It’s Because of Love

I do a ministry in northern Thailand, and here we run a Saturday school. One Saturday when we had over 60 children, I was quite tired after four hours of driving, pick up and send all the children back home and to teach English for four hours. I started and reflected on this: Why did I have a feeling of contentment and joy?

For almost 20 years ago, when I started to think about going to another country to share the Good News. I was not thinking about doing children’s ministry. I had pictured it a bit different life?
I didn’t see myself as a English teacher, or a driver. That was the least thing I was thinking off.
I was reflecting over this and wonder why do I still have such a joy doing this? I could have chosen a much easier life, so why did I choose this?

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It’s not the thing that we might think that brings us joy! What really brings us joy, is to encourage and mean something for others. So by driving four hours to pick up all the children and spend four hours to teach English, I know I didn’t do it for me.
The joy that I felt, was because I was giving something to this children. Many of them don’t know what love is, many of them have a had a difficult life and comes from broken families, and I just wanted to share the love of God with them in a practical way. That’s my reason, and this is also called love.

Some people when they look at us and our ministry, they can judge us and think that we are doing this because we want to get a lot of money, or we want fame, or we want people to look up to us and recognize us, or to show people what kind of great and big ministry we have, but this is not our hearts at all, and I know God knows that too.
Sometimes as a minister you can feel lonely, forgotten, rejected, misunderstood, talked bad about and so on, but what’s keeps me going it’s not what other people are saying about us or or how people are judging us. I know the Bible also tells us that we will meet persecution, even when we are just doing the will of God, and sharing his love.

So what keeps me going is to share the love of God and I know that’s our hearts to do, and God knows that too. We are not perfect but in our hearts we want to do the will of God.
We as a family don’t do this ministry because we want to please people, but we do this ministry because of God. If people misunderstand us, it doesn’t matter, if our hearts are right before God, God will always finish what he started.

I know this is not our ministry too, it’s His! We are not trying to build our own kingdom. We are building the kingdom of God, and that is the thing that brings us joy and keeps us going.
It’s not about us, it’s all about him. I wish we all could understand this well!
I sometimes can also feel rejected, forgotten, misunderstood, talked bad about etc. and that makes me sad and even depressed at times, but I get joy when I think about that what we are doing has an impact on many peoples life, far beyond what we can see, and that we are not seeking to please people, but but to do the will of God.

To quote a old Petra song: I don’t want to be a man pleaser, but a God pleaser. I want to do the tings that I know is on my good Fathers heart, what pleases him. I want to do his will, not my own, that brings me and you joy!
Colossians 3:23
23 And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men
Galatians 1:10
10 Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.
Ephesians 6:7
7 Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people,

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