How do we know that the work we are doing is being beneficial at all? Is "spiritual fruit" the end all be all of the mission field? Why do we press on in this tiresome work looking constantly for some kind of effectiveness?
I constantly work 40 hour weeks attempting to accelerate Bible translations around the world. It is a long process, and at times it is a headache looking at all of the coding, screens, emails, etc. Selfishly I look at what I am doing and think "I wish I could see more of what this is accomplishing." Selfishly I lean back in my chair and stare blankly at my computer screen thinking "Man, I wish I could be somewhere like West Africa of Southeast Asia or the Amazonian Basin working hands on with a translation project."
Then the Lord divinely smacks the back of my head. . .
I have been put in the situation I am in because this is where the Lord wants me to be currently. I am not discontent with it, I am only a human being thinking in a very short term way. The only way I am naturally able to think is similar to Plato's cave. I see my reality thinking temporarily that that is all there is; not knowing that what i'm seeing is but shadows or what is real.
But where is the fruit?! Where is the effectiveness of what I am working on all day every day? What am I doing to effect the world with the Word of God? It's there, it has to be there. I can look through the black hole of my shut off computer and know that on the other side there is another human being working just as hard as I am using what I am working on to bring the Bible to their language group.
I know that every time I publish a new resource on the other side of the world someone in West Africa, Southeast Asia, or the Amazonian Basin is looking at that resource and it sheds new light on a passage of Scripture, or a certain word that brings the Bible to life in their language. I know that there is effectiveness. Effectiveness is a subjective word.
As a human being believing in the salvific nature of the Lord, and having been adopted by him I am in a constant struggle in my soul between thinking like the spirits in bondage in the cave, and thinking like those outside seeing reality for what it is. I know that what I am doing day in and day out is producing good, solid, healthy spiritual fruit. I see it. I experience it almost on a daily basis. Yet the wrestle is that i'm not doing enough. Jesus says "I am enough, you just need to be faithful."
Calming to my soul, Jesus' words enters into my heart and I can once again lean back in my chair and know I am here for such a time as this. I do not produce fruit; Jesus does; that
Jesus in enough,
Andrew J. Belcher
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