Priscilla Joy

All over the world, at this moment, missionaries are doing many things. Some missionary pilots are flying to remote places, missionary doctors are doing emergency surgery in war-torn countries, some are fearing for their lives as they go to places that are hostile to the message of the Gospel, other missionaries are patiently teaching classrooms of students or explaining the Gospel to an atheist, some persistently work at translating the Word of God into the language of a forgotten jungle tribe, others like me, are working with the many children in the world who are orphaned and forgotten.

A lot of work is going on around the world to further the name of Christ, it is an exciting thought. Maybe you (like me) think of the missionary movement as action- lots of people doing, working, going. I personally think there is truth to this, we can’t just sit around and do nothing, but recently in a song and in Scripture I discovered a new truth about missions that is the most important, but one that I rarely think about.

The Bible verse I read that opened my eyes to this new aspect was Psalm 46:10. It is a common verse (at least the first part) but I had never put the first part together with the second part. Let us look at this remarkable Scripture together:

“Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!” ~Psalm 46:10

This verse gives two commands: 1.) Be still; 2.) Know that I am God; and then it gives the promise that God will be exalted in the earth. So many times I feel like missions NEEDS me. I feel like I am indispensable to God’s kingdom and there is a special job that only I can do out there. There is some truth to this, God has created each of us with a unique plan of our lives and He loves to use us to spread His name throughout the earth. But He also tells us in this verse, “I WILL be exalted in all the earth, in all the nations, because I am God!” This is a promise, no matter how bleak things look in the world, how much need there is, we can rest in knowing that God WILL be exalted everywhere. One day every knee will bow and every tongue confess and people from every tribe, language and tongue will worship around His throne. God will do this, it is not through our efforts and our work that this will happen, it will be because He is God.

So what is our part then? Obviously I am not saying NOT to go, work and do. However, I believe that we should do the first part of Psalm 46:10 before. Be still. Why does God command us to be still? What good will that do? We must look above verse 10 in our passage. Starting in Psalm 46:8-9:

“Come, behold the works of the Lord, how He has brought desolations on the earth. He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth; He breaks the bow and shatters the spear; He burns the chariots with fire.”

When we are still, we can “behold the works of the Lord”. We have to realize before we begin working that the results are Gods. He uses us to do His work (what a beautiful thing that is!) but all glory and honor goes to Him. It is not our works and our righteousness which will save the world. We are conduits of His grace to others. As it says in 2 Corinthians 5:20-21:

“Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making His appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”

(I encourage you to read the whole passage in 2 Corinthians 5:11-6:10) Our ministry is to share and spread the word about what Christ has done in our lives. But first, we must be still and behold the works of the Lord.

Second, we must know that He is God. This is a natural proceeding from being still and beholding His works. Now we must just simply glorify Him as God. He is worthy of our praise and the praise of all that has breath. This truth obviously leads into the fact that He will be exalted over all the earth and it ties into the fact that we need to be still before the Lord because HE is the one doing all the work.

One final passage I want to read with you that shows this principle of being still and knowing that our God will be exalted among the earth. This may surprise you, for I am going to bring you to the Great Commission- which we all know starts with the word ‘Go’. Or does it? Let’s read together, Matthew 28:18-20:

“And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

That phrase, ‘all authority has been given to me’, I always thought of it as like a comfortable phrase that Jesus threw in there to let us know that the going-and-making-disciples thing was possible. But then I realized, Jesus tells them that all authority is His in the beginning, to make the same promise that we read in Psalm 46:10: I WILL be exalted, I HAVE all authority. It all starts with acknowledging God’s worthiness and power. Truly nothing is impossible with God.

No, I am not bashing the missionary movement, I am not saying “Don’t go!”, far be it from me! But I do hope that we can approach the missions movement with this as our starting point, that we will be still before the Lord (realize that the work comes from Him), know that He is God (and therefore worthy of all praise) and rest in the promise that He WILL be exalted among the nations, He WILL be exalted over all the earth. Let this final promise from Psalm 46:11 put your heart at rest as you seek to proclaim the name of our God in all the earth:

“The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.”