Humbled by your faith…


There are moments that I feel barely worthy to be your pastor. Moments that I sit with people who are in such profound pain or engulfed in dysfunction. They explain in detail the various agonies both physical and mental they are in to me.

 I listen to them and it moves beyond my imagination. I’m stupefied by their situation. I wonder how are they making it. How can they go month to month, week to week, day to day. Sometimes even hour by hour with the diagnosis or the unknown causes of tragic symptoms that debilitate and frustrate to a level I’ve never known.

We often come to a point in the conversation where I have reflectively listened and offered sympathy upon sympathy or even empathy to the point that I can offer no more. And I wonder where the conversation will go because I have nothing else to give…  and then this beautiful thing happens.

This powerful miraculous moment that always comes as such a surprise but really shouldn’t. The individual who I am calling to minister to starts praising God. They start telling me how good He is and how faithful he is and how no matter what they know that he loves them and will never leave them because he is so good.

Even when they have their doubts even when the light at the end of the tunnel grow so small and so dim that they can no longer see it they still know it’s there. They refuse to lose hope. One individual even told me while we were talking this was the day they were baptized years ago and they hold on to this day with such joy and such excitement because of what it means and the eternal difference that it makes in their life every single day.

They tell me how unbelieving friends and family ask them how they do it -how they maintain their faith and their joy. They tell them it’s God’s presence in their life and also his provision when a person dedicates their life to his purposes and they begin to tithe their income but even more so, tithe their life for his glory and our greater good.

Things just begin to workout for the better but not in a prosperity gospel way -give God a dollar and he’ll give you 10 -rather when you only have pennies in the bank you know that your father is so enormously and eternally rich that he will take care of you no matter what.

He give you everything you need. Even if from the world’s perspective what you have doesn’t seem to be enough. But then there is a miraculous, mind bending shift in perspective that allows the person of faith to grasp the blessings they have that they neither deserve or can lose.

Such as the eternal and universal love of God and his family the church. The secure and unassailable place in heaven that is inevitable and so indescribably wonderful. There are times I am in tears as I listen to you people testify to your faith. In the midst of trials and tribulations and I feel barely worthy to be called your pastor because so often you end up pastoring me.  

Dear ones it is this and the grace of God that has kept me here for almost 2 decades humbly journeying with you who tower above me shining the light of Jesus to the world around. You are a beacon- Smithville Mennonite Church- burning bright even in the darkest night.

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