“Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah.” –Acts 5:42
This passage is one of the stories that might have shaped my call and passion to become a missionary. This verse follows the story of Peter and John being jailed for preaching, when an angel appears in the night to release them from the prison. The next day, they are back preaching on the streets, arrested again, and this time flogged. And yet “the apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name” (v.41). So they continued preaching, despite the risk, “day after day.”
As a teenager immersed in the stories of the book of Acts, these were the stories that moved me. The courage needed… God showing up with an angel… The joy even in suffering! Sign me up!
And in many, many ways, missions has been the adventure of a lifetime. The love and passion are still there—deeper, stronger than ever. I have experienced the miraculous many times in our work to see missionaries healed and restored. Participating in the carrying of the good, good news around the globe has been an immense gift and privilege.
But this verse also stirs something different in me now. “Day by day” carrying the gospel hits you differently in mid-life. Expectations for regular “mountain top experiences” and flashy missionary newsletter stories have long gone.
As a seasoned missionary, what does bringing the gospel mean to me now? To begin with, “day by day” has ended up being a lot less glamorous than I expected. Like most of us, my days are quite heavily outweighed by the invitations to be faithful in the small, and often the mundane.
Exciting days of breakthrough and the miraculous are certainly sprinkled through my year, but by and large, most of my time is living the gospel in my everyday life. I may be pounding the doors of heaven for years to see breakthrough in a situation, or talking one of my daughters through the anxiety of young adulthood, or contending for a relationship in the midst of a team conflict. And frankly, sometimes it’s just whispering the gospel to myself in the middle of the night.
Gospel in the “day by day” is also lived season by season. This means I’m proclaiming (and living!) the good news in sickness and health, in abundance and scarcity, in grief and joy, on the mountain tops and in the valleys, and all the days in between.
And the interesting thing is the deepest inroads to my heart have come not on the mountaintops, but in the valleys. And it’s not in my biggest success stories that I’ve most experienced God’s love, but the season I could literally do nothing as I battled chronic illness.
Ours is a gospel that fits every day and every season. And as David reminds us the real heart of the good news is that God’s “beauty and love chase after me every day of my life” (Psalm 23:6). This is good news indeed!
Reflection Questions
What expectations are you holding about what your living the gospel “should” look like?
Think of three different “days” in your life: a joyous day, a difficult day, and an average, mundane day. What part of the gospel comes to life in each of these and how are they different?
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Amy Galloway lives in Malaga, Spain where she and her husband serve with SentWell providing care and development for missionaries from around the world. You can read more of her writings on her blog about transitions at www.beautifulupheaval.com