Not every missionary has a mission, and for sure not every mission is entrusted to a missionary.

Sometimes, a true mission gets lost in the sea of absurd ideals and abandoned hopes, or melts into the boredom of the common guy next door like ice into water. He would never fish it out; he didn’t even know he was supposed to.

Some other people are born with the obsession for a mission they’ve never been entrusted with. Which is even more tragic: there’s nothing sadder than a missionary stuck in a false mission like an ant stuck in the mud. What this missionary lacks is the distance from himself and his own beliefs. Not all burdens have to be carried and certainly no obsession can turn into a “true call”. It takes no more than a twist of mind, a banal psychological turnover for our missionary to be no longer interested in his “vocation”.

Eventually, almost every comfortable belief is false. And almost every indisputable vocation is a mixture of sheer vanity, paranoia, honest enthusiasm, and imposture.

A true missionary will most likely feel that his mission is beyond him.  Yet, “the call” cannot be resisted. The missionary will not release himself from his obligations, but he will hesitate. He will doubt himself and his vocation to the point of capitulation.  And it is precisely this peculiar, ambivalent relationship with his “true call” that certifies its realness.

You cannot seek it and you cannot avoid it. The moment you make a choice for any of these extremes, you are disqualified. And look around, the world is full of tasks that will never by found by  their proper achievers; and full of apostles that will never come across their gospel.

(Foto: en.wikipedia.org)