Leaving the Lies Behind - Part 3

My family has been serving in France as missionaries for almost twenty years.  As any missionary who has been living on the field for that long can tell you, as much as I love France, it will never completely be home.  I do not always feel the weirdness of living outside of my native country, but in the back of my mind, I know that I am and will forevermore be the foreigner here.  

Maybe it comes from the strange looks I get when I butcher that phrase in French that I have said flawlessly a hundred times before.  Maybe it comes in the head-scratching moments when stores are closed for one month every summer, every Monday, and sometimes just because a holiday falls on a Thursday.  Maybe it comes as you commit the never-ending list of cultural faux-pas, social awkwardnesses and embarrassing moments that remind you that in spite of your best efforts, you will never ever ever ever ever ever actually fit in here. 

Cue social media.

I love the social part of social media.  I love feeling connected to family and friends in the U.S. (and fellow missionaries around the world.) With the touch of a button, I can wish happy birthday to my brother, or congratulate a niece on the birth of her child, or cheer on a friend as her family grows, excels, celebrates, and generally enjoys all the benefits of living in the good ole US of A.

That part is great.  The not-so-great part is that if I am not carefully guarding my heart, I risk exposing it to one of Satan’s lies, and it is a real doozy.

Lie number three:  Your life would be better in the U.S.

How I wish I could say that I have never entertained this lie in my heart.  To be honest, usually I don’t.  I am happy living here in what I consider to be one of the most beautiful countries on the planet.  My family is here, our ministry is here, our “home” is here.  When life is generally going well here, I don’t tend to dwell on what I am “missing” by not being in the U.S.  

When challenges on the field arise, however, my comfort-craving heart looks around for the “quick-fixes” that will instantly transform my difficult situation into my dream life.  I want my problems to go away, my trials to vanish overnight, and my life to continue on without its difficulties.  Many times, my challenges arise from being “stuck” here, in this place, in this time. I find myself whispering in my heart, “If only I were back in the U.S., I wouldn’t be facing this problem right now. Life would be good.  Better, even.”

What does my “better” life in the U.S. look like?

My financial needs would be better.  I am so thankful for our financial supporters and for their continued faithfulness in giving.  It would be impossible for us to stay on the field without their sacrifices and support, both materially and spiritually.  But oh, the joys of living with fluctuating exchange rates, bank closings, late deposit transfers, and the challenges of overseas bureaucratic “red tape” that can throw our finances into a tailspin!  Or the unexpected medical emergencies.  Or emergency evacuations from dangerous circumstances.  The comments from well-meaning family members--“Why don’t you just find a job there to help out?”—fall flat.  If only it were that easy…

When Satan roars this lie in my heart, I must run to the truth of God’s provision being linked to His faithfulness and not to my location.  When Paul wrote in Philippians 4 about learning to be content in whatever state he found himself, he was in prison.  Later in that chapter, he was encouraging an extremely persecuted and financially burdened church that God was the provider of their needs, through Christ: 

“But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” 

While God employs people or jobs to supply our needs is not the important part.  He is the Provider, and His provision comes in His way, in His timing, through His means.  

Am I willing to trust in His provision, in His timing?

My family would be better.  My husband was born and raised here in France by missionary parents.  So are my children.  I love seeing France through their eyes.  For the most part, they have accepted through the years that their lives are different from the ones they would have lived in the U.S. Different, but still good.  Of course, I know better.  I know that my husband would be better respected as a pastor in the U.S., that he would be less stressed with ministry needs and more fulfilled in his relationships with other men.  My children would have the myriad opportunities for sports and social encounters and camps and church activities, not to mention all the “stuff” that accompanies normal teen life in the U.S., right?

How short-sided my view of “better” for my family is, in light of all of the spiritual blessings that come from a life well-lived for Christ.  Whenever I am tempted to compare my life “here” with my life “there,” I must remember that the blessings that come from Christ are spiritual ones, not necessarily tangible ones, and they are not linked to a place.  Ephesians 1:3 reminds me, 

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.” 

In fact, the whole first chapter of Ephesians is a wonderful stopping-off place whenever I am tempted to complain about my current situation in life.  Is there any temporal blessing that can compare to being redeemed through the riches of God’s grace, an heir of the Father, knowing the mystery of God who revealed Himself to us through His Son? I do not have to be in America for my family to be blessed—we are already abundantly blessed, wherever we are. 

My ministry would be better.  It’s no secret that God’s work anywhere in the world is not getting easier, period.  It takes years of investment in people’s lives and during the “lean” times of ministry, it is just so, so, so tempting to quit.  These folks just aren’t “getting it.” There must be another place where it is easier to do the Lord’s work.  Why, in America right now, they are holding revival meetings and there are Christian camps and song services and Christian colleges, blog writers and ladies’ meetings.  I am sure hearts would be more receptive “over there.”

