Mission of the Redeemer (revisited)

There has been so much going on here at Covecrest but it is amazing how through all the doing I have still found time to be. The spirit of my prayer has been on fire lately. I have been enjoying so much spending time with the Lord as often as I physically can in the chapel as well as during my daily activities. I truly know now what St. Therese was talking about when she had no words to describe the things the Lord was doing in her heart. My encounters with the Lord have left me without words. My sisters and I are all training for a half marathon at the end of April (Country Music Marathon) and my running has turned into an amazing prayer time for me. But through it all I have been hearing God calling me deeper into BEING and asking me if my DOING is really helping me to grow? And if it isn’t then how can I make it an opportunity for growth? I have been praying through this for about a week and it has brought me back to Mission of the Redeemer, Pope John Paul II’s encyclical. As missionaries we were asked to read the encyclical before beginning our mission year. I read it like I would any assigned reading, kind of zoning out at times and not really retaining much. After six months of God filling my heart with an unending desire for mission, the encyclical has come alive for me and I cannot stop reading it. On the very first page John Paul quotes Corinthians saying, “Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel.” WOW!!! It is my responsibility to be preaching the Good News with my whole being at every moment of everyday. Of course I have heard this plenty before but after two straight weeks of DOING I had to evaluate myself and see if that is what I was actually doing. Was I witnessing to the gospel every minute to the youth ministers, spring break work groups, visitors, retreat groups, etc? I realized that God was calling me deeper into my prayer at this moment to make sure that my doing was coming out of prayer. It all has to flow out of prayer because prayer is where I always encounter the Lord and I must know Him before I can preach Him. As a Covecrest staff and missionaries we have been trying to pray before each meal we serve, each work project we do, each task we undertake because our work MUST flow out of prayer and BEING present to the Lord! Mission of the Redeemer brought me back to what BEING a missionary meant again instead of the DOING of mission (which is very important but I must first be present to the LORD). Erik even started us having Mission of the Redeemer lunches…less idol conversation.