On Faith, Judges, Coffee, and Short-Term Missions

"The conquering power that brings the world to its knees is our faith." - 1 John 5:4, MSG

For the past eighty-five weeks (approximately), my pastor has been preaching on Judges. Right now we're on Samson.

Here's what intrigues me about Samson: His name is on a list with Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Joseph, Moses, the prophets, and so many other mighty examples of faith in Hebrews 11.

Sure, Samson was really strong. He did have some problems with the ladies and his temper, but he was, after all, one of the judges. But does that warrant a place on this list of impressive men and women of faith? Ever since we've been studying Samson, I've been wondering exactly which part of his life might be worthy of imitation. Here's what I've decided.

Let me back up.

I was talking to my friend Liz the other day about a blog post by one of our favorite bloggers, Jamie the Very Worst Missionary. Jamie suggested that maybe the way we do short-term missions isn't quite what Jesus had in mind. But here's the thing. Jesus' method is pretty scary. Don't stay in a compound or "safe" place. Go to people's houses. Eat their food, share their space, serve them. Go out in pairs, not in a big comfortable group. Don't take a long list of all that you're going to accomplish by working twelve hour days the entire time you're there. Go and be with people.

Well, I like to check items off a list. A list of "sitting, talking, eating, sleeping, repeat" makes me a little uncomfortable. Especially if we're talking about strangers. Who don't speak my language. And come from a completely different culture. Let's do activities, people!

What do short-term missions have to do with Samson? After much consideration, I would like to suggest that the one quality in Samson worthy of emulation is his impulsiveness. Sure it led to a lot of trouble with the ladies, but it also led to fulfillment of God's purposes for his life. God was "seeking an occasion to confront the Philistines" (Judges 14:4). Samson provided such occasions in spades (see: killing a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of a dead donkey).

I like to be prepared. I like to think ahead and anticipate difficulties. In fact, at this exact moment, I have hanging on my refrigerator a precisely laid out schedule for the stew I plan to make for supper tonight. It begins at 12:30 with cutting up the meat and ends with finishing the last 20 minutes of simmering and then eating at 5:30.

But maybe that isn't quite the sort of faith God has in mind for us. Maybe faith does not mean anticipating all the difficulties and bypassing them. Maybe faith means heading somewhat rashly, headlong into the difficulties.

This is the kind of faith I'm trying to exercise this year. On a big scale, I want God to move powerfully in my life. I want to step out into an unknown future following the God who goes before. My first step: stop drinking coffee. Because coffee is one of the ways that I try to anticipate and bypass difficulties. If I don't get enough sleep, I drink coffee because I want my day to be productive. But then, inevitably, I can't sleep at night. So I stay up too late, waste time playing iPhone games, and make generally unhealthy decisions. And then, guess what...I'm tired the next day and drink coffee!

Yesterday was a test of my resolve. I didn't sleep very well the night before, so I was already off to a bad start. I had a busy morning of getting the house ready for visitors, practicing for chapel music, and doing the regular morning baby routine. Then, around noon, my neighbor brought over his son, who is three weeks older than my son, for me to babysit all afternoon. I hoped that one or both of them would sleep for a good portion of our time together, but they were both very excited to be in each other's presence and refused to be separated. We watched some Daniel Tiger. We threw leaves in the yard. (I threw leaves while they looked on, captivated.) We read books. We all three suffered some sort of very nearly serious injury. (Don't worry if you're reading this, Sabrina. We were all fine!) It was a LONG afternoon.

At the end of our time together, I took both boys over to the seminary to prepare for chapel. This is when I really wanted the coffee. I was playing piano. Normally I would have practiced a bit in the afternoon, but sitting at the piano with my back to the boys didn't seem like a good plan. So I walked in feeling exhausted and unprepared. I handed both boys off to people in the congregation and, after a brief sound check, waited for chapel to begin.

I couldn't remember the introduction to the first song, so I just kind of fumbled along until Mike started singing. The music was not perfect, but after the terrible introduction, I miraculously found my notes. I kept losing my place in the music, but my hands always seemed to know where to go. We didn't have time to adjust the monitor levels, so I couldn't hear the other musicians very well, and we weren't always as tight as I like, but we stayed together and made it through both songs without incident.

Maybe I didn't go to a foreign country without an itinerary or take on the enemies of God with nothing but a donkey jawbone, but I stepped out on faith. I said yes to babysitting and to playing piano and then trusted God to give me what I needed to take care of two very active boys all afternoon, immediately followed by playing piano in the first chapel service of the semester--all without coffee or enough sleep.

Hopefully that is one small step towards bringing the world to its knees.

Here's the two boys when they were much younger. Surprisingly, I did not think of taking a picture of them yesterday.