There I was, on the southern-most point of Taiwan, with the waves of the South China Sea crashing against the rocks I was climbing.

I was with my friends, of whom one was Taiwanese. She had been regularly bringing her Singaporean friends to her home village each summer for the last 3 years.

Though it was supposed to be a mission trip (my first), it felt more like an evangelistic holiday. We were there simply to spend time with the children in her hometown and were hoping for opportunities to share the Gospel with them. We had done the logistics, planned games and prepared the skits.

But when we were finally on the ground, things didn’t seem to work the way we thought they would.

The children would play the games and watch us act out Biblical parables demonstrating God’s love, but within the hour they would ask: “老师我们可以去海边吗?” (Teacher, can we go to the beach?)

And as we followed them to the beach each day, we were all starting to feel the pressure of having “nothing” to account for. The children, all below the age of 12, were scrambling up ahead of me on high and jagged rocks effortlessly. Embarrassingly, they were the ones stretching out their hands to pull me up rocks larger than themselves.

As I slowly and reluctantly manoeuvred my way up, being forced to face my newfound fears of heights and sharp rocks, a thought flashed across my mind, “God, surely I did not leave everything back home only to injure myself on rocks, in front of my friends and children half my age and size.”

But it is also very easy for us to mistake our own human confidence for confidence in Christ.

It’s natural for us to hold high expectations when we go on mission trips or whenever we set aside a season of our hectic lives for the Lord.

The hope is that these “high expectations” reflect our confidence in the Lord and our anticipation of Him moving mightily. After all, we’ve all definitely heard our fair share of amazing testimonies from those who have gone before us. So though some of us were taking our first steps into missions, we definitely had a standard in mind.

But it is also very easy for us to mistake our own human confidence for confidence in Christ. After all, we spent a lot of time preparing and equipping ourselves practically and spiritually for the mission trip in the first place. We memorised the verses to share the Gospel (in a foreign language!), we planned to execute activities smoothly – no effort was spared on our part.

There’s little room for human anxiety when one has a godly confidence. So why was I so concerned about being rejected? Why I was so worried about being met with indifference or placed in situations we were unprepared for?

Perched precariously on the rocks, I was about to question my decision to come when I felt the Lord tugging at my spirit.

How would you respond then, if really, I brought you here just to face the rocks?

Relief and remorse quickly flooded my heart when I heard Him say those words. While I was thankful to know that the Lord had more in store for our time there, I felt shame as I realised that I had been moving in my own strength. That explained all the anxiety I had when things didn’t go according to plan – my plans.

So God corrected me on those rocks gently. I eventually reached the top later, with much encouragement from my friends and the children. After that day the Lord moved throughout the rest of our trip in ways that were undeniable.

Beyond the lesson on the rocks, my first mission trip changed my perspective on what it meant to put my hands to the plough.

For one, it’s perfectly okay if we experience rejection in the course of the trip. Rejection always stings, not just because someone didn’t get to know the Lord this time, but because of how personally we tend to take it. But we must not move in our own confidence.

Most salesmen pride themselves on being able to make the mediocre desirable. But when the Gospel we’re “selling” is not defective in any sense, why should we be afraid of it being unwanted? We don’t have to be.

We must live and move in His confidence. It is easy to be remain focused on the Lord when you are in the field. But when you return home, it is just as easy to be swept up with life like work, school, family or ministry.

Our confidence in the Lord must comes from all our experiences with Him and our faith convictions of who He is.

We must keep our eyes on Him.