We Don't Get to Choose Our Ministry
If you'll wander with me down memory lane a bit, I'd like to introduce you to the 16-year-old-me. Of course, it goes without saying that I was younger then (and thinner), and it was a really exciting time of my life. I was "on fire" for the things of the Lord, I was disciplining myself spiritually and physically, and, as a side note, I knew how to parent everybody else's kids (I wish the me-now could figure out where the me-then got all her answers...!). I was about to graduate high school, and I couldn't wait to see what God had in store.
I wanted to peer excitedly just over the horizon to peek into what God was going to do with my budding talents and abilities. But I sure would have been surprised and confused had the 16-year-old-me been able to glimpse the calling that God was placing on my life.
The 16-year-old-me would never have pictured the path the Lord would direct for me in my twenties and now in my thirties. My twenties were hard years spiritually, full of questioning and frustration. My idea of how I would serve God and what that would look like was crumbling. I didn't know I'd be such a mess, and I didn't know that God was not going to use me in the ways I had thought that He would.
"...fulfill your ministry," 2 Timothy 4:5
What about you?
What about the 16-year-old YOU? Where did the 16-year-old-you see herself now? What trials has God brought you through that you never would have imagined or foreseen? Are your dreams and plans lining up as neatly as you had expected?
Or perhaps, friend, is God doing an even greater work in you for His glory that the 16-year-old-you never could have imagined?
Our culture tells us to dream big and then chase after those dreams. Even the Christian world urges us, "Plan big, and then watch God show up and show out!" But God uses mysterious and unanticipated ways to bring glory to Himself, and I'm finding now that shattered dreams and broken plans are often his vehicle for doing the real work -- the quiet and unseen work that develops a heart of faith that entrusts itself to a faithful Father.
We see examples throughout scripture of God's servants ministering in His power, but how did their ministries come about? Did they bring about great things for the kingdom in typical dream-big-and-it-will-happen fashion?
Was Daniel pursuing his dreams as he was carted off to Babylon? (Answer: No.)
Or, was the Lion's Den miracle the culmination of Daniel's big dreams and plans for serving God in captivity, never again to see his beleaguered homeland?
Did the 17-year-old Joseph imagine the upcoming years of betrayal, false accusations, and prison as God prepared him to rescue his family and all of Egypt from famine and starvation?
Had Noah, that preacher of righteousness, been dreaming for 600 years to be a zookeeper, escaping the world's destruction along with only his immediate family?
Did Moses dream of keeping sheep on the back side of the desert for forty years after spending his first forty years as a prince of Egypt?
Did Paul love prison?
Did Isaiah's ministry fail because it culminated in his being sawn in half?
I always figured if I could have been any of Jesus' disciples, I would have probably chosen John, for the very unspiritual reason that he was the only disciple not martyred for his faith. However, that disciple who saw into heaven and recorded the vision in the book of Revelation was most likely blind, since he had been thrust into a vat of boiling oil for the sake of the faith.
And what about John the Baptist? After a short (about 6 month) ministry, was his beheading the result of dreaming too small?
God had been preparing these servants of His for their ministries for their whole lives.....but not by asking them to hand-pick the tasks for which they wanted to sign up. In the same way, He's been preparing you for your ministry for a lifetime.....although it may not be the ministry that the 16-year-old-you had envisioned.
Fulfill your ministry
The 16-year-old-me never dreamed that the me-now would have such a heart for bereaved moms, because I didn't know I would walk through infertility and miscarriage.
I didn't know I'd have such a passion for the freedom and grace of the gospel, because I didn't know that the Lord was going to break the chains of legalism and pride that were choking my heart.
I didn't know that, through broken relationships, I would finally realize that only Jesus could be the perfect friend that I had longed would love me.
I didn't know that those seasons of depression that brought me to my knees and found me wrestling in His word would become a breeding ground for knowing and believing the God of the word in intimate and precious ways that I had never before known to conceive.
All those gifts and talents that the 16-year-old-YOU had? You can join Paul -- you can count them as loss for the sake of Christ. It's counter-cultural, isn't it? We are taught to climb the ladder, promote ourselves, and chase our dreams. But Christ says, "...whoever loses his life for my sake will save it" (Luke 9:24).
Unexpected ministry
No woman joyfully anticipates her mother's developing Alzheimer's disease and needing care around the clock.
No woman plans to become a childless mother who comforts others who are grieving, and no mother expects to spend weeks with her little daughter in the NICU.
No woman dreams up big plans for seasons of depression, loneliness, or illness.
The mom of many little ones doesn't anticipate quite as little sleep and didn't know that she would discover she's as deep of a mess as she really is.
The aging mother didn't anticipate the lifetime ministry of intercessory prayer that she'd be engaged in on behalf of her daughter.
Maybe the single girl didn't have plans to be single this long.
And it's not for lack of "big dreams" that the single mom is raising a son without his daddy.
We don't get to choose our ministry. But we're expected to fulfill it (2 Timothy 4:5).
Discover your God-given ministry
What ministry has God given to you as you serve Him and His children through the gospel? Although you don't choose your ministry (God does), one of the best ways to find out how to minister is to ask yourself, "What heartache and grief has God given to me?" and "What is right in front of me?"
And there...there you'll find where God has comforted you and will give you opportunity to comfort others in the same way. As you raise your children, love your husband, serve the church, and minister to the needy, God will show you day by day His call upon your life to minister as He has revealed to you through His word. He will very likely use your many natural gifts and talents, but we know that "God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world.... so that no human being might boast in the presence of God....Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord" (1 Corinthians 1:26-31).
The 16-year-old-me did not anticipate serving God in the ordinary or through grief and disappointment. No, the things that God is using in my life to draw me to Himself were not on my "bucket list." I was waiting to see what God was going to do with my life, but I didn't realize that God was going to mold me into a fit and useful vessel IN SPITE OF myself, and not because of me and my boatload of talents.
But the beauty of gospel-ministry is that God uses ordinary, dispensable jars of clay to display His power and wield His Gospel. And as you fulfill the ministry that God has entrusted to you, you'll know that it is the power of God shining brightly through a vessel of clay that is abounding to others in comfort and grace, just as you through Christ share abundantly in comfort, too.
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort, too." 2 Corinthians 1:3-5