Lunch. What a marvelous word! A hopeful word. A delicious word. It is a word sandwiched between pleasurable food memories and a promise of something delectable just ahead.

It was lunchtime when Jesus said, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to finish His work.” Jesus ate lost people for lunch. Well, perhaps it would be better to say that He experienced in soul-winning more anticipation, hope and pleasure than any lunch could provide.

This phenomenon of missing lunch without even thinking about it because of being totally absorbed in some greater pleasure is sometimes called the Csikszentmihalyi phenomenon. Though Csikszentmihalyi sounds like someone choking on a peanut, it is actually a real name. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is one of the pioneers of the modern scientific study of happiness. He was born in Hungary in 1934 and, like many of his contemporaries, he was touched by the Second World War in ways that deeply affected his life and later work.

During his childhood, Csikszentmihalyi was held in an Italian prison. It was while in prison that he first noticed this phenomenon. He would become so engrossed in playing chess that he would forget to eat. Later, when he became a psychologist, he began to research happiness. He wrote, “The best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.”

That is exactly why tentmakers are so happy—they are stretched to the limit while accomplishing something difficult and worthwhile.

To Jesus’ disciples, getting bread for their lunch was of seeming GREAT importance and consumed their total interest. So when the disciples returned from town with lunch for Jesus, (John 4:30), they urged him, “Rabbi, eat!” Jesus, on the other hand, had been so happy witnessing that He had totally forgotten about lunch. The disciples hadn’t yet learned to enjoy witnessing. It’s forgivable—they were still fisherman at heart. But they wished they could have the “food” Jesus had. As they chewed on their bread, they couldn’t help but think about Jesus’ empty stomach and His joy. Later they would experience the Csikszentmihalyi phenomenon, too. Some of the apostles would even sing in prison.

That’s one reason I think people are signing up to be tentmakers. They long for a reason to live that would be so important that they could forget about lunch. Seriously. Wouldn’t it be nice to be so driven by extraordinary purpose that we forget about ourselves? To be wowed and consumed by the Holy Spirit’s use of our gifts?

As I talk to people about GoTential, one question keeps coming up. As I describe how ordinary Adventist lay professionals are happily working in their fields of expertise among unreached people and how they are witnessing for Jesus, people say to me, “Wow, I would like to learn how to witness for Jesus. Can I get the same training the international tentmakers with GoTential are getting?”

If that’s you, and you seriously want to learn how to increase your purpose by witnessing in the marketplace, then yes, we can help you, even if you aren’t now moving overseas. We have begun a monthly email that provides succinct training on how to be salt and light in your working life to help you be a tentmaker wherever you live. To begin receiving this information, go to http://bit.do/gotential.

As a bonus, here is your first witnessing tip: “It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn’t use long, difficult words but rather short, easy words like ‘What about lunch?’”(A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh).

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