Living on Mission

(Youth at Hearts & Hands Thrift Store)

   
Thank you all for your continuous prayers and thoughts! Today wraps up day four on our Mission Trip. The youth along with the adult mentors have served in various places and  different organizations the past two days. We have done many task from working with kids at the local Boys and Girls Club to sorting clothes at a non-profit thrift store. When we go on these mission trips and adventures we all have expectations. Expectations on what the people will be like, how the community will look and most of all what we will be doing the week that we serve. Each and everyone of us also can say that we have expectations not only for these times of outreach but also for our everyday lives.  What your coffee SHOULD taste like in the morning or maybe even how your kids SHOULD act. Realistically, we have all seen our expectations be completely demolished by the world around us. Or is it the world around us? Throughout the bible, there are countless stories on figures who know what they want or have expectations on what should be happening in their lives. For example Moses. Moses never saw himself as a leader or even a public speaker, yet God had different plans for him and his life. His expectations were not what God intended.

During this week of service, there have been times where we have not had too much to do at our work sites. Sometimes we end up just talking with the people or playing sports with the locals. This is not what you expect on a mission trip. Many of us came into this trip with our own expectations on what it was going to be like and how serving connected to Missions. Our expectations have been shattered. When you think of a Mission Trip, you most definitely think about manual labor or working with your hands and it can be frustrating when that isn't the case at all. However, this isn’t what God always intends for us on these trips.

Missions isn't just about serving others in a way that makes us feel good or to conquer our own expectations. But it's about living day to day in relationship with God and others around us. Sometimes, we forget that our expectations are not what God has instore for us just like Moses. We stray away from our relationship with Him and lean into our own understanding and expectations. The Mission not only test  these High School youth and adult mentors but also test every single follower of Jesus. Our lives should be about being on Mission and leaning into our Father for guidance instead of our own.

Psalm 143:8

“Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love, for in you I trust. Make me know the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul.”