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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