What does it look like to trust God with practical needs on the mission field without despising God’s ordinary means?
Missionary life exposes practical needs: uncertain schedules, interrupted projects, and constant hygiene concerns in places where people may not share Western assumptions about germs and bacteria. Hale’s counsel is to trust God, remembering that God knows needs better than the missionary does.
Hale then offers a crucial clarification through a story from a missionary couple. The wife had experienced a complicated first pregnancy and was expecting a second. Doctors urged the family to remain near the clinic for the final two months. The couple insisted they would trust God “instead” of doctors.
Hale, writing as a medical missionary, focuses on the word “instead.”
Rejecting the means God provides can insult God, not honor God.
Rejecting the means God provides can insult God, not honor God. It can also impose unnecessary anxiety on others who are forced to carry the consequences.
Trusting God in missionary life means receiving God’s providential means—especially wise medical care—rather than treating faith as a refusal of ordinary help.
Disclaimer: Information in my “slip-box” doesn’t necessarily reflect my agreement with the source or all its content. Recording diverse perspectives helps strengthen one’s position beyond the echo chamber of like-minded thinkers. By documenting alternative viewpoints, we engage in the intellectual wrestling match that ultimately deepens our understanding.
I aspire to post one note from my “slip-box” every weekday. If you want to learn more about how to work with knowledge, click this link: What is knowledge management?
Pastor Dan Patrick, raised in Northern Virginia near Washington, D.C., holds both a Bible degree and a Master’s of Divinity. He has ministered across five states from coast to coast, serving in various capacities, including pastoral leadership. Dan’s primary mission is to help people love God’s Word and find their purpose in God’s work.
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