France is one of the most sophisticated, multiethnic, and pluralistic countries on Earth, a republic of immigration, where 67 million people, including the largest Muslim and Jewish communities in Western Europe, live mostly in harmony.

An American journalist living in Paris wrote a 2021 article entitled “Why Is France So Afraid of God?” Her astute observation was: “Freedom of religion is a national right, but what it sometimes means is freedom from religion!” For example, French law forbids the wearing of “ostentatious” religious symbols in public primary and secondary schools. Those symbols include headscarves, yarmulkes, and large crosses.

While the republic tries to confine religious expression, most of the population denies religion altogether. According to recent polls, most French people do not personally believe in God. The decidedly atheistic terrain led one veteran missionary to comment: “Mission work in Europe is like planting seeds in cement!” But we have discovered cracks in the cement.

Love is a portal through which we enter the lives of friends and neighbors, carrying the Gospel with us. Jonathan Edwards once remarked: “He who has divine love in him has a wellspring of true happiness that he carries about in his own breast, a fountain of sweetness, a spring of the water of life.” Throughout our missionary career, we have sought to use medicine as a conduit of Christ’s love, allowing us to enter the lives of those in need. Compassionate, competent medical care has proven to be a powerful instrument for presenting the Gospel to people in pain.

In our experience, imitating the Great Physician—especially within Muslim and animistic cultures—makes His love tangible, softening resistance and preparing hearts to receive the message of the Gospel. Some wounds are hidden in the recesses of the human heart. In the red-light district of nearby Luxembourg, Carol has participated in a ministry to women entangled in prostitution. Despite persistent outreach for the past six years, only one woman has accepted the Lord (and left the lifestyle) —but there was one!

Compassion alone does not transform a person. Ultimately, we rely on the power of the Gospel. There are several metaphors for God’s Word—bread, lamp, sword, fire, and seed, to name a few. Each one reveals a facet of the supremacy of God’s Word. The image of a seed is especially striking. It is small and seemingly helpless; yet within it lies the power to give life.

Like a seed, God’s Word is imperishable; it is the living and abiding Word of God (1 Peter 1:23). What a blessing to rely on the Spirit to use the Word of God to transform the lives of those to whom we minister. Even in a society that seeks to deny God’s very existence, the inherent power and authority in God’s Word can enlighten blind eyes and pierce the darkness. To the unbeliever the Gospel is foolishness and weakness, but to believers it is the wisdom and power of God.

Ultimately, God alone gives the increase (1 Corinthians 3:7). A vivid example from our corner of the globe illustrates this principle. While COVID disrupted the lives of many, it also became a time of searching for answers to life and death. As if with a heavenly broom, the Lord is sweeping seekers in our direction. The uncertainty of the future and anxiety during the pandemic caused many to turn to the internet in search of truth. Stumbling upon clear presentations of the Gospel compelled many to begin reading God’s Word for themselves. Men and women accepted the Lord and followed Him in baptism. They are learning about their role in the body of Christ: loving one another, edifying one another, and growing in their new life in Christ. Their thirst for God’s Word seems unquenchable. It has been His work.

Let us be faithful in sowing the Word of God and watering those seeds with prayer. At times it may seem as if we are sowing seeds in cement, but God’s Word does not return to Him void. His promise is clear: “So shall My word be that goes out from My mouth; it shall not return to Me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it” (Isaiah 55:11).¹

George Müller’s advice is appropriate here: “Here is the great secret of success, my Christian reader. Work with all your might; but trust not in the least in your work. Pray with all your might for the blessing in God; but work at the same time with all diligence, with all patience, with all perseverance. Pray then, and work. Work and pray. And still again pray, and then work. And so on, all the days of your life. The result will surely be abundant blessing. Whether you see much fruit or little fruit, such kind of service will be blessed.”²