Have you ever assumed that you’re enjoying spiritual progress or making the most of life simply because you know you should be? I have. The logic ran like this:

• Christians redeem the time.
• I am a Christian.
• Therefore, I must be redeeming the time.

We walk by faith, not sight — but that does not mean wandering in fiction. Perhaps this application will resonate. You may wonder many days, Why is my Christian life so pedestrian? So underwhelming? So stagnant? Instead of letting this dryness expose us, we remind ourselves that we are Christians, after all, and if anyone is enjoying the benefits of the Christian life, we must be. We should be, by the flick of faith’s wand, becomes, we actually are. I know that Jesus came to give me life to the full, I am his disciple, and therefore, by faith, I really am supping on the full plate. I believe; therefore I am.

But we might not be. In reality, we may really be walking unworthily of our calling, domesticated in our witness, living but half-awake. We really can be wasting time, living backward to our calling, playing footsie with the world. We shouldn’t be content and happy living well beyond a cannon-shot away from the front lines where fullness of joy dwells, where the Savior dwells.

In other words, the yawning might indicate that you and I really can live a slouching, blunted, anemic, sleepy, weak, unconvinced Christian life — not in all things, perhaps, but often in one main thing: mission. Too many of us live civilian lives in this Great War and, therefore, remain only half-happy, half-alive, half-thrilled. And instead of realizing it (and repenting of it), we can believe this must be it for now. But small joys and puny purpose should find us out. Our spirits groan, and our indwelling and grieved Friend whispers, implores, There is so much more. And there is.

So, I’d like to rouse us from our Western Shires with a song, as the dwarves’ music did for Bilbo when “something Tookish woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking stick” (The Hobbit, 16). This hymn will make you want to wear a sword instead of a walking stick, to explore mountains perilous and great. It reminds us that the story is still being written, that souls still need saving, that we face a task unfinished — one that our Lord calls us to complete.

Facing a Task Unfinished

“Facing a Task Unfinished” was written in the early twentieth century by Frank Houghton, an admirer of Hudson Taylor and a missionary himself to China. The song boasts a rich history as part of the battle cry for missions to the Pacific Rim, according to Keith and Kristyn Getty, who have repopularized the hymn.

As more is done by prayer than prose, I would like us to ask the Lord of the harvest to make and send us as laborers, using Houghton’s lyrics as a guide. But be careful as you join in these four prayers, for when we shut our closet doors, we never know what adventures he will sweep us off to. O trustworthy Lord, awaken in us a daring faith — one we shall have no cause to regret in this life or the life to come. Hear us for your great glory and for our everlasting delight.

Rebuke Our Slothful Ease

Facing a task unfinished
That drives us to our knees,
A need that, undiminished,
Rebukes our slothful ease,
We who rejoice to know thee
Renew before thy throne
The solemn pledge we owe thee
To go and make thee known.

Father, we start with confession. The commission your dear Son charged us with — the commission he himself sends us on and promises his presence for — how little do we concern ourselves that it is left unfinished? How little does it send us across sea, or street, or down to our knees? This world needs Christians shining in the darkness; how often have we pulled baskets over ourselves? The need is undiminished; how little can we say the same of ourselves? If anything in this world calls for energy, for tenacity, for wakefulness, for risk, is it not your mission? And yet how often do we answer your imperial claims with slothful ease? So much consumption, so little commission.

By our confession as Christians, by our baptism, by our membership in the visible church, we have solemnly pledged to participate in your mission. Give us grace to proclaim your excellencies. Souls are dying. What are we still here for if not to make you known?

May We Heed Their Crying

Where other lords beside thee
Hold their unhindered sway,
Where forces that defied thee
Defy thee still today,
With none to heed their crying
For life and love and light,
Unnumbered souls are dying
And pass into the night.

Father, other lords vie with you. Their servants are zealous for wickedness; their evangelists cross land and sea to make sons of hell. The god of this earth seeks dominion, and while his demons trembled on earth before your Son, his forces have not yet retreated. And the chief place of their dominion is over the souls of men, blinding men from your Son’s glory and dragging them down to hell with themselves.

“Too many of us live civilian lives in this Great War and, therefore, remain half-happy, half-alive, half-thrilled.”

Look out upon the dying masses, Father. Have compassion on these unnumbered souls unable to discern their left hand from their right. And work your compassion in us. They live next door; they work with us; we eat at the same restaurants and play the same games. Give us wisdom to hunt souls, to labor while it’s day, to be uncomfortably bright witnesses to your beloved Son. And send the required number of us into those lands drowning in false religion to draw in a people from every language, tribe, and nation for your name’s sake.

To Thee We Yield Our Powers

We bear the torch that flaming
Fell from the hands of those
Who gave their lives proclaiming
That Jesus died and rose;
Ours is the same commission,
The same glad message ours;
Fired by the same ambition,
To thee we yield our powers.

Father, let us know what it is to bear this flaming torch. Love compels us, your glory spurs us, duty points us, and the cloud of witnesses cheers us to bring the gospel to the lost. Where would we be without former generations who resolved to give their lives proclaiming that Jesus died and rose and reigns? May we not be a generation of vile ingratitude that receives knowledge of eternal life from the bloody labors of others but is unwilling to pass such knowledge along ourselves.

Give us that same ambition. Whatever powers we have, hone them; whatever gifts we have, wield them. Turn the world upside down yet again. May we not shrink from any cross, lest in so doing, we refuse every crown.

From Cowardice Defend Us

O Father, who sustained them,
O Spirit, who inspired,
Savior, whose love constrained them
To toil with zeal untired,
From cowardice defend us,
From lethargy awake!
Forth on thine errands send us
To labor for thy sake.

O great and triune God, as you have sustained them, sustain us; as you moved them, move us; as your love constrained them, rouse us with zeal untired. Light the beacon. Many of us are wood three times doused; flame the altar.

Two great lions stand in the street and block the way. The first is cowardice — an unwillingness to bear a costly witness. O Lord, help us to see the immeasurable gain on the other side of temporal loss. Let us see all that is at stake in our negligence and fear.

And Lord, stir us from the second lion, lethargy. Let us learn from the ant or from the foolish virgins or the cursed fig tree. Don’t let us drool upon our pillows undisturbed. Awaken the militant church dissatisfied with playing defense. Awaken the church whose witness is unmistakable, whose power is undeniable, whose advance the gates of hell cannot withstand. Awaken the church that so out-rejoices and out-loves the world that onlookers see it and must give you glory. Here we are, Lord; we will go. Send us forth on your errands to labor for your sake — but only as you go with us.

Church, we have a task unfinished that towers over your best life now. We will more fully taste the joy of our salvation as we go extend our hope to others.