My stateside friends are rolling their eyes right now.  Of course, the ministry is not any easier in the U.S. Every field has its own challenges and faces its own obstacles to the Lord’s message. Ministry is difficult, period. And I should not expect it to be any different, whether I am surrounded by other Christians in the U.S. or ministering alone here on the field.  I am never alone. What a beautiful promise Jesus left His disciples at the end of His ministry to them:

"These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." (John 16:33)

The Lord’s work will always be hard, no matter where I am.  But if I am not where I am supposed to be, it will be infinitely harder.  And if God has called me to be here in France, I will never be more blessed in the ministry anywhere else than right here.

On our last furlough we stayed in a mission’s house with an old television that only received the local channels.  One commercial for life insurance played on a loop during certain broadcasts.  The question that the paid sponsor asked was always, “What’s your better?” What would make my life better in the future than it is right now?  It is a good question to ask, because it often reveals gaping holes in my own daily walk.  

Whatever I am tempted to cling to as a “better” than my current situation needs to be brought in line with God’s Word.  If I am walking close to Him, in the place He has called me and being faithful in the work that He is calling me to do, then the “better” I am longing for is not part of God’s best for me.  Whatever is not for God’s best in my life, no matter how tempting it might seem at the moment, needs to be left aside.  Only as I humbly accept the portion that God has given me today in this place will I ever truly be blessed and satisfied.  

“I cried unto thee, O LORD: I said, Thou art my refuge and my portion in the land of the living.” (Psalm 142:5)

Read Part 1 and 2 here...

Part 1

Part 2

Susan Abbett is a missionary wife and mom serving the Lord for almost twenty years in the needy country of France. Nothing wakes her up better than coffee, motivates her like learning from God's Word, challenges her like teaching anything to anyone who will listen, and refreshes her like being outside, usually walking or working in her garden. If she could sum up her life in one verse it would be John 3:30: "He must increase but I must decrease."

Leaving the Lies Behind - Part 2

I may shock a few people today with this statement, but here it goes, anyway:

There is no “missionary lady” magical formula.  

Oh, how I wish there were.  I wish in that moment that I knelt at the altar and surrendered my life to “full-time Christian service” (which we should already be doing, but that is a different blog post), that God would bestow on me every externally pleasing gift that every “good missionary lady” should have, but He doesn’t.  Or, at least, He didn’t for me.  

Let’s be honest here:

All missionary ladies do not play the piano, sing special music, teach children or women with no preparation time, have a house that is always company-ready day or night, nor do they have perpetually perfect children.  

No Christian woman does, for that matter.  The pressure we put on ourselves (or that we perceive others putting on us) is just plain unrealistic and unhealthy.

And yet, this is another one of those mental battlefields for the truth that Satan loves to engage us on.  

Lie Number Two :  “I’m not ______ enough.”

Let me be quick to say that every Christian woman the world over struggles with this lie. We know in our hearts that we are not perfect and can never be, but inside of us we hope that someone, somewhere is.  That gives me the hope that maybe somewhere down the line, I will be ____ enough. Maybe reading my Bible or praying more or being more sacrificial or taking lessons or doing some action on my part will make me _____ enough.   

My mind frantically looks around for someone who is ____ enough.  

Where do we look most often?  The leading ladies in our churches and those women who are held in esteem in our midst. Including that mystical creature known as the “missionary lady.”

Let’s face it:  most people’s experience with missionary ladies come from brief encounters in church meetings.  The missionary wife or single lady looks put together on the outside.  She talks in highly compact and copiously edited sound bites of her exotic experiences on the field.  Many times, the missionary lady sings beautifully or accompanies her family on the piano.  She shares her delightful experiences with grace and humor as she creatively teaches ladies or children. Her children (if she has the prerequisite three or more) are seemingly well-groomed and sit more or less patiently in church.  

Ladies who have grown up in church with this external perfection drummed into their heads and later become missionaries themselves have a hard time reconciling their messy day-to-day lives with the flawless missionary model they have constructed.   Difficult living conditions make even basic personal care challenging.  Her daily routines would make the average American church-goer gasp if they knew what was going on behind the scenes.  Her teaching is invested not in public displays in front of church congregations but behind closed doors as she homeschools her often unwilling children.  The grace and humor she displayed in churches can quickly give way to frustration and complaining if she is not carefully guarding her heart.  

