The Thoughts of a Young Preacher

There are some days in ministry where you just feel drained. In sports when you where completely exhausted the coaches also used to try to teach us to simply dig deeper. To mentally decided that you will not be tired even though your body is screaming at you that you have nothing left. Sometimes I feel that way in ministry. Yesterday was one of those days. So many people to see and just not enough time to do it all as effectively as I would have liked. I love this thing called ministry both in the days when it is a joy and the days when it is a great challenge. Some days though you are vividly reminded that you cannot do it on your own. I must be constantly dependent on God. I cannot afford to not have a really great prayer life. I cannot afford to fail to let scripture be the authority in my life. LOL, if this sounds like a rant it is not it just that sometimes when people come to you and they explain how bad sin has messed up their life I feel like God is slapping me in the face with a reminder about the beauty of holiness. Yes the beauty, the peace, the comfort knowing that you are living in a way that is consistent with the creator. When you see the stress, the pain , the suffering that sin causes it really contrasts to the joy of holiness. Don't get me wrong. I am in no way saying that I am some special holy man or that I don't sin and fall short. The people in our church will be the first to tell you that I am not afraid to be tramper with my own sins and temptations. (Otherwise how can I expect them to do the same ?) Yet there is a certain clarity that comes from dealing with people everyday. You see the joy of those with a right relationship with God. You also see the pain in those that for whatever reason have chosen to serve themselves. I feel like part of my role is to somehow help people experience that clarity. To share the horrors of sin and also the wonders of Grace. To expose the people lost in the darkness to the transforming experience of being in the light for the very first time. So as for me and my ministry I am not going to try and dig deeper no I am simply going to try and be more dependent. More consistent in my walk, my prayer life, my study of the word. After all I believe that when the lord says to Love the Lord with all your heart, soul, and mind is the greatest commandment, when I hear is that He wants a real relationship with us. I am committing this day to being more focused on my actually relationship with God. To be less focused on programs and activities and more focused on developing a stronger and deeper relationship with God. I really think that there are time in life when we need to say no to ministry and yes to prayer instead. We cannot do this on our own. The fastest we grasp that concept the longer we will be able to be effective ministers to others. Pray for me. It is the greatest gift that you can give me. Ask God to continually renew me, to shape me, to mold me into the man that He wants to see in me. Oh yeah ask him to shake some of this pride out of me as well. This blog thing is great, it really allows me to share the thoughts of me heart and feel like people that really care are reading those. God bless you all!