This post is not mine! This is Johanna R, who Lives Sent among the immigrant communities of St Louis:
spur: To give heart or courage, To urge or encourage to action, or to a more vigorous
pursuit of an object; to incite; to stimulate; to instigate; to impel; to drive.
spur: An implement secured to the heel, or above the heel, of a horseman, to urge the
horse by its pressure.(aka) a sharply pointed prod used to make a horse do what he’d rather not
So someone told me a few weeks ago that "ministry is a series of hard conversations" and it scared me because I felt the prophecy of that looming overhead. And in the same month I also feel like it has tried to start eating me-not the kind of fuzzy all consuming excitement-but the chew you up spit you out-no one is safe kind of eat. It’s scary and heavy.
My pastor says that nothing shapes you and refines you more than your job. I think this must be true. This month has been full of things that I'd never expected and absolutely abhor. The worst of these things I have found within myself. (It is much easier to deal with (and fight valiantly) the evil that dwells outside of you-rather than that which is deeply embedded in your very being.)
Initially when things got hard this go around my brain began thinking of ways to hide or better yet leave. But again with the calling. It’s not that I have to be here, it’s that I'm supposed to/meant to be here, this is enough for the times when i don't want to be here. This go round it's not so much even fighting the location, although that never hovers too far away, but more the mode-facing what ministry here really means-staring the hard stuff in the face.
Last January visiting a wise friend I was vomiting all of the horrible things about being called to a place in the states, to a job i was not even good at, to a role I didn't want, to something I was not well equipped for. He started speaking hard truth into my life and I finally burst out, "This isn’t what I wanted. This isn't what I signed up for" He answered with something that hurt so much because it was true. "It's a good thing you didn't sign up for it, then you could quit whenever you wanted" and then he continued with something like "No you're called and that changes everything.”
As I've thought about that this month I think about Saul/Paul's calling as he describes it to King Agrippa, when Jesus shows up and knocks him down and says "Saul, Saul, It is hard for you to kick against the goads" (aka pointy cattle prods-spur) and I sense such ironic and deep compassion in that phrase....almost as if he’s saying, “Oh, honey child, it’s hard for you to defy me, I know it hurts.”
The life Jesus called the newly renamed Paul to was not "better" in the sense of easier, no this was confirmed from the beginning. God told him who he was, a chosen instrument-to carry His name before the religious, the pagan, and those in power, but it was followed by "I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name" and Paul embraced this calling to suffer- to embrace his cross ie his death-the death of himself.
Paul wears this calling well. Gladly “spend[ing] and being spent” on the souls of those for and to whom he was called. His calling was more than just about him. He was shaped by his calling-but it was for more than him."But arise and stand upon your feet; for I have appeared to you for this purpose, that I might appoint you [take you into my hands]".....that I might send you to people..... to open their eyes, so they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God. Then they will receive forgiveness for their sins and be given a place among God’s people, who are set apart by faith in me.
There's a song that asks: What you gonna spend your free life on?
And the question keeps echoing in my head, but here’s the kicker. It wasn’t free, it came at great cost. Perhaps I can choose how to spend it-but at the end of the day-that’s not really what I want either. My feet are bloody. I’m tired of fighting. I’m not giving up, I’m deferring. What I want is to hear that ironic compassion even when I resist the spur. What I really want is to live out this calling even if that means years of conversations I don’t want to have (with some prods in the flank that impel and embolden.)
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Blood Time
What's in a lifetime? Break it down, it can be measured. I'm not sure when my clock will run out on this planet, but there IS such a time. Heavenly Father knows when my time ends and He knows when your time ends. Between Today and End there are a certain number of days, hours, minutes. Blood was emptied for the sum of those days: 5 pints for our lifetimes. A pint for one fifth of your lifetime, maybe 15 years. A tablespoon per year? A drop for this week. How did I squander that drop? It's not mine to neglect. It is owed.
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