A year ago, I asked God if He would trust me with managing a substantial amount of money for the Kingdom.

And for some wild, inconceivable reason, He granted my request.

His answer snuck up on me, like His answers often do. It started when I applied for a part-time role coaching missionaries through their support raising. It escalated when I accepted a fundraising role for Global Frontier Missions. It culminated a month later, when I ran the numbers for our annual report. Between staff support and organizational fundraising, we were stewarding 150% of what I had asked to manage. 

God had inaugurated my role with more than I had asked or imagined.

And now my life is full of asking. Oh, so much asking. 

Asking for myself. Asking for my organization. Coaching so many people on how to ask.

Asking through letters, through email, on social media. Asking over coffee. Asking over dinner. Asking over Zoom. Asking through grant applications. Asking pastors of megachurches.

I wouldn’t change it for the world. Let me tell you why.

Because I know Another One who gives Himself night and day toward asking. 

One who died and was raised and pleads before the Father on humanity’s behalf.

One who is able to save because He always lives to make intercession.

And from the story of Scripture, we know what He’s asking for. 

He is pleading on behalf of every tribe, tongue, people, and nation. 

He is asking the Lord of the Harvest to send out laborers into the harvest field.

This Man of perfect faith, this Man so full of miracles—He has made it His full-time job to ask on behalf of those who are far from Him.

And for the time being, it is my full-time job, too.

So when I lack the courage to ask, I imagine what the intercession of Jesus might look like. I imagine Him pounding the floor of heaven on raw knees and groaning for the gospel to reach the ends of the earth.

I remember that I’m joining Jesus in what He’s always doing. 

That I’m being made more in His likeness every time I ask. 

That this isn’t about me. It’s about inviting the Church to respond to His cries.

One day in eternity, I’ll sit with all the saints who raised money without having to ask. We’ll marvel over the nearness of Jesus and the tender way He met every need. We’ll rejoice in every miraculous way that God brought provision seemingly out of nowhere.

And, if I’m lucky, they’ll ask me what my life was like—what people remembered me for. And I’ll tell them about every need God met when I asked His Bride to give generously. We’ll rejoice in every miraculous way the Church rose up in radical sacrifice to send laborers into the harvest field. And then maybe I’ll lead them down a golden street full of neighbors, every one of them reached by someone who first heard of missions through a fundraising campaign. Maybe we’ll laugh the hours away arguing who had the greater privilege. Maybe we’ll hardly care.

When I was a little girl, I imagined that missionary life would be full of faith and miraculous provision without having to ask. But if you’re in the business of scandalous faith—if you’re hungry to see God do the supernatural—then look no further than the miracle of asking the Church to unite over the mission of God. Watch as believers give their treasure and their hearts in pursuit of their future brothers and sisters in Christ. Listen to groans of Jesus, the One who never grows weary of asking.

Listen to His joy as His Bride says yes.

Let it change the way you fundraise. Let it make you an intercessor. 

Written by a GFM staff member.