my willingness to go to work next to nothing. I say all of this to show you that I had a very hard time on the mission field. I hope that it doesn’t sound like I am complaining, I am not, but I want to make the point that things were not easy for me. There are many stories of suffering I can tell you about but the point that I want to tell you is that all of this suffering that I went through happened because it was going to happen but it was how I was looking at things that made it more worse for me than it had to be. I truly thought that if I went to serve God that He would make me happy and make everything turn out okay for me. I don’t know exactly where I got this idea, maybe preachers who don’t know the truth, or ideals I came up with after listening to missionaries who forgot to tell about the hardships on the mission field, maybe seminary where they may not have covered all of the ins and outs of missions. Who knows? The important thing is that I have learned a great lesson and I want to share that lesson with you.
Before coming home I left my village to stay in Lagos where I had a speaking appointment so I wanted to take sometime to fast and pray and get healed up emotionally before I came back to the States. It was during this time that I realized the lesson I learned that I am sharing with you. A friend was staying with me and as the two of us dove into the Word during this fasting time God began to show me what mistake I had made. I was reading a book by John Piper called When I Don’t Desire God, How to Fight for Joy. This is a great book and I will be sharing from it later. It was through the Word, this book, my friend and prayer that I received my emotional healing which allows me to now share all of this with you. The lesson…… never serve God to get Joy! Of course God will bless you when you serve Him, but it should not be your motive for serving Him. Just don’t try to serve God to get Joy. This was not what I was thinking when I went to the mission field. I was not thinking that by going and serving God I will get joy, so I better go…… I was thinking that no matter what happens, because I am serving God I will find joy in it. WRONG! If that were true, that I could get joy from serving God, then all I went through would have made me joyful and friend, by the time I decided to come home I was not joyful about anything I had gone through. I am joyful now because I have an understanding of what joy in service is and I know that what I have passed through has caused me to grow and mature and see many things about God that I only thought I knew before. If you want to serve God find joy in Christ then your joy will come through Him.
All this time on the mission field I have been wondering why my joy from serving God couldn’t be found and I have discovered that I have tried to place the joy in the service and how good or bad it was. But that joy was misplaced. My joy should have been in Christ and the knowing Him personally as my savior. The joy should have been to serve Him because I love Him, not to serve because I was called therefore I must go because that going and serving will be my joy. The call was a gift to put me on the right path to have and live in the greater gift which is joy. I have been fighting to have joy and misunderstanding that there is no fight for joy. Joy is a gift given to us when we choose Jesus. Not only does joy lead us into service for God, joy also builds faith because if I have joy in Christ because of who He is, and because I trust Him and in Him then that means that I see Him as a treasure which means I treasure Him and to treasuring something means being glad to have it so therefore, my saving faith involves no less than being glad to have Jesus Himself for who He is. (John Piper, When I Don’t Desire God, How to Fight for Joy, pg 36) Knowing that I have joy in Christ for the reason of who He is then I know without a doubt that I can do anything that He asked me to do because the only thing I am then looking for is the joy found in knowing Christ and not the joy found in the things He gives me or what He does for me. All other things will be added to me if I am seeking Christ and not seeking service to Christ. (Mat 6:33; Luke 12:30) So my receiving things or hoping things will go a certain way is no longer a concern for me because as I joy in Christ He will give me all I need and put me in a place to give me more joy because joy is a gift. This means that I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. Phi 4:13) I understand that the joy of the Lord is my strength. (Ps 28:8) In Eph 1:18-20 Paul tells us that the exceeding greatness, that is strength, is something that he wishes we would have. This strength that he is talking about is the same strength that God used to raise Jesus from the dead. That is a lot of strength! It is the same strength found in Ps 65:6 that says that God formed the mountains by the strength of His arm. That is the same strength found in Heb 1:2 which is the strength that made the universe through Christ which is the same strength in Mark 11:22-24 where it says to have faith in God and say to this mountain be removed and it will move. I have strength through joy because I know Christ and He is in me and He is God so it is God’s strength that is in me, the same strength that raised Christ from the dead and formed the mountains of the earth and created the universe. Faith isn’t in seeing the mountain and how big it is and what a big job it will be to move it. Faith is in knowing I have that strength in me to move a mountain since it is the same strength that created the mountains in the first place. Because I joy in Christ, my strength comes from my joy in the Lord.
My faith told me that if I go and serve God all things would work “good” for me. That is almost scriptural, the Word says in Rom 8:28 “And we know that to them that love God all things work together for good, even to them that are called according to his purpose.” I was focused on loving the service to God more than focusing on loving Christ. Can you love and not have or feel joy from it? When you love (joy) God works things out for your good. I was loving but I was loving that “I WAS SERVING GOD” more than I was loving God. I didn’t feel like I needed to focus on loving God, loving Christ, because it was like an unspoken rule that I loved Jesus, why else would I serve Him by going all the way to Nigeria? I have been active in church my whole life but I had misunderstood the joy and love I was to have for Christ and in Christ and how it is related to serving God. I believe this is why so many missionaries struggle with being on the mission field with joy. When things get rough or the culture mistreat them, and I mean me, and there is no support from home then it is hard to see past the struggle and they, I mean me, begin to doubt their call and can even begin to wonder if God really loves them, I mean me, in the first place. When this happens there is no longer joy in service, it just becomes a very hard job to do. I believed that God would bless me and protect me just because I decided to serve Him and even though I was not killed, none of the good things were happening for me and that was because I was trying to find joy where it wasn’t meant to be found. I was trying to have joy in serving which serving is hard work and when you are hard at work, joy is hard to find. My joy, if it would have been in Christ would have made my work easy, not that the work is easy or serving Christ is a bed of roses, but my burden would have been joy in Christ and joy is not a burden. As Piper says, “My work is a great work to do but it is only great because the Lord is great.” I saw the work more than I saw Jesus so therefore, I was trying to find happiness, joy, delight, satisfaction, fulfillment, faith, strength and safety in my service which only became an idol for me and it all drove me away from God to the point that I wasn’t even sure if God loved me because all of my effort, the effort of trying to make all joy, led straight to major suffering in my situation on the mission field.
