A Life Lesson from My Dad

My dad owned and managed a True Value Hardware store and built a lifelong reputation for common sense, common decency and uncommon integrity.  In his lifetime he interacted with thousands of customers and hired, trained and guided scores of teenagers and dozens of adults.  Of course, my brothers and I also worked at the store while we were growing up, so I got to see firsthand what my dad was like as a boss. 

Here is one truth (among many) that was impressed upon anyone who ever worked for my dad:  he would never ask someone to do a task that he himself refused to do or one he felt was somehow "beneath" him as the boss.  There was no such task.  If he presented an employee with a boring, messy or uncomfortable task, that employee at least knew that dad knew firsthand exactly what it was like - having done it himself many, many times before. 

Here's why I bring it up.  Melissa and I have spent this past year asking friends, family members and even complete strangers to financially support us as missionaries to Haiti.  We talk about the Great Commission and how it's a call on every Christian's life.  We acknowledge that Scripture teaches that all we own comes from God and we are to be wise stewards.  We point to 2 Corinthians 9:10 and similar verses which describe how God gives us bread to eat (for ourselves) AND seed to sow (for others).  We affirm that God has a passion for the poor, the oppressed and the lost (all of which can be found in Haiti in abundance).  We tell others it a privilege to be involved in building God's kingdom around the world through financial sacrifice.

So it would be strange, wouldn't it, if Melissa and I didn't practice what we preach?  If we asked others to do something we ourselves neglected to do?

And yet it seems a lot of people believe that "some are called to go and some are called to send" and thus assume that we, in striving to go to the field, are therefore exempt from the call to send.    But the fact of the matter is ALL believers are meant to be about building God's kingdom and doing God's will; we hold that all are called to go with the Gospel - whether that is overseas or an office or the grocery store or a classroom AND all are called to send. 

Unless I get sidetracked, I will devote an upcoming post to the two missionaries we support financially on a monthly basis.  They are advancing the kingdom in two very different ways - one serving at OMS headquarters and working with web development and the other heading to the Philippines to work against human trafficking - and they are both very dear to us.  And we believe their work is very close to God's heart and we want to be a part of it.

I am sure my dad would have approved.

P.S.  We also have a couple of missionaries who are giving to send us!  Awesome.