Cathy Payne
Global Missions Coordinator
During my lifetime, I don’t recall the world experiencing, with such severity and regularity, the natural disasters we have seen in the last few years—monstrous tornadoes, killer earthquakes, unstoppable flooding, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, and so many other unexplainable world events. Attempts fail to measure the full fallout of death and destruction.
Unfortunately, these disasters are escalating at a time of crisis in the world economy. We are witnesses to the demise of national stability as a result of civil, ethnic, and religious warfare as the rise of terrorism exacts violence and horror throughout the world. If these circumstances are not enough, there are seemingly daily outbreaks of new diseases that devastate entire populations without any apparent cure.
World voices have begun to question whether or not the world is literally falling apart. The alarm has awakened the realization that our world has become an extremely unstable place where no one can predict what will happen next.
Those of us who seek to follow God’s leading into global mission service and eternal investment face a more rapidly changing and dangerous world than we have ever known before. In light of recent events, many Christians attempting to break through the darkness with the light of the Gospel are experiencing a loss of how to respond in order to share the good news of Christ to the nations, as well as provide relief efforts to so many needs around the world and within their own communities. This challenge can tempt us to listen to the wrong voices. It can create a devastating distraction and cause us to hoard support and resources to shore up our own lives instead of recognizing the greater opportunities to fulfill the commission of Mark 16:15, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.”
God speaks and gives specific direction. His voice clearly expresses the greater opportunity to become a part of the miraculous fulfillment of His divine purpose and move into our destiny. We need to know the voice of God even in the middle of the world falling apart; knowing it well enough to recognize that an alliance with Him and His plan requires complete commitment.
When facing the impossibilities of the mighty Philistine armies before him as the new king of Israel, David clearly listened for the voice of God. As God directed him, David won decisive victories over the enemy armies, confining them to their own lands for the first time in more than a century. David declared the Lord as his and Israel’s breakthrough over their enemies (2 Samuel 5:20 NKJV). In so doing, he declared the victory by the power and sovereignty of God.
When looking to the challenges of fulfilling the “Go ye” of global missions, we must remember that God alone is sovereign. God alone controls the nations. God alone declares the hope of the nations. And it is God alone who has provided the victory and breakthrough of His global mission plan. He is well able to reveal and define our level of participation and our destiny with hope and purpose.
Continue to brace yourself in peace for what will take place; hold on to God’s sovereignty for what is still to come. Prepare yourself to hear what God will say as you listen clearly for His voice. Refocus your heart to believe and to seek. You will find the God of breakthrough, “Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him” (Isaiah 64:4 NIV).