Photo by Kristel Hayes on Unsplash

Photo Caption: The Lord provided an image of sailboats to encourage me in a season of full-time support raising.

Seven minute read.

In my first sabbatical reflection, I have decided to reflect on a theme that has been very central in my life these past few years: waiting for the Lord. Prayer prepares the way for us to receive our calling. It was during a time of waiting that the Lord first called me to missionary work. I waited on God to reveal His plan for my life, and He provided. The whole idea is that prayer and waiting for the Lord is integral to our mission. God calls us to great adventures, hopes, and dreams, but we need to be listening to hear His voice. Will He find us prayerful and attentive when He calls?

“Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!”

Psalm 27:14

My Call to CCO staff: Long-Term Investing

I loved the field of finance and I studied it in school. The psychology behind the decision-making was interesting. The goal of growing more money, whether it was for a stock portfolio or a pension fund, appealed to my drive for results. I was motivated to multiply resources. Investing for the long-term came naturally.

I finished my business degree and applied to several finance jobs. I wanted to get on with my life right after school. My resume and connections were what I perceived to be strong. Surely, it would not be too difficult to find something. The Lord had other plans, however.

God prepared my heart with a few prophetic passages. One was Psalm 27:14, “Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord.” I felt empowered to read it repeatedly for almost two months. What else could I do? I continued along—I applied to other jobs and made extra time for personal prayer and daily Mass. I waited for something to happen.

In addition, a friend sent along a quote during that season of waiting. Frederick Buechner wrote, “The place God calls you is that place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” I encountered Christ’s love in university and deep down I wanted to share it with others. It was through Catholic Christian Outreach (CCO) that I heard the Gospel message, that Jesus Christ came to repair our broken relationship with God caused by sin. My love for Christ and the Gospel message gave me a second thought to a career in finance. The world needed something more than another company, more money, or greater shareholder return. It needed a Saviour, Jesus Christ. Who would go and proclaim Him?

As I waited with these reflections, my heart revealed what I truly wanted. My deepest desire was not to make the most money, neither was it to run a few businesses. It was to evangelize and use my gifts in leadership. It occurred to me that perhaps the world did not need another businessperson; it needed another evangelist. Through insightful prayer, I allowed the Lord to guide me in an unexpected way.

He wouldn’t make me wait too long. I experienced a strong call to do missionary work later that fall. It took place at Annunciation of Our Lord Parish in Ottawa, one Friday morning in October. When I approached the Eucharist, I got very teary-eyed. I felt overwhelmed by His great love. After Mass, we had Eucharistic Adoration. There I felt the Lord gently say, “I have sacrificed my life for you, will you sacrifice your life for me?” I could not refuse this invitation. It was so powerful. I gave Jesus my Yes with tears and without reservation. It was an invitation to put a career in finance on hold and apply for missionary work with CCO. I did that right after my time of prayer.

Turns out, they hired me and I started the job right away. I have worked with CCO for five years and it’s been an amazing adventure. If I didn’t go to prayer every morning with Psalm 27, I would not have been ready for this radical call. We need to make sure prayer is important to our everyday lives. It will help us respond. When we wait, we give time for the Lord to act! That is why Psalm 27 asks us to be strong and to take courage.

God used my passion for investing. I joke about it; in finance, I was dedicated to long-term investing. As a missionary, I am dedicated to the longest-term investing—souls, for eternity! In some ways, my ministry is a lot like financial investing. I see which students show promising potential and I invest in their leadership. Our work bears fruit when the Gospel is proclaimed and when those leaders are able to raise up others. When our leaders multiply, the Kingdom yields a greater return!

Sailboats

Fast forward a few years, and I found myself waiting on God during a support visit. I will share a story where I waited on God in prayer, received His word, and saw it revealed. This demonstrates the power of encouraging prayer times.

In my second summer of support raising, I worked hard for the first few months. It came to a point where I felt burnt out. I took a week off to recuperate. I came back to meet with Tanya, my support coach. Together we prayed for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit in my life. An image came up that I haven’t forgotten. It was an image of a sailboat. The analogy goes like this: it is very exciting when the sailboat leaves for its journey. However, there comes a part where the sailboat is in the middle of the ocean. There is no land, but waves everywhere. At this point of our adventure, we must cast our sails and allow the wind to guide us to the end. In parallel, it revealed that God could take control during the last stretch of my support raising. He would bring me to full financial support. I felt encouraged.

 I left right after to visit a potential supporter. I shared about our ministry with CCO, but they couldn’t support financially. They wanted to join my prayer team instead. We ended up praying for potential donors to fund my mission. As we prayed, I got a little distracted. I opened my eyes and looked behind her. I saw a huge painting of…sailboats. Yes! This meant that the Lord was going to act and He would provide. I closed my eyes and centered myself back in God’s presence. She then shared what spoke to her in prayer. The word was “Jerusalem”. We didn’t know what that meant, but I took it, excited to see how it would manifest itself.

I then journeyed to Gatineau to meet another supporter. There I sat in the backyard overlooking the Ottawa River. And what did I see? None other than more sailboats. The Lord, He was there too! The Lord was going to act, and the Lord was going to provide. When I shared the support presentation, we came to the financial invitation. I stopped myself and said, “Would you like to sponsor my work at $100 a month?” And I waited. A few minutes passed by. I still waited. He was in deep thought. A version of Psalm 27 was playing in my head…Wait for the Lord…wait for the supporter…wait… I didn’t say anything. Two minutes of anticipation felt like a long time.

