I recently had to take a six month break (at least, I hope it’ll only be six months) from street outreach because of health problems. It was a really hard decision to make, and I really miss it. I ran into a street friend the other day and had a long chat. He thought he hadn’t seen me because he’d switched panhandling spots, so I explained to him that my chiropractor had {strongly} suggested that I take a break. His reaction was ‘nice’, but I told him I missed my street friends.
That made me think about why I do what I do. The reality is, outreach will go on just fine without me. OIM has many outreach workers. The street friends aren’t going to suffer because I’m not there. No, I miss it because of what I get out of it. I like feeling useful to God. It’s exciting to be out on the street looking for people, and making connections. It’s wonderful to be used by the Holy Spirit to minister.
But are those God honouring motives? Really? Doing outreach because of how the doing of it feeds me? I don’t know. But I am going to pray about it. Perhaps though, that’s part of the beauty of our relationship with God. As we seek to serve Him, He honors us by feeding us.