The door has been left wide open for Satan’s destructive whispers:  “What are you doing here?  Who do you think you are?  How did you ever think that you could do this?  You will never be ____ enough.  You might as well quit and return back to the U.S. and let someone who is more qualified carry on. ¨

I know that we already know this, but it bears repeating anyway:  You are not ____ enough. And God never called you to be. Instead, He patiently reminds us that He is enough.  

“I am not spiritual enough.”  God did not save us because we were spiritual enough.  He saved us because we could not save ourselves and were completely dependent on His grace and mercy.  So then, after we are saved, why do we think that we must have a spiritual sufficiency that does not take in consideration His grace in our own sinfulness?  

We are not called to do anything without God.  It is His Spirit living in us that enables us to do anything for Him.  We should not live as slaves to sin, as Romans 6:11-14 reminds us that we are dead to sin.  However, we will never be spiritual enough to do anything for God in ourselves.   He alone can work through us to do any good work for Him.  “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God; Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.” (2 Corinthians 3:5-6)

“I am not talented enough.”  When we begin to compare ourselves or our ministry with others, this lie comes to the forefront.  We know that God has not called us to do everything in the same way, but couldn’t we be just a little more like ____ who does everything perfectly? Or maybe we have a heart for a certain ministry but find our talents or skills lacking?

I often find myself returning to Exodus 35 when God was preparing the new tabernacle for His service.  God specifically chose Betsaleel and Oholiab to do a specific work and then equipped them to do it.  Moses had his job, Aaron had his job, and Betsaleel and Oholiab had their jobs. Each one of them was especially endowed by God to do their service for Him.  What an amazing work that was completed when each one surrendered himself to the task that God had equipped him for!  What an amazing work we can do when we invest our talents for the Lord.

“I am not smart enough.”  Learning a language is not for the faint of heart.  Navigating daily life in a foreign country reminds us daily how “dumb” we are.  Maybe we lack formal Bible training and feel inadequate to penetrate through years of false teaching to share God’s Word.  Or have never been equipped to counsel people though difficult pitfalls in their lives.  All of this reminds us that we are not clever enough, but that’s okay.  Humbling, but okay. 

When I am tempted with this lie, I often turn to Exodus 3 and 4 and remember God’s encounter with Moses in the burning bush.  Every one of Moses’s objections ended with the Lord reminding Moses who He is. Of His presence.  Of His power.  Of His love. He reminds Moses in verse three of chapter three, “I will be with you.” God doesn’t say, “You got this, Moses.” God reminds Him that He “has this,” and that is enough.

“I am not strong enough.”  Nothing prepares a person for arriving on the mission field and really seeing the need firsthand.  We feel overwhelmed.  Outnumbered.  Completely inadequate when facing the insurmountable needs all around us.  Add to that the pressures we face when difficulties press us on the home front, when tragedy strikes our loved ones thousands of miles away and we are “stuck” here, helpless and unable to provide that physical support to our family and loved ones in the distance. Our defenses crack and we realized how woefully weak we are for the challenges that face us. 

How many times I have been encouraged by Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10. Read them once again and remember God’s abundant strength in our weaknesses:

“And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.”

The fact is, none of us is ever enough to do anything that God has called us to do. That is the miracle of His grace. In His unfailing love, God takes frail, unworthy creatures, saves us from our sins, and equips us through His Son to do His work through us.  That is His grace, His amazing love in action in us and through us.

The next time that we are tempted to meditate this lie from Satan, let’s agree with Him.  Yes, we are not enough.  But we are not supposed to be.  And then let us pray to the One who is sufficient in all things, for His strength to do what He has called us to do.

“And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.” (I Thessalonians 5:23-24).

Missed Part 1?  Click here.

Susan Abbett is a missionary wife and mom serving the Lord for almost twenty years in the needy country of France. Nothing wakes her up better than coffee, motivates her like learning from God's Word, challenges her like teaching anything to anyone who will listen, and refreshes her like being outside, usually walking or working in her garden. If she could sum up her life in one verse it would be John 3:30: "He must increase but I must decrease."

Leaving the Lies Behind - Part 1

Leaving the Lies Behind - Part 1

by Susan Abbett

Do you remember the children’s song, “Oh, Be Careful Little Eyes What You See?”  

That song we teach our children still convicts me as an adult.  Am I careful where my not-so-little feet now go? What my not-so-little tongue says?  

The most convicting verse of all for me?  

“Oh, be careful little mind what you think…”

Do missionary wives struggle with their thought life?   I wish I could put on my Super Missionary Wife/Mom cape and deny it until my last breath, but let’s just be honest here.  Being a godly wife and mom anywhere in the world is hard.  But take that same godly wife and mother and place her in a strange culture, cut off physically from her familiar comforts and anchors, and put her on the frontlines of doing the Lord’s work in well-ensconced enemy territory… 

Yes, missionary wives can become easy targets for Satan’s lies.  How easy it is for us to allow the difficulties of service to overshadow the amazing truths of God’s Word.  

