The lack of a backup plan is not a sign that God wants you to wait.
A friend of mine preached recently from Luke 9, the passage where Jesus sends out the Twelve with nothing—no money bag, no extra tunic, no backup provisions of any kind. Two of his observations have stuck with me.
Here is the text:
And he called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal. And he said to them, “Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money; and do not have two tunics. And whatever house you enter, stay there, and from there depart. And wherever they do not receive you, when you leave that town shake off the dust from your feet as a testimony against them.” (Luke 9:1–5 ESV)
There are two ditches of interpretation to avoid—and two aspects of relevant application as well for us to consider.
1. Wise planning is not unspiritual
Before we draw application, we have to handle the text carefully. Not every passage of Scripture carries the same type of instruction. Some are prescriptive—telling us what to do. Some are descriptive—telling us what happened. The challenge with descriptive passages is that we tend to dismiss them as irrelevant to our lives today.
Consider the Ten Commandments. We can recognize that what’s happening at Sinai is the giving of the Mosaic covenant to Israel—a historically specific event. But we would be missing something vital if we stopped there without also recognizing that the timeless moral law of God is being encoded in that passage for time immemorial.
The same care is required in Luke 9. Jesus was sending his disciples on a very short-term mission at a historically unique moment. He was weeks away from the cross. That first-century generation of unbelieving Israel had, by God’s design, until AD 70 and the destruction of Jerusalem to reckon with the Lord Jesus before cataclysmic judgment arrived in time and space. The urgency of that mission was not incidental; it was intentional. We are not, therefore, bound to conclude that every missionary must leave home without a support account, a savings plan, or a second pair of shoes.
Wise planning is not a failure of faith. Proverbs 16:9 says, “The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps.” We typically read that as a disjunctive contrast—as though the second clause is a caution against the first. But both are means by which God works in providence. He works through his sovereign direction of our lives, and he works through our planning processes.
We should pray for the leading of the Spirit and seek the Lord’s wisdom as we make godly plans—and then pursue those plans with diligence and tenacity. ABWE prepares workers carefully before they go. That is not a hedge against faith. It is stewardship.
But here in the text is where things become more difficult for the follower of Christ.
2. We must not use the lack of a safety net as an excuse for disobedience
The disciples in Luke 9 had no earthly safety net at all. They were being sent out as sheep in the midst of wolves (Matthew 10:16). No backup plan. No contingency. They were entrusting themselves entirely to Jesus and to his Father’s provision.
For us today, though the mission is not identical to what the apostles were sent to do, the call to act in faith is no less binding. Just as it would have been wrong for the disciples to look at their lack of provisions and conclude they were therefore not supposed to go, so too for us. We may feel burdened to undertake some work in the name of the Lord, but hesitate because in the earthly realm—in the realm of what we can see—there is no guarantee of success. And we may be tempted to treat that absence as a providential confirmation to wait.
We are called to exercise wisdom. But not at the expense of obedience.
Prudence is the right application of the knowledge we have been given. But we are not always given knowledge adequate to the level of understanding we want. And when we do not have it all, that is no excuse to refuse to act on the knowledge—however small—that we do have.
Risk is not the enemy
Consider how much risk we are willing to tolerate in our earthly lives. Every investment commercial includes some version of this disclaimer, read by a hurried narrator: all investments include the risk of loss, including loss of principal. Nobody bats an eye. Anyone with basic financial sense knows that a reasonable level of risk is part of a healthy portfolio. As far as it goes, that is correct. It is a right recognition of how God has ordered the natural realm.
And yet consider how little we are willing to tolerate any discussion of risk in the Christian life. This should not be the case.
God has made clear what he wants his church to do. He commands us to proclaim his name among all peoples, from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). He commands his church and its ministers to make disciples of all the nations (Matthew 28:19). He has given every believer a personal evangelistic mandate—to bear witness to Christ in their homes, their places of work, and wherever he sends them. He calls us to pray for laborers for the harvest (Matthew 9:38). He calls us to care for those in need, inside the church and outside it—to do good to all, especially to those within the household of faith (Galatians 6:10).
We cannot obey any of these commands without embracing some level of risk.
It is possible that you will pursue missionary support and never reach your full goal—and have to live with that.
It is possible that you will share the gospel profusely and find that nobody listens, and not a single disciple is made.
It is possible that you will sink your heart and your time and your vulnerability into a church plant, only to be hurt by fellow Christians and wounded by a division within the body.
It is possible that you will take a bold cultural stand and be canceled by your HR department, or a government agency, or your peers—and be decried as bigoted and uncharitable.
This is all part of the cost. We are not necessarily told what provision God has made to deliver us in each of those circumstances, though God is faithful to deliver. We are simply told to obey regardless of the potential cost. Regardless of the lack of a safety net.
No excuses. Embrace the risk.
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