Psalm 126:5-6
Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy.
Those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow,
will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them.

Galatians 5:6
The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.

Galatians 6:9
Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we
will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

In the kingdom of God sowing seems to be the most difficult job. It is thankless, frustrating, and usually very discouraging. The scriptures warn us that to reap abundantly we must sow abundantly. However, I for one sure haven’t developed the stamina for that. Perhaps, that is the process we are in now… exercises that will produce stamina? We’ve noticed a difference. The stress that was initially associated with our times with locals seems to have weakened. The confusion of misunderstandings have lessened.

Recently I had the privilege to take a group of students to a remote area for several days. During that time we did a lot of different team building activities. One was called canyoning. I had not heard of this before more-less tried it. I was up for it, but really felt no need to do it. Adrenaline just doesn’t do much for me any more. Despite that, as the preparations were made, I found myself in one of the groups. I even tried to pawn it off… but alas I was going.

Canyoning basically means abseiling (repelling) down waterfalls. In this remote area the waterfalls are basically cliffs with a fire hose blowing down them. We dressed up in our wetsuits, helmets, and harnesses and headed off to the cliffs.

To make a long story short, it wasn’t as dangerous as it sounds. It sure felt that way with the water blasting by, or often into us. My point for bringing it up at all is just this. The sides of those cliffs were VERY slippery, the rope was wet and had much more friction than I had experienced (if you call a half dozen rock face descents experience) … it was just plain awkward. Everyone slipped and splatted into the cliff a few times, most everyone was freaking out every time a leech was even in view, and we really were pretty unsure if we could do it, especially when we came to the 45 meter drop, twice as tall as the other ones. Gulp.

Ministry is like that. Sowing is like that. It can be awkward. It can be scary. We’re not always convinced we can do it.

On that same trip we were invited to visit a very small church of locals. They said for the first half they’d do church and for the second we would. They were beautiful. I really love to participate with these folks worshipping God.

Then came our turn. My students are so awesome… I on the other hand was like a fish out of water. I was handed a guitar with 3 high E strings randomly placed. I was crazy enough to even try to tune it… WRONG… Once we accepted that we were acapellaing it I was hard pressed to come up with a song that would translate and be simple… I reached back to childhood Sunday school and we sang “This is the day”. How funny. They had sang it to us in their language, now we sang it in ours… It worked out… but I felt so awkward. So weird… just like a fish out of water. Then we sang and did the motions for “Lord I Lift Your Name on High”. We translated the verses… I said this is the message that we both believe. We are not so different in this way. We are brothers and sisters. A student was translating… it was weird. Super uncomfortable. He was having a hard time translating… I thought it was simple. :-\

After it was over my good friend who was helping with the trip said it went fine. He had warned me not to expect too much from the guitar even before I had gotten it. He pointed out that the young man who invited us was probably thinking that their church should be more modern… We may have actually shown him that they are right on track. I still felt like a goober.

I suppose we all have to splat into the wall a few times. We should just be glad it’s only our pride that suffers. Someone else might reap what we sow. That’s a reality too. If it is all tears, then all tears it is. God is in control, and He has said it is more blessed to give than to receive. Not only should we be willing to give until it hurts, we should let other people around us splat into walls without being too hard on them. That’s how we learn. I’m certain my good friend had lots of ideas, but he chose to say “you did fine”. That’s why I call him my good friend. He’ll get a chance to give me advice, but is wise enough not to dump it on me while I’m feeling all splatted on the wall.

Let us not give up.