Last month, I was privileged to go on a short-term mission trip with my employer, OneHope, to the Dominican Republic. And the good news is I didn’t break the country! Along the way, I learned a few lessons from a mission trip.
I have been on a few mission trips over the years. Whenever I am on a new experience, I keep my eye out for new lessons. Some of them may be new. Others reassure me past lessons are still valid. On this trip, three lessons stood out to me.
We see annoying billboards touting that size matters. Various businesses try to convince us that only a massive dinosaur of a company can provide the service or product we deserve. They will have us assume that bigger firms are always better.
It’s the measure of success. We admire industry titans like John D. Rockefeller, Bill Gates, and Elon Musk. The size of the companies they founded is almost as important as the profits they produced.
But anyone who has ever tried to contact a live person at a massive, unresponsive business or organization knows that isn’t the case. At the beginning of The Essential Drucker, Peter Drucker asks us to consider that bigger isn’t always better.
Mornings are my favorite time to run. As I head out the door, the new day has yet to take shape. There are so many possibilities. An early morning run is an excellent time to begin the day in prayer. Indeed, I’ve found running to be a form of prayer. I agree with the ishouldberunning.com blog that prayer and running go hand-in-hand.
I didn’t start running to strengthen my spiritual life. Instead, I began because I wasn’t happy with my dad’s gut. But as I have turned running into a habit, I’ve found the practice to be just as spiritual as physical.
How do you connect with God? How do you make running a form of prayer? The following steps have helped me.
I was writing notes for my devotionals the other day, and thanks to The Bible with Nicky and Pippa Gumbel, I came up with a happy and healthy theme.
A lot has happened since I said, “I do.” On my wedding anniversary, I pondered what thirty-five years of marriage has taught me.
On December 3, 1988, I took the plunge with a lady I had fallen for nearly two years earlier. We began as college classmates, learned to like each other (despite our very different music and fashion tastes), and fell in love, to the surprise of nearly everyone (including us).
Since that unseasonably warm December day, we’ve had a lot of adventures and misadventures. We’ve experienced career changes and loss. And we found ourselves in ministry. Boy! We didn’t see that coming!
Along the way, we raised two great kids, two cats, and a dog who hated children. Considering my wife was in children’s ministry, we didn’t consider that an asset.
There are time-worn tips on how to have a successful marriage. There are also a few lessons I learned along the way.
Today, I am pondering some of the lessons I learned. Here are four observations that come to mind.