Lately, the Lord has been pressing on my heart the importance of what is unseen.
My sister-in-law comes to mind. She is one of the most creative people I know. Lately, she’s been making videos to teach preschoolers about science through simple experiments. Not only are her videos scientifically accurate, but they are chock-full of things that preschoolers love: stickers, stuffed animals, and sparkly objects. She takes simple, household objects and demonstrates things like gravity and freezing point so that a preschooler can understand. (And if I’m being honest, I’ve learned a thing or two from watching her videos as well.)
Between preparing the materials, doing the experiments, filming, and editing, it takes a lot of time and effort to make these videos. And yet she never gets to sit inside the classroom with the preschoolers and see their eyes light up. She doesn’t get to hear their little shrieks of delight as they make ice cream or a working compass [mostly] by themselves. She faithfully puts in the work, trusting that it will be worth it for a room full of four-year-olds, even though she won’t get to see their reaction.
It’s easy for me to tell her how incredibly impactful her videos are. How worth the time and energy for those little kids to actually enjoy learning science. But for some reason, it’s much harder to remind myself of that. My work can often feel like a collection of trivial daily tasks: formatting a script, looking for the correct version of a video, filing financial documents, and so on. I quickly forget the weight it can hold for someone watching our videos in their own language, in their own room.
On top of this, recently our team has been grieving the loss of several amazing people connected to IMM. The biggest brunt of the grief is not mine to describe or put into words, but I will just say that we’ve all felt the weight of this season. Some days feel like taking two steps forward, five steps back, and falling flat onto your back: lots of pain and questions.
Praise God, He meets me in the middle of my why’s and how’s. But He’s also been gently reminding me that through every discouragement, doubt, and disappointment, He is doing something around the corner I can’t see. Miles away, in a country I may never visit, in the bedroom of a seeker, listening on their knees...He is speaking and breathing life. He is impacting someone I will probably never meet through something that ran through my hands.
This isn’t to inflate my ego or that of IMM, but to remind myself and to encourage you: You can’t see what God is doing around the corner. Maybe all you’re feeling is opposition and obstacles, but the reality is that the kingdom is being advanced by leaps and bounds. The enemy would love for us to be discouraged to the point of believing that, if we were to stop or slow down, nobody would even notice or care. But in the words of one of my favorite worship songs: “Even when I can’t see it, He’s working; Even when I can’t feel it, He’s working. He never stops.”
Serving the Lord doesn’t always look like giants being slingshot or massive crowds speaking in tongues. Often, the most important work looks (and feels) like doing the mundane, getting knocked down, getting back up, and doing it all over again. We have to remember that there is more to this life than we can see. There is more going on than we will ever know.
Whatever season you may be in, there is a God, not only walking through every valley with you but also using your obedience to change lives beyond the point you can see. May we remain faithful, sewing our tents like Paul or crunching numbers or leaving an encouraging note to a neighbor. May we walk in humble obedience to the things God puts on our hearts – big or small – because as we are faithful with the things we can see and control, He is even more faithful with the things we cannot.