Missionaries Uniquely Destined to Face Frustration and Disappointment?

"Missionaries and church planters are a breed of Christian worker uniquely destined to face frustration and disappointment. We don't always cope with it well, but as it is part of our profession we all need to work hard to live with it. It comes from the fact that we are idealists. If we weren't, we probably would have chosen (or been led to) a less ambitious task.

Just think of it for a moment- what is our goal in life? A spiritual breakthrough among the hardest, most gospel-resistant people in the world? Churches of victorious and effective new believers, swimming triumphantly against the prevailing cultural tide? New life springing out of the desert sands? Perhaps you don't count yourself quite in that league of spiritual giants - all you dream about is a little group of enquirers asking the right questions and one by one coming to faith.

But, ambition high or low, we are dreaming of the impossible-or at least the highly unlikely. Which is why we need to hold on to vision and cling to faith in a God of the impossible and the unlikely. There is another temptation-to wonder whether there doesn't exist a golden key that can miraculously un-lock the stubborn tightly dosed door.

(EMQ January 2004, "The Search for the Golden Key" Mike Wakely - Asia director of OM, lives in London.)