He went back to the house, and I sat there, waiting. At this point, I was a little impatient and said another prayer to God. He then came back and said wanted to support at $100 a month! He also gave me two things. He gave me the post-dated cheques for my ministry as well as a cross. He said, “Here, take this cross, it’s from Jerusalem.” Jerusalem. There we go! The word made flesh! Through the generosity of this supporter—and many others—I raised all of my financial support over the next month. A big lesson I learned was to wait on God in prayer. God desires to encourage us in our calling. His imagery of sailboats sailed me through to the end.

Love Waits

We participate in God’s plan of redemption when we wait with Him. It is a mystery. God uses men to reach men. Nevertheless, the same principle applies: the waiting game is necessary. Love can only be love if it awaits a free response. I truly believe that waiting on God in prayer brought conversion to a young man’s life. Allow me to share.

I worked at CCO Concordia for a few years. Our second year of outreach was impactful because we had a bigger team to help us. We had student leaders who reached out to their friends, and we got many contacts at our table. One of them was Vinny, an international student. We met for our follow up. It was a longer meeting because of our instant connection. We both went to high school in Ottawa and he was a very relatable young man. We chatted about sports, faith, and apologetics. He signed up eagerly for Discovery, CCO’s first level faith study. I sensed that he was a man of influence. He was smart, charismatic, and knowledgeable. He came to the first lesson, what I thought was the beginning of something great.

In lesson one, we learnt about God’s love for us. It is a personal love. Vinny responded well in the lesson; however, he did not come to any others. It was hard. How could someone seem so interested and then not respond to any of my messages? I texted him week after week. I wondered if he was okay. By about the third week, I decided to let him go. I could not force him to come. I surrendered him in prayer. My other teammates also prayed for him. In fact, two of them have the charism of intercessory prayer. We pleaded to God for his conversion of heart.

The next season of outreach came. My supervisor Dennis encouraged us to reach out to more contacts. We followed up with those students who did not complete a faith study in the fall. Vinny was one of those contacts. I was very reluctant to reach out to him. However, I sent one anyways. The following day, I surprisingly received a message back. It turns out that Vinny went on an intellectual quest, diving into apologetics and Christian doctrine. He did not want to come to the faith study because he felt hypocritical. How could he take a Christian faith study and not know what his beliefs were? While Discovery helps us travel down this path of curiosity, Vinny opted to seek out his answers via St. Thomas Aquinas and other notable figures.

He came to a conclusion that Christianity is true. He finally felt ready to take the first faith study. It led him to an encounter with Jesus Christ, which propelled him to baptism the following year. God worked powerfully in his life and he is a faithful Christian to this day. His story taught me that God uses our prayers for good. Sometimes, however, we do not see the fruit of our prayers. That is God’s choice, not ours. If He permits a miracle, like Vinny’s conversion, it is because we have prayed in faith. Out of love, we cannot force someone to love Christ. It has to be from their own free will. Again, wait for the Lord, and be strong, as we await for others in love.

Transformation Takes Place

God waits for our response. As a final reflection to this piece, consider that He is patient beyond comprehension. It took God many centuries to bring salvation history to a completion in Christ. The Jewish people awaited patiently for the Messiah. Then, in God’s perfect timing, Jesus Christ was born over 2,000 years ago. He spent a good thirty years with his family in the silence of Nazareth, before he began his public ministry at a wedding feast in Cana. After an intense three years of preaching, healing, and discipleship, His mission led Him to Gethsemane, an evening of agonizing temptation and desolation. He anticipated His passion in excruciating pain. This was a lot of waiting.

The Cross held Jesus’ longest and hardest trial of waiting—three hours of indescribable agony which left Him suffering to the point of death. We can’t even fathom what He went through. Everything that led to His death was mortifying. Wicked blows, torture, scourging, and mocked adoration. Imagine the tantalization and revilements of the people. Emotional, mental, and physical pain. This, above all, was a patient waiting. Patience in suffering, patience with others, and patience with God’s will. The Lord transformed humanity’s salvation in those horrific moments. His eventual death on the Cross was in fact the ultimate transformation—to new life, the Resurrection. Following the footsteps of Our Lord, our waiting can be a rich time of transformation too. We can wait during especially challenging seasons.

In summary, God can use our waiting in powerful ways. For example. waiting in prayer prepares us for our calling. During the tough times of mission, that very prayer time can be a rich source of encouragement. The other dimension of waiting is the power of intercessory prayer. While we might not see its fruits, the Lord is active. He hears all things and works all things for our good and the good of others. And alas, how wonderfully transforming our seasons of anticipation and waiting can be. If the Lord waited on the Cross, He will ask us to wait on ours too. However, we will not wait forever. That is good news. Until then, there is so much we can learn and grow from our seasons of waiting.

Here’s a key theme: waiting in prayer is integral to our mission. So what can we do? Spend time with the Lord every day for the rest of your life. Dedicate a time of quiet prayer and grow a deep relationship with Him. He has a particular vocation, ministry, and adventure planned for each one of us. Will He find us ready in prayer? Wait on Him; wait with Him; and be ready. Be strong and courageous. He will call.

This sabbatical reflection is part one of a five-themed series. Click here for the others!