By David Faust
Earlier this year, I spoke for a missionary conference in Northern Ireland attended by young adults just starting out and older workers nearing retirement. Some of the missionaries are single, some are married, and some are parents and grandparents. Most of them live far from their extended families.
They serve in diverse places (Scotland, Germany, Spain, Italy, the Czech Republic, Ireland, France, and the Balkans), but they face common problems. How do you make disciples for Christ in a postmodern culture dominated by secularism, materialism, and cynicism toward traditional religion? Picturesque stone church buildings dot the landscape of Europe, but few Christians gather to worship in those museum-like buildings. Meanwhile, Islam threatens to fill the spiritual vacuum.
The missionaries I met were cheerful and upbeat during the conference. Despite whatever hardships and loneliness they face, these bright, devoted workers are determined to persevere.
Shining in Dark Places
Our conference theme was drawn from the ancient hymn, “Be Thou My Vision.” The song’s melody comes from a folk tune named for an Irish village called Slane. History tells us that on Easter Sunday in AD 433, the local Irish king issued a decree prohibiting anyone from lighting a flame until the king lit a candle in observation of a pagan Druid festival. To show that only the true Lord deserves praise, the missionary known as Saint Patrick defied the king, climbed to the tallest hill in the area, and lit a fire to honor Christ. Centuries later, the melody of “Be Thou My Vision” reminds us of Patrick’s heroism, for it is named after the place where Patrick shined his light: the Hill of Slane.
The song’s original lyrics, later translated into English in the early 1900s, were penned by a sixth-century Irish poet named Eochaid “Dallán” Forgaill. After the boy lost his eyesight at an early age, his mother nicknamed him Dallán, which means “little blind one.” That’s right: The person who wrote, “Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart,” could not see, but by faith he praised the High King of heaven.
Faithful—Whatever Befall
How can we make disciples in nations where an indifferent majority shows little interest in God? How can we serve the High King of heaven when the ground-level problems of earth drag us down? God is “the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End” (Revelation 21:6)—but he is also the Lord of the middle. He is there to help when we’re in the middle of the complicated problems that arise because we’re serving Christ in non-Christian cultures.
European missionaries face daunting challenges, but they have not given up hope. Like the apostle Paul, who spread the gospel in first-century Greece, Italy, Israel, and Turkey, these faithful workers “do not lose heart” (2 Corinthians 4:1, 16). After all, Paul wrote, though our bodies are “jars of clay,” Christians possess a treasure that enables us to be “hard-pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Corinthians 4:7-9). We persevere, encouraged by these words penned long ago by an Irish poet who couldn’t see:
High King of heaven, My victory won,
May I reach heaven’s joys, O bright heaven’s Sun!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my vision, O Ruler of all.
Personal Challenge: Write a note to a church leader or a missionary. Thank them for their service and encourage them to persevere.
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David Faust’s new book, Not Too Old: Turning Your Later Years into Greater Years, was released April 10. It is available from College Press and Amazon. To read an article/excerpt from Not Too Old, click here.
Thank you for writing about the Mid-Winter Rally, what a wonderful reminder of the great time we had together in Ireland! The theme and your messages were a blessing to us. We’ve ordered your book and it is waiting for us as we travel to visit our mothers in 10 days.