Maila D. Kue

Thank you, Eugene Peterson. For your faithfulness in ministry. For your example in spiritual formation. For your pastoral heart. And for your love for the Lord. 

Sometimes — if I am honest — I feel like I am bothering God. I know, I know. It’s not true. I shouldn’t think like that. That’s the Enemy. Yes. The Sunday School veteran in me is quickly hushing me, too. But like I said, in the name of honesty, I can’t help but realize that somewhere in the back of my mind while I’m praying to God about the same thing (for the millionth time), there’s a small part of me that thinks perhaps — just maybe — God is possibly rolling his eyes at my persistence. It sounds silly. But I also can’t help but admit that I totally get it if it was true. I don’t blame the Big Man. I’d roll my eyes at me, too.

I wish I had more faith. I’m 26 years into this Christian thing, but why do I sometimes still feel like a nagging child? I wish I was like the centurion man, who believed that with just one word everything would be okay. You see — Jesus marveled at his faith. Sometimes I believe like the centurion man, but if I’m honest, other times I find myself asking God about the same thing again and again and again. Like this morning. And then I find myself beating myself up for it.

But then I found something recently in Luke 18. A story about a persistent widow who would not give up. Jesus shares how her desperation led her to ask the judge until he granted her justice. Sure, the judge sounds a little frustrated. But what shocks me is how Jesus ends the story, not with a statement of annoyance, but one of fascination: “When the Son of Man comes, will he find such faith on the earth?” Do you see that? Jesus marveled at her faith, just like he did for the centurion man.

True story: I cried recently because I thought God was annoyed at my grit and never-ending insistence that He use me for His kingdom. I’m not sure when, but somewhere along the way, I began to believe that persistence equals the lack of faith. I began to think that the cry of desperation equals my misalignment with God’s heart and my inability to understand it. It’s almost as if I believed the size of someone’s faith was measured by the ease and simplicity of their petition.

But Jesus saw the widow’s persistence — which was anything but ease and simplicity — yet he not only called it prayer, but he claimed it as faith. Faith has nothing to do with frequency. Jesus is filled with wonder by both the child who asks his father once, as well as the child who asks again and again and again. Like the centurion, the former is confident and sure. Like the widow, the latter is undignified and shameless. Both caused Jesus to marvel. 

My first job after graduating college was a Copywriter at a Marketing & Advertising Agency. I remember how it became a routine for me to submit a project to my Creative Director, only to have her say, “You’re almost there. Go back to your desk and improve it. Remember our values: know your audience, emotionally connect, and write a message that resonates.” She’d say this to me all the time. And if I was lucky, 3, 4, or sometimes 10 drafts later, she’d finally smile and say, “Let’s produce it.” I didn’t dread the work. I loved being a Copywriter. I loved my co-workers and the company I worked for. But I struggled for two years at the job because I couldn’t understand God’s purpose behind putting me at a desk in front of a screen. I hoped and prayed that my life would be more than just a 9-5, mediocre coffee, and a semi-brilliant tagline.

It wasn’t until I found myself in the middle of the bush-bush in Mozambique that I realized what God had been doing. We were at a church when the Pastor said, “Today, our visitor will give us a message from the Lord.” He proceeded to hand me the microphone, to which I proceeded to panic. I never taught before. How the heck was I going to do so in the middle of Africa with absolutely no preparation? Afterward, an elder of the church approached me. “How long have you been a teacher of the Word?” I laughed. “Since 30 minutes ago.” He then said to me, “You know the audience well. Your words — it connected with me.” Immediately at that moment, I heard the voice of my Creative Director constantly pushing me beyond my limit. “Know your audience, emotionally connect, write a message that resonates!” And it was at that moment that I realized the commands of my boss were actually intentional moments that God was using to train me long before I even knew it. I thought I was getting a paycheck. God was forming me for moments like this when His children would get a chance to know Him a little bit more.

My second job was as a Marketing Manager at a hospital. I was hired to pioneer a marketing department from the ground up. I didn’t know what I was doing, but boy, did the idea of establishing something from nothing excite me. I was able to get the department up and running after 2 years, right before the Lord redirected me to go back to school. I loved working there. For a long time, I wondered why God would let me start something if He wasn’t going to keep me there much longer to take care of it.

It wasn’t until very recently that I understood what God had been doing in me during my years at the hospital. I had asked a mentor of mine what they saw me doing after school. This person said, “I don’t know what specifically, but what I can tell you is that you ought to press into your teaching and apostolic giftings. I can see you building and pioneering things from the ground up for the Kingdom.” At that moment, I realized that while I thought I was just enjoying a job promotion, God was providing an opportunity for me to tap into giftings I would have never believed I have.

This isn’t to say that we’ll all be called to leave our jobs to do traditional full-time ministry. This isn’t to say that our current positions are just a means to an end. Perhaps I share this simply as a reminder for myself that even as I sit in class and do my homework in the mundane, God is intentionally forming me — just as He had in previous years.