Ministry

So I will share with anyone who wishes to read this a portion of my recent testimony...

Ever since high school, I have struggled with the the idea of ministry. The concept frankly has always frightened me... I look at it like Jonah... I feel like I will be rejected by the people of Nineveh and that they will want to kill me... Or like Moses... I am not an eloquent speaker... Lord send someone else... I have ignored the call to ministry at least three memorable times, where I definitely knew the Lord was saying to give over and labor for him... Each time I went the other way... I would close my heart to God... Church became somewhere I went because I was supposed to, my Bible gathered dust, and my relationship with God became estranged. Eventually I would come back to my senses as God never gives up on me. (Thank the Lord!) I would begin to slowly come back to God's open arms and begin to walk/run the race of faith again.

Years later I am now married, got a masters degree, two kids, great job, making good money... Outwardly, I am turning out to be very successful. Life must be figured out... Spiritually I was as dry as a rock in the desert. I still went to church, but I often fell asleep, and made it surprisingly quickly from the pew to the car after every Sunday's lesson was over. Devotions... please, I am busy... No time for that.

Well the call has happened again, and this time I am choosing to obey. I do not know really what that means, where it will lead me, or much of anything... I just know that my heart has changed. I do not think I can explain it, but I cannot deny that it is the right thing to do... Step out in faith. At this time I am not quitting my job, but rather seeking to aid my current pastor in any capacity I can and hopefully in return gain a mentor, a friend, and a church body of supportive individuals who together we will all learn and grow together.

While mentally I have been working to come to grips with/catch up to my change in heart, there have been several passages I have been reading lately that have been encouraging for me...

Matthew 6:21 (New King James Version)

²¹ For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Matthew 6:25 (New King James Version)

²⁵ “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?

Matthew 6:33-34 (New King James Version)

³³ But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. ³⁴ Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

These verses all encouraged me to not worry about how little a full time pastor/minister makes compared to the no doubt larger salary I am already making, no to mention the potential I have to make in less than two years if I get the promotions I am expecting in the possible future. They also remind me to keep things in perspective. What really matters? Gaining a big house? Lots of money? Great clothes and super fine foods? A hundred years from now non of that will matter... What does matter? Seeing people I know and love and those I have yet to meet or even complete strangers in heaven with me forever?

Matthew 10:19 (New King James Version)

¹⁹ But when they deliver you up, do not worry about how or what you should speak. For it will be given to you in that hour what you should speak;

This along with the story of Moses encourage me that God will give me the words to speak when the time comes. Goodness knows I am nothing special, and I am not very knowledgeable or wise... If anything I say helps someone else to come to faith in God, it is all through Him and not me.




All through Matthew does Jesus use parables of the seed and grain and the harvest, and hopefully I will write about those in the coming days, but here is one I feel applies extremely aptly.

Matthew 9:37-38 (New King James Version)

³⁷ Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. ³⁸ Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.”

I feel that today I have been called to be a laborer in the field (the world). How about you? Perhaps you are not being called as extreme as me or others, but God can use you where you are today. I find really, it is about being willing, and not hardening your heart to the possibilities before you.