It’s not the length of time, it’s the impact

Assignments, assignments, assignments, it’s one of the buzz words in the Christian community. We ask God to show us how He wants to use us. Then we feel we are called by the Holy Spirit to do a particular thing or go to a particular place. Some people clearly hear the Holy Spirit tell them to do those things.

The fun thing about God is He deliberately doesn’t give us the whole place, just snippets of instructions. So we go through a range of emotions, do desperate prayers trying to figure out if we are still following the instructions correctly or at times if we even heard Him correctly. So you can have someone asking God “did you say help kids or did you mean help kids the baby goats?” because this class of 30 kids are stressing me out and I’d much rather be stroking some baby goats on a farm right now!

Some people get worried that they have missed their assignments and some people actively ignore their assignments or try to get away from it (hello to all the Jonah’s out there 👋). 

I think those who say yes to their assignments from God, fall into two camps: The “Is that it?” camp and the “this is taking too long!” camp. During my Christian walk I’ve been a member of both camps during assignments God’s given me, so I know how you feel!

1. The “is that it?”camp

These people have been told by God that they are to do a certain thing or go to a certain place. It seems so simple, that these people think “is that it?”. There are three outcomes to this:

1. The person doesn’t do it because it seems so simple.

2. The person keeps delaying because it seems so simple and there are other more important things to do.

3. The person does it, not realising the outcome of this simple assignment will be a lot bigger than they think.

Boaz

Boaz in the Bible is an example of person number three. Being a wealthy man, I don’t think he realised the magnitude of saying yes to the first assignment of showing kindness and feeding the widow Ruth; and then later the second assignment of marrying her when someone flippantly said to Boaz “You buy the land” (Ruth 4:8). In those days, if a man bought the land, they had to also marry the woman who came with the land. 

“At mealtime Boaz called to her, “Come over here, and help yourself to some food. You can dip your bread in the sour wine.” So she sat with his harvesters, and Boaz gave her some roasted grain to eat. She ate all she wanted and still had some left over”. (Ruth 2:14)

Boaz, whose mother was Rahab the prostitute, wouldn’t have known that the son he had with Ruth, Obed, would become father to Jesse, who would be father to King David. This bloodline would eventually lead to Jesus Christ, the Messiah and Lord. King David was an ancestor of both Joseph and Mary, as explained in the Book of Matthew and the Book of Luke in the Bible. Boaz may not have realised the impact of his relatively simple action, but God knew, which is why he blocked the other man from marrying Ruth, this was Boaz’s assignment not the other man’s.

You can read about Boaz in the Book of Ruth here.

“So Boaz took Ruth into his home, and she became his wife. When he slept with her, the Lord enabled her to become pregnant, and she gave birth to a son”. [...] “And they named him Obed. He became the father of Jesse and the grandfather of David” .(Ruth 4:13 & 17)

Jesus

Jesus' ministry was only 3 years. I don’t need to explain the impact that His 3 year ministry has had on the world for the past 2000 plus years. 

“Jesus was about thirty years old when he began his public ministry”. (Luke 3:23)

2. The “this is taking too long” camp

These people accept the assignment, thinking it’s a short simple instruction and then they can go on to the next. However, the assignment takes longer than the person expects. The person feels stuck in a location or they are encountering challenge after challenge with the people they were called to help. They want out but when they go to God about how to get out, they are met with silence about it or God gives them a message which basically says stay for longer! 

Even if you try to take matters into your own hands and try to end the assignment God will block your attempts. God really knows how to play with our emotions and love us at exactly the same time!

Noah

Don’t underestimate the power of an assignment that seems simple on the surface, in terms of the duration of the assignment. Lets look at Noah in the Bible. He was given an instruction to build an ark, gather his family and animals two by two (yes you know the song) and live on the boat for 40 days and 40 nights, while the rain falls.

“Seven days from now I will make the rains pour down on the earth. And it will rain for forty days and forty nights, until I have wiped from the earth all the living things I have created”. (Genesis 7:4)

If that was us we would think in a month and a half the flood will end and I can get back to some normality after doing the assignment God gave me. I’m guessing Noah probably thought this too. Well the 40 days and nights turned into five months because the flood waters hadn’t gone down. Noah, his family and the animals couldn’t get off the boat. 

Noah then had to wait another five and half months for the floodwaters to go. Great, Noah could now leave the boat and get on with this life right? Actually, no God made Noah wait another two months. When the earth was completely dry before He told him, his family and the animals to leave the boat. So what initially God said would be a 40 day assignment in a flood, turned into a year assignment.

