What's Mission Without God

Not many people know this lady but a friend introduced me a song of hers twenty five years ago. Her name is Ginny Owens and she was blind from the age of 3, but a song she sang "I am Nothing" really distilled a unique and profound sense of mission today.

These days, however, the concept of missions has changed largely into an action based message. The reality of my career is that I have always been asked to do "missions", whether it's proclamation, discipleship, service, social justice or creation care. In fact my whole career has been doing all this, but with a crucial distinction - that they were all done for secular purpose, called by the world for the world. The difference in missions is well captured in Ginny's song - that we could do so much.... But without God's love, how much of this mission actually leads to real purpose. Are we doing missions without God in the picture? Are we doing it for other'a sake and forgetting what's really important?

You know, I never knew Ginny was blind. And I never knew she was blind since she was 3. She never really mentioned it and from across the world from her, how was I to know. Yet she served God quietly with her songs without able to actually see the impact she has accomplished not just in my life but in many others. Sometimes maybe that is what God seeks - missions with humility, and missions without that humility to do His will and not our own is a critical difference in what missions is.

I also recently read about the Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, two pastors with various beliefs on missions. Barth believed that the greatest missions was theological clarity through proclamation and action should not get involved with political ideologies. Bonhoeffer, however, who grew up in Hitler's reign believed missions included a need to live out action, as a social responsibility towards others even if one's own action may simply be to turn the other cheek but justice for others was a love for God and a love for neighbours. However, this meant Bonhoeffer was greatly involved in a political ideology that also started and led the assassination of Hitler himself.

The world is truly a cruel one. And a Christian response is surely a difficult one. Just as we are asked to do missions in our lives, there is a heart of mission that is crucially important that precedes our mission. Whether that mission is in silent obedience, active missions or passionate proclamation. It is only in humbly submission to God and not along the tracks of the world that it must be accomplished.

I have always feared being blind since I was young.... Even if I could never understand it. It is one disability that I could imagine myself having. That day, one of my spectacles lens dropped out and I was left with one lens, but miraculously I could still see fairly clearly to finish my cycle home. It struck a thought in me how our vision is being adjusted by the lens of the world. Maybe that's why humans used a single eyeglass for a long time in the Victorian age. Ginny has a gift of seeing life with earthly blindness by spiritual clarity. Maybe that's what we are all missing in our lives.

We seek God. Let man not dictate our mission but let God decide it. Let man not judge our works, but God who sees the faith behind it.