The past couple of weeks have brought about a couple of changes in the curb appeal of our home. We have been doing some landscaping. We have planted a couple of fruit trees and a number or tomato, pepper, squash and a some others.
As I have been creating an extended “garden” area in our front yard in a spot that was just strange to mow. While turning the soil and making it good for planting I have gotten blisters, a few cuts and scrapes and my hands have given witness to the hard work of tilling soil, planting seed and cultivating life.
The same is true with ministry. The more I connect and become in relationship with young people the more my heart hurts because of their brokenness and struggle. I hear about the dry soil of their spiritual hearts, the weeds that pull them back into a life that they are trying to break away from, or they way they feel as those their leaves have been torn away.
I have ministry blisters, and cuts. My hands are callused because ministry is hard and messy. I would even go as far to say that if we don’t have these signs of ministry we are probably focusing more on the program than the people in our ministry and God is in the people business not management of programs.
So we have 2 options that I can see. We can allow our hearts to become hard because of the hurt, and the disappointment that we don’t live in a fairytale. I think about Pharaoh in his dealings with Moses, perhaps not a bad guy but just one who was trying to do his job and it has worn him out to the point that he didn’t have eyes to see what was really happening.
But the second option is that we can take hope we have that God can overcome everything and allow that to heal the broken hearts of our congregation. When we lose sight our ministry dries up. But we need to be planted, watered and tended to by the Word of God, through time in prayer and in worship with one another. In this way we can keep from developing hard hearts. As we lead and show young people and their families the discipline of pruning, and tending to our own hearts they will be able to develop these practices for themselves.
This is not to say that we will not be scared or be hurt in ministry. But that we can overcome those hurts.
What are some of the ways that you tend to your spiritual life and care for the calluses and cuts that are a result of ministry?
