From Mission to Children’s 2023 Fall newsletter
We could all learn a thing or two from Moses. Exodus 33 tells us about Moses’s intercession on behalf of obstinate Israel.
God had made incredible promises to Israel: Their own land—the promised land flowing with milk and honey. Enemies driven from their land by a mighty angel. Israel’s arrival would become history’s most triumphal end to a long journey. But God would not accompany the Israelites on their journey (Exodus 33:3).
And Moses wanted none of those things if God did not go with them.
So, Moses threw himself upon the mercies of God and pleaded for God’s presence to go with them into the promised land. The basis for His plea was not Israel’s perceived autonomy as a nation—or bellies full of milk and honey. The basis for His plea was God’s promises to Moses. He chose them (Exodus 33:16)!
Moses’s plea in Exodus 33 gives me goose bumps as I reflect on our motive for ministry. In ministry, it moves us to action when children are hungry, helpless, and vulnerable. But it breaks our hearts even more to think of those same hungry children facing an eternity separated from God’s loving-kindness.
Mission to Children uses meals for hungry children as the means to reach them but aims for a higher purpose: God’s glory through the gospel. This makes our mission more than a meal. Just as Aaron, our collaboration partner in Zambia, told me: “(para) Even if we have helped children, if we have not shared the gospel with them, then we have failed.” This is our heartbeat as well.
Aaron’s sentiment represents the caliber of a Mission to Children partner. We all want to see the ministry advance, but not without our glorious God.
