We are deeply moved by the plight of the unreached. The numbers stagger us. The map stirs us. The urgency overwhelms us. For me, it was the map highlighting people across the globe with little or no access to the gospel. When I saw that map lit up in red, a zeal stirred within me that I could not shake. I became determined to go to the brightest concentration of red and, to the best of my ability, make the gospel accessible to those people, turning that map to orange, then yellow, then green!

Passion to be about the Lord’s business of taking the gospel to those who have never heard and seeking to make them disciples of Jesus through the establishment of churches is an excellent thing. This zeal is like fuel for the desire to take part in God’s redemptive plan, which is already burning in the heart of a global worker. The problem with fuel is that it eventually burns out. In the face of daunting spiritual opposition, ministry disappointments, unseen fruit, cultural isolation, and complex team dynamics (all of which will come), the fuel of missionary passion eventually gets smothered. 

When missionary zeal fades, obedience to the task may help a global worker limp along in the work for a good while. But that limp of obedience will eventually degrade into joyless endurance that ends in disaster. My crash came a couple of years into my first stint of cross-cultural service. I had arrived full of excitement, vigor, and hope, only to find myself drowning in sadness, fatigue, and disillusionment. In my pain, I knew I could continue for a time out of obedience to the Lord. But I also knew that eventually I would run out of the strength to carry on if I remained primarily fueled by obedience.

That is when the soft, sweet words of our Lord gently corrected my heart. He said that the greatest commandment is to love him with all that I am (Matt 22:37–40). This is THE fuel. It is love for God that will transform my heart and mind to love others, even when they are unlovable. It is love for God that will help me walk after him in obedience when I am too exhausted by the strains of cross-cultural life to carry on. It is love for God that will reignite the passion to endure, with joy, in proclaiming the gospel to a people who want nothing to do with Jesus. It is love for God that is the key to life.

Because this spiritual fuel is so easily exhausted on the field, we have made it a foundational part of our training program for future global workers. This is why, at Safir Global Training, our first program learning objective is Spiritual Vitality. We believe that to send well, a missionary must continually grow in love for and knowledge of God and in the spiritual fruit necessary to become a faithful, persevering global worker.

Sydney Dixon, PhD, is a mentor and instructor with Safir Global Training.