Welcome to the PMF Workshop for the week of October 5, 2020. I’m your host, T. M. Moore. Each week we provide teaching, encouragement, and resources to help you in working your Personal Mission Field. By adopting the perspectives and practicing the disciplines we present in the Workshop, you can become more consistent and effective in realizing the presence, promise, and power of God’s Kingdom in your daily life.

Today’s Workshop is entitled, “One Step at a Time.” Our text is Psalm 77.19, 20:

Your way was in the sea,
Your path in the great waters,
And Your footsteps were not known.
You led Your people like a flock
By the hand of Moses and Aaron.

Asaph’s problem, and ours
To understand the meaning of these verses for working our Personal Mission Field, we need to walk through the entire psalm.

Asaph was troubled, so much that he could not sleep, as we see in verses 1-4:

I cried out to God with my voice—
To God with my voice;
And He gave ear to me.
In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord;
My hand was stretched out in the night without ceasing;
My soul refused to be comforted.
I remembered God, and was troubled;
I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed. Selah
You hold my eyelids open;
I am so troubled that I cannot speak.

Asaph was feeling uncomfortable. Whenever he thought about God and what God had charged him to do, he was troubled, and even complained to God about it (vv. 2, 3). His trouble was partly of his own making, it seems, which we can see by a more careful translation of verse 10: “This is my grief”, that is “I’ve caused this problem.”

But he’s in the right place to deal with his trouble, crying out to God, and recalling and meditating on His great works in the past (vv. 1, 5, 6).

What was bothering him so much? He was troubled by the disobedience of God’s people, and his own share in that ingratitude. God seemed to have cast His people aside. He wasn’t showing favor to them. Even though outwardly the people seemed to be doing just fine, Asaph knew that inwardly they were not loving and serving God as He commanded (vv. 7-9). Asaph was troubled by this, perhaps because he contributed to this situation early on by his silence or even complicity in Solomon’s rapid advancement and growing separation from the Lord.

Their leaders had led Israel into materialism, self-indulgence, spiritual lethargy, and a compromised witness. And Asaph was feeling as though he was partly to blame.

Seeking the Lord
But now Asaph is seeking a way back into the favor of the Lord (8, 9). He knows the people need to come back to God truly, and not merely as a formality (13, cf. Ps. 50). Asaph recalls the powerful work of redemption God accomplished in the past, when even the waters of the sea fled from before His Word (16, 19). The way forward for Asaph and Israel seemed impossible, just as it did to Moses and Aaron on the banks of the Red Sea.

But Moses and Aaron were faithful, and they led the people into the impossible path, and through it, to redemption. As Israel stepped into the waters of the sea, God opened the path for their every next step, and brought them safely to the other shore.

Now Asaph was feeling like the way ahead, the way back to the Lord and away from the idols of wealth, power, and false deities – this way looked impossible. But he recalled God’s faithfulness in the past, and, as Moses and Aaron were faithful in their callings, trusting the Lord and stepping toward the impossible, Asaph took up his calling in the light of that.

He wrote his psalms, all twelve of them, and carried out his assigned duties as director of choirs and music in the temple. And while his psalms appear to have had little effect in his lifetime, they were of much use to Hezekiah in leading the people to revival in a later generation, and they have endured for millennia, even for such a time as this.

The task ahead of us
Believers in our day are enjoying a comfortable, non-risky faith. We like knowing that we’re going to heaven when we die. We love our church and our snappy worship services. We enjoy being with our Christian friends.

But we are failing in our mission. And we are at risk – as a generation of believers – of being cast aside by God. The world needs the Gospel as much, if not more, than ever. Yet we who know it, we who have been charged with declaring the Good News, have become silent. The weeds are growing everywhere in our Personal Mission Fields, and we are failing to sow the Good Seed of the Kingdom among the people to whom God has sent us.

But we must not dismay or despair. Like Asaph, we must own up to our complicity in letting the state of things come to this; and we must repent, and follow the Word of God into the impossible path He spreads before us each day.

Keep focused on the Lord and His promises. Recall His faithfulness and mighty works in the past. Look to your faithful forebears. Set impossible goals, goals you can only achieve if God is in them. And step toward the unseen and impossible path, one step at a time.

An exercise for this week
Each day this week, before you head out into your Personal Mission Field, ask the Lord to show you what your next step should be, with each person you meet, in showing the love of Jesus and making the most of every opportunity to bear witness to Him.

Pray in the morning: “Lord, I want to walk Your path; show me what my next step must be.” He may point you to something you consider to be impossible or unlikely to work. But if you’re praying and trusting Him, though the waters of opposition or uncertainty seem ever so deep ahead, step in by faith, and watch how the Lord will meet you, empower you, bless you, and use you for His glory.

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Have you mapped out your Personal Mission Field? Watch this brief video, download the worksheet, and get started today.

Tell us about what’s going on in your Personal Mission Field. What challenges are you facing? How has the Lord been leading or using you? Email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with your Personal Mission Field stories, and we might be able to use them to encourage one another in the Personal Mission Field Workshop.

For the Fellowship of Ailbe, and for the Personal Mission Field Workshop, this has been T. M. Moore.

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Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.