Same Person, Different Results

My parent’s first missionary term was in a remarkably inaccessible place. The rough dirt road passed through three rivers, and the largest one still needs a four-wheel drive to cross—amid rocks and boulders no one has bothered to clear in seventy years. And we were told to not even think about crossing it after a rain. No wonder many people moved away from this remote place after a tarmac road was built a day’s walk away.
 
They had a church out there with two humongous missionary houses. Hard to conceive. My mother was only twenty-five and my father, thirty-one. There he struggled a lot and still started a Bible school, the remnants of which are now overgrown stone foundations. The church remains a single congregation.
 
The word they used for the place was “desolate.” And they are completely unremembered by the people who remain.
 
My parents were grateful when they got the Bible school sensibly moved to their second location (when I came on the scene). There the Bible school flourished—and it continues to this day. And his congregation? It has since multiplied from one to fourteen congregations. (The photo shows the descendent congregation of the original church–the open space is for dancing with the choirs.)
 
Same missionaries. Different situation. Very different results.
 
Have you ever seen that kind of contrasting situation and result in your own life?
 
Pioneer and entrepreneurial work takes time before seeing results. But some people are in situations that despite all their abilities and efforts, keep them down. Or they work and work and have very limited results.
 
Other people—or the same people—may have similar abilities and put in equal effort, but they are in situations, or doing things, in which they flourish.
 
How does that dynamic work—or not work—in your life?
 
“Bloom where you’re planted” is a common, and good, exhortation. But I’ll add, “Be careful of where you’re planted”—not in a self-serving way but in a way that matches who you are with what you’re doing.
 
Please don’t be shy about this. You only have one life to live—yet that’s enough if you live it well.
Your results are not only for your own sake but also for many others whom you will positively impact.
 
How well do you fit your current life situation?
What have you changed?
Or what might you change?
Be bold.