We can’t be sure because Bible scripture doesn’t overtly say it, but I think Noah may have been thinking how much longer until I can leave? I think this because he sent doves out to check if there was dry land. When the second bird came back with an olive branch, this was a sign to Noah that the bird had found some dry land. Noah could have accepted this as a sign from God that they were on track and to hang on in being there a bit longer. However, Noah didn’t see it like this and sent the dove back out for a third time. However, this time the bird didn’t return at all and Noah had to wait another 12 and a half months before He was told by God that this assignment was over and he could leave and move on to the next assignment. 

I feel God made the dove not return because Noah was starting to let his need for an answer take over. He wasn’t fully surrendering to Christ in that particular moment because he wanted the assignment to end. God removed the answer Noah wanted, by removing the dove and made Noah wait longer. This is so Noah would have had to lean in and rely on God more. 

Notice when God was ready for Noah to leave the boat, there weren't any cryptic messages, or a bird carrying things, God simply told Noah directly “Leave the boat, all of you—you and your wife, and your sons and their wives” (Genesis 8:16). When God is ready for us to leave, he will make it clear and if the assignment isn’t complete yet, even if you think it is, then God will block your attempts to abort the mission. 

So if the assignment takes longer than you thought and there is no message from God to stop, then it means God’s not done. There is still work for you to do with others in the situation, even if you think there isn’t. Another reason is that God is refining and preparing you for your next assignment, even if you think you are ready. This can only be done during your current assignment. If you go into the next heavier assignment unprepared then you will mess it up.

You can read about Noah and his time on the ark, in Genesis here.

My assignments

I have been saved (received salvation from the Lord) and a fully surrendered follower of Christ/Christian for over 3 years. Before that I was an atheist, then an agnostic (who didn't like God and Christians) and was into doing new age witchcraft, tarot cards, until God the Father and His son Jesus swooped in and saved me, filled me with the Holy Spirit, making me abandon all new age stuff and totally changed my life for the better.

Now some people might say “over 3 years, is that it?”. However, in that time:

• I have developed a genuine relationship with the Father, through Christ.

• I’ve obsessively studied the Bible.

• I’ve got baptised.

• I preach sermons in church.

• I teach people, outside of the church, about Christ, the Bible, spiritual warfare and the demonic.

• I share the gospel with people.

• I disciple people.

• I run workshops helping women understand and process trauma in a psychological and biblical way.

• I’ve helped people with their deliverance.

• I run a children’s wellbeing group allowing them to see a representative of Christ.

• I create, write and run this blog. 

I do all these alongside doing well in a full time job, being a wife and a mother. All this has been achieved because I’ve said yes to the “is that it?” assignments and “this is taking too long” assignments. 

So if, for a minute, you ignore the length of time that I’ve been a follower of Christ and look at the impact that has been made, through God using me as the vessel to do kingdom work. I’ll see the impact in 3 and a bit years of bringing people to Christ or deepening their relationship with Christ and the Father and seeing lives dramatically change for the better, has been greater than some people who have been Christians for 40 plus years but don’t say yes to God’s assignments. They don’t share their faith with non-believers, they don’t have fellowship with other Christians and they certainly don’t tell them the gospel. Their mind set is as long as I’m a Christian then I’m alright. 

It’s not about the length of time of being a Christian, it’s what you do in that time. It’s about how many people you tell about Jesus and helping them get saved from hell and saved from eternal separation from God, God cares about the impact, not the time.

Focus on the impact

Even though God made Noah wait before he could leave the boat, the 12 month assignment on a boat in the flood was still a short assignment, considering the impact it had on the world, which was the re-population of the earth..

Boaz saying yes to his assignment, shows the relatively simple assignment of looking after Ruth led to the birth of our Lord, Jesus Christ, through the line of David and just look at the impact that has had on humanity and our souls!

So if you think that you should have stayed longer or you have been there too long, you’ve had enough and you need to go. You may be thinking why isn’t God using me for bigger important things.  Remember it’s not the length of the assignment or how simple it is but the impact you have doing it and the people you help bring to Christ during that time. If your assignment brings one person to Christ or makes a single person learn about Jesus for the first time, then you have made an impact!

Remember God doesn’t call the equipped, He equips the called. So say yes to the simple assignments and if it takes longer than you thought, hang in there like the faithful servants we are called to be.

"For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do". (Ephesians 2:10)