Many years ago, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth wrote an incredible book entitled Lies Women Believe and the Truth that Sets them free.  If you have never read this insightful book, it is well worth the read. You can get a copy here.

This book exposes the many lies that women face on a daily basis and gives a Biblical perspective on each of them.  I have been recently rereading this book and applying it to my life of almost twenty years on the mission field.  These “missionary thought battles” are not unique to missionary wives and moms, but the support resources that are available to ladies in the US may be nonexistent to their sisters in Christ on the field.  

Yes, we struggle with our thoughts, often with silent tears that slip down our cheeks as we lay in our beds, the only times that many of us have to think about our topsy-turvy lives at all.  This is when Satan whispers his poison to us, drumming it into our minds until it all but drowns out the truth of God’s Word.

Let’s start with a biggie:

Lie Number 1:  “I am all alone here.”

This is the lie with which I struggle the most.  It is hardest because in many cases, it may be true.  I might be the only Christian in my town.  There might not be another Christian church for hours. The only Americans that might “get me” are locked behind a screen.  As thankful as I am for technology, I cannot hug my telephone and have my burdens lifted the way that human contact can.  

Physically, I might be alone.  Satan knows if he can drum this thought into my head, it will open the floodgates for all its ugly sister thoughts:  “Just go back home.  You’re not enough.  There is too much to do by yourself.  You will never make it.  At least in the U.S. there are other Christians, other churches, other homeschoolers…”

Psalm 142 could be our heart cry, but it was penned many years ago by David, all alone in a cave.  Isolated. Cut off from his supports and all that was familiar.  In enemy territory, running for his life.  

“I cried unto the Lord with my voice; with my voice unto the Lord did I make my supplication.

² I poured out my complaint before him; I shewed before him my trouble.

³ When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, then thou knewest my path. 

In the way wherein I walked have they privily laid a snare for me.

⁴ I looked on my right hand, and beheld, but there was no man that would know me: 

refuge failed me; no man cared for my soul.”

Can you feel David’s loneliness and desperation as the Spirit records these words through him? “I am in trouble, but worse than that, I am in trouble and all alone!  Hello? Does anyone care?”

Through these verses I see how God redirects our thoughts toward Him, in our darkest hours. And so, at my loneliest, when my heart is breaking from the isolation and the stress of being “the only one,” I must redirect my thoughts to Him.  

I love how David oriented his thoughts to the Lord.  His heart was crying out, but to the Lord.  Not to people right there.  Not on Facebook (haha) or to other “gods” who could not help him.  

^“5 I cried unto thee, O Lord: 

I said, Thou art my refuge and my portionin the land of the living.”

During life’s most intense moments of persecution and testing, the Lord is right there.  Even when I am “brought low,” God does not abandon me.  He sends deliverance and comfort, even when there may be no one else around me to help.

^“6 Attend unto my cry; for I am brought very low: 

deliver me from my persecutors; for they are stronger than I.”

I have learned after many years of ministering alone here that the Lord always sends someone at just the right time.  If I always had the human fellowship that I craved, my soul would never cry out to the Lord.  I would depend on others for strength, instead of leaning hard on Him.

I forget too quickly that loneliness is for a season.  It does not last forever.  God raises up those Jonathons whose souls are bound to ours.  He raises up those Aarons and Hurs to reinforce my failing arms in His time.

^“7 Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise thy name: 

the righteous shall compass me about; for thou shalt deal bountifully with me.”

My thoughts must return to Jesus.  How did He handle the overwhelming loneliness just hours before His own death, while His closest friends slept during His most desperate hours?

He prayed. He prayed to the only one who could hear and help.  He prayed for deliverance.  While He was praying for deliverance from His present circumstances, Jesus prayed for courage to accept His lonely mission.  Then, He got up from the garden and got back to fulfilling His Father’s will. 

When loneliness overwhelms me, may I be willing to take it to the Lord.  He understands my intense longings for fellowship. He desires my company and time spent with Him.  He longs for my heart to long after His, to be my Refuge when everything else around me crumbles.  

Will I allow the Lord to be my friend, my comfort, my confidant, my refuge?

Susan Abbett is a missionary wife and mom serving the Lord for almost twenty years in the needy country of France. Nothing wakes her up better than coffee, motivates her like learning from God's Word, challenges her like teaching anything to anyone who will listen, and refreshes her like being outside, usually walking or working in her garden. If she could sum up her life in one verse it would be John 3:30: "He must increase but I must decrease."