Mission Trip Checkup: A Prescription for Spiritual HealthParaugs

Listen to God’s Heart—and Yours

What has God put in your heart? If there were a spiritual stethoscope, what would the doctor hear when listening to your heart? Maybe it’s a heartbeat that beats against the rhythm of injustice, or a pulse that pumps best when praying for a specific people group.

Whatever the Lord has put on your heart, now—before your mission work begins—is an opportune time to listen to God’s heart, examine yours, and see how your pulses line up.

Chances are you know where you are going on your mission trip and how you will be serving, but only God knows who is going to cross your path. Taking time to tune the beat of your pulse to His heartbeat will open doors of opportunity in ways the Lord has prepared for you in advance. For example, being in tune could allow you to see people and situations you may not be sensitive to otherwise.

Begin by praying every day for the Lord to channel your heart in the direction where you can personally serve best. “Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4 NIV). Ask Him to put His desires in your heart and to make your heart a fertile, pure place for His plans, love, and peace to work through. 

Let your prayer be, “Lord, have your heartbeat resonate in me until I can hear yours louder than mine, as if through a stethoscope.”

Practical considerations:

• Take time today to talk to God about what is on your heart and listen to what He may be directing you toward.
• Listen to God with a heart to obey. 
• Inform your team’s leadership what the Lord has put on your heart to do. Then be flexible but ready. If God has put a cause, group, outcome, etc. on your heart, He’ll be sure to use it how and when He wants to. 
• Stay in motion, doing good wherever there is opportunity.