All of us are called to the mission field. However many of us may struggle with insecurities or doubts that tell us we have nothing to offer.
Today, you may feel a pull towards medical missions, but you find yourself questioning that pull is from God because you feel ill-equipped to go. Do you want to hear a secret? Every missionary, whether they’re full-time missionaries or missionaries for just a week or two, feels this way at one point or another. In fact, it may be healthy that you doubt yourself; its a sign that you are serious about following God’s call for your life and you want to ensure that He is the One leading you.
Let’s dive in a bit so that you can see for yourself that you do, in fact, have a lot to offer in the mission field!
Doubt #1: Feeling Unqualified For The Task
Many people doubt that they have what it takes to be a missionary. This is particularly true in medical missions for those without a medical background. Many are even surprised to find out that you do not have to be a medical professional to join a medical mission trip!
But here is the truth that you should know: people from all walks of life are needed in medical missions. If everyone who went on one of our trip were a doctor or a nurse, our free medical outreach clinics may be well staffed to treat patients, but we would have no one to pray with the patients who want prayer after seeing a doctor.
We would have no one to help fit and hand out expandable shoes to those who need them. We would have no one to run the eyeglass clinic.
This brings to mind something that the apostle Paul once wrote:
Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.
– 1 Corinthians 12:15-20, NIV
We need each other, and we need each other in the roles that God has called us to because we are stronger together.
Whatever your professional background may be, there is a role for you in the mission field.
Doubt #2: Feeling Spiritually Ill-Equipped
Have you ever felt like you were not, spiritually, ready to join a mission trip?
So many of us grew up hearing about missionary heroes like Amy Carmichael or Jim Elliot, and we mistakenly adopt the idea that they found some level of holiness that you have no access to. But this is not true.
The fact is that every single one of us is constantly learning and growing in our personal walk with Jesus. We never hit a moment where we are somehow more righteous than another.
The only real difference between the missionaries we admire and ourselves is that when God called them into the mission field, they responded with a, “yes!”
If you find yourself in a place where you think God is calling you to be a missionary, whether short-term or long-term, but you don’t feel like you’re where you need to be to say yes, may we remind you of a Biblical patriarch who also nearly said, “no” to God’s call?
“And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”
But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”” – Exodus 3:9-11
Who knows how different the world would look today if Moses had let his fears and doubts hold him back from everything the Lord had in store for him?
Doubt #3: Feeling Too Old, Too Young, Or Too Unhealthy
Sometimes, when a dream begins to stir in our hearts, we find ourselves instinctively trying to suppress it with thoughts like,
“I’m too old to go.”
“I’m not old enough to go.”
“My health will not let me go.”
These doubts are incredibly common. The enemy loves to throw up false obstacles that will deter us from serving wherever the Holy Spirit may call us to serve. Many of our volunteers have heard these doubts too, but trusted in God’s wisdom and said, “yes” to serving with Mission Partners For Christ. They understood something about the nature of God that gave them the confidence to go: God doesn’t call the equipped: He equips the called. If you have been struggling with thoughts that tell you that you’re lacking in some way that prevents you from serving, remember that you are a child of the God who created the heavens and the earth and there is nothing that He cannot do. If He called you into missions, He will be faithful to see you through to the end.
“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works,which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
– Ephesians 2:10, NIV
Are You Called Into The Mission Field?
This is a great time to check out our upcoming medical mission trips for 2025 & 2026. Spaces are filling up quickly, so don’t delay if God is nudging you into the field of medical missions!
Check out the trips we currently have listed here.
