9 months of ministry.
9 months working in very different environments in 9 different countries in 7 different languages…
And let me tell you what I’ve discovered…
It doesn’t matter how the ministry is defined in a set-up sheet (which is what we receive before each month to tell us ‘what we’ll be doing’)…
It doesn’t matter one bit what that paper says…
I will, without fail, be pulling weeds
I have pulled a weed in every country
I have grabbed them with gloves and without gloves.
I have pulled them up easily with rejoicing
And have dug them up cursing the very ground they came from
I have understood with more clarity the curse that Adam received in Genesis 3…and it makes me a little angry at the feminist movement for their decision to pick up Adam’s curse as well as our own by insisting that we have equality.
I am not the same as a man.
I look over and watch Eric and Nick, the two guys that are with me this month. I watch as they work with ease in tackling these weeds…not complete ease, but with much less distress than I am experiencing. And I am ever assured that I am no man.
Wrestling with this ground is not for me.
Bravo to the women who want to take that up.
I am not one of them.
Yet I’m out here, faced with weeds to pull every month.
Regardless of the ministry…I am faced with weeds that need to be pulled.
Whether an after-school program or orphanage or addiction recovery center or gypsy ministry or summer day camp or guava farm/baby/squatter camp ministry or church or feeding children…that’s right…every last one of them has had weeds to pull.
And not a one of them had ‘weed pulling’ in the job description…
It was never in their mission statement on their websites.
Yet each month we get this outline of what we’ll be doing…
And we get SO EXCITED (because we are always ‘SO EXCITED’ about everything out here) to go serve the Lord and others and represent Jesus to people…
Then we walk into a place thinking we know every detail of what we’ll be doing…
And we imagine how awesome we’re going to be at it…
We even gear ourselves up ready to pour out all our awesomeness in this ministry that’s lucky enough to have us…
Only to find out there are weeds that must be gotten rid of.
So…we can get mad that they’re there.
We sometimes do tell God we didn’t sign up for this.
We can usually look around and find ten other things we’d rather be doing.
But for whatever reason, in this season, at this place, He wants us to pull up some weeds.
And that, my friend, is what I’ve found ministry to be.
It might consist of a million different faces and titles and descriptions…some may appear glamorous and noble and amazing…and don’t worry, those ministries are…truly they are…
But none are without some weeds…
None.
And no matter how much awesomeness we declare over ourselves standing in front of a mirror each morning…
We are never above pulling some weeds.