I was sent to Nigeria for several reasons but the main reason was to be trained and changed and to learn about what joy is so that God can send me out to do greater things, things that I may not even believe in yet. Moses was sent out for training as was Joseph and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego just to mention a few. God has a funny way of doing things sometimes and most of the time we think He is doing one thing with us when really He is doing another and this is a good reason to have joy in Christ because as long as that is your focus then His plans will not frustrate you.
God used one certain person in my life on the mission field to train and change me and his name is Akanimoh who’s name means more than wealth. That is exactly what Akanimoh has given me, more than anything money could buy. He has led me, guided me, corrected me, yelled at me, loved me, protected me and taught me giving up five months of his life to be with me. Through his own joy in Christ he came to help me as a service to Christ because he understands joy in Christ. I want to encourage you to look for your Akanimoh when you discover God is doing something different than you first thought.
Through my whole experience I have been able to see where my joy comes from, that it is a gift from God, and where to place my joy and also to understand that God rewards me when He wants to and not when I think He should. You know God does reward us for serving Him and I don’t mean to make light of that or not mention it, but before that happens you must get your joy in the right place. I am sharing all of this to encourage you to put your joy in Christ and not in your service.
Here are some truths that have helped me in understanding how to have joy in Christ. They are from John Piper’s book When I don’t Desire God, How to Fight For Joy.
“We understand that our fight for joy does not coerce God to give the gift of joy, but puts us in the path where he has ordained the blessing to come. I say it carefully, lest I sound as though joy can be demanded from the Almighty. It is a fruit of the Spirit that grows on the tree of faith Gal 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,… it is not a wage God must pay for our work or for our fight. That God ordinarily gives joy when we walk in certain paths is no guarantee that he will do so according to our timetable.
We are like farmers. They plow the field and plant the seed and cut away weeds and scare away crows, but they do not make the crop grow. God does. He sends rain and sunshine and brings to maturity the hidden life of the seed. We have out part. But it is not coercive or controlling. And there will be times when the crops fail. Even then God has his ways of feeding the farmer and bringing him through a lean season.
We must learn to wait for the Lord. King David gave us an example of this in Psalm 40. “I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God.” Here is a man after God’s own heart (1 Sam 13:14), who spent time in the “pit of destruction” and in “the miry bog” – where there was no song in his mouth. How long was he there? We are not told. What matters is what he did there. He waited for the Lord. He could not make the Lord come. He could wait and hope and trust that he would come. And he did come. He put David’s feet on a rock and put a new song in his mouth.” (pg 42)
“In obedience to God’s Word we should fight to walk in the paths where he has promised his blessings. But when and how they come is God’s to decide, not ours. If they delay, we trust the wisdom of our Father’s timing, and we wait. In this way joy remains a gift, while we work patiently in the field of obedience and fight against the weeds and the crows and the rodents. Here is where joy will come. Here is where Christ will reveal himself (John 14:21). But that revelation and that joy will come when and how Christ chooses. It will be a gift.” (pg 43)
“James 1:12 says, ‘Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.’ The person who will receive the crown of eternal life is the person who successfully endures trail-that is, the person who fights for joy in the pain of loss and gets the victory over the unbelief of anger and bitterness and discouragement.” (pg 37)
“Believing that joy in God is a gift of God will give all the glory to God. This is the goal of the Christian life – to live in a way that will show God to be most wonderful.. The apostle Peter gives a principle in 1 Peter 4:11 for how to do that. He says, ‘Whoever serves, [let him serve] as one who serves by the strength that God supplies – in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.’ The strength to serve is a gift. God supplies it. When we believe that and lean on it consciously, we show God to be the glorious giver of the strength. The giver gets the glory.” (pg 55)
Find your joy in Christ and you will be complete in all you do!
Love,
Amy
Scripture References
Mat 6:33 But seek ye first his kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Luke 12:30 For all these things do the nations of the world seek after: but your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things.
Phi 4:13 I can do all things in him that strengtheneth me.
Psa 28:8 Jehovah is their strength, And he is a stronghold of salvation to his anointed.
Eph 1:18-20 having the eyes of your heart enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to that working of the strength of his might which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and made him to sit at his right hand in the heavenly places
Psa 65:6 Who by his strength setteth fast the mountains, Being girded about with might; God formed the mountains by the strength of His arm.
Heb 1:2 hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the worlds. This is the same strength that made the universe through Christ.
Mar 11:22-24 And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou taken up and cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that what he saith cometh to pass; he shall have it. Therefore I say unto you, All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them…..
