Wherever God Places You, That's Your Field

Sunday, 16th August 2009

I have mentioned on my blog before that I am deeply entrenched in the music of the 1980s because I grew up on music from that era as a teenager. Last year, during the 25th year reunion of my Sec 4 cohort, I was given the privilege of providing the music and you guessed it -- it was music from the likes of Aha, Duran Duran, Wang Chung and Yazoo that filled the airwaves. You can read about that reunion here.

Anyway, one of the songs that hit the top of the UK secular chart back then was a song called "Wherever I Lay My Hat, That's My Home" by Paul Young. I felt a bit disturbed by the lyrics of the song because it talks about a guy who is not committed to a relationship but goes about sowing his wild oats.

But that's not the topic of today's post. Rather it is about missions.

My own home church has dedicated the whole month of August 2009 as Missions Month. I used to have the impression that mission work means giving up one's comfortable lifestyle and going to a remote country to preach Jesus. As a result, I remember when I was an undergraduate, I would hold in very high regard those who were willing to sacrifice their future career to go into full-time ministry as a missionary or pastor.

However, I now know for a fact that there is no such thing as a part-time Christian. In fact, we are all in full-time ministry, so to speak. That native in Central Africa is in need of the good news of Jesus Christ just as much as that colleague in your office, or that classmate in your tutorial group, or that platoon mate in your camp. Missions and evangelism is for every single one of us who call ourselves Christians.

In other words, wherever God has placed us, that is where our mission field is supposed to be. We are to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. Each day, He will put divine appointments into our calendar for us. They become fabulous opportunites for us to sow the seed of the message of His love and grace into the ground of the heart of those that we come into contact with. I thank God for every privilege and honour to share my testimony and faith journey with those He has placed around me.

I know that even those out there in cyberspace that happen to stumble across this blog is also not by chance but a God-incidence. In fact, that is how I got to know Cyberanger, Angie, Jeff, Stan, Geri, Maurice, Joshen, just to name but a few. Many of us meet up at Stan's place every now and then and I invite others out there to join us for fellowship as well since that is what Heb 10:24-25 encourages us to do. You can start by joining our Grace United Facebook Group.

Paul Young may have sung "wherever I lay my hat, that's my home", but our version is that "wherever God places me, that's my field". Amen?