Lately I’ve been trying been trying to pinpoint the moment
on the World Race (life) when I stopped doing and started being. I think I
found it. I think it was about the moment I decided just to be me. You can read
about that moment here.
The reason I’ve been pondering it is because I know what a
difference it made. When I decided life was ministry (thank you Kathryn Gironimi),
it freed me to just be. To stop striving and start abiding. It was such a radical
difference that I’d forgotten until recently it took me nine months on the race
for this shift to occur. I remember being so frustrated in Australia (month 2
of the race) because we didn’t have any assigned ministries. I had this fierce
desire to meet needs, to be the hands and feet of Jesus, but I wanted to know
what was expected of me-what time I needed to be at ministry, what ministry
exactly was, how I could best prepare and best serve.
Because I didn’t want to fail. I was afraid to fail. I carried
this tremendous weight of needing to be the perfect missionary, using every
minute of every day so epically wisely that it would be worth my supporters’
money for sending me to the nations. When I couldn’t do that, I didn’t want to
do anything. I didn’t understand that ministry starts with my relationship with
the Lord, and then within the community He has blessed me with, and then with
going on and making a difference. I didn’t realize the nations or the least of
these was sitting right next to me, needing a touch from God.
For the next six months, ministry picked up again, and it
was not a question of what was expected. I didn’t usually have the schedule for
more than a few days if that, but I had relinquished that need of control and
fear of failure. I began to trust God was speaking through me even when I didn’t
know what to say, and that He was moving even if I didn’t see it. I also was
walking through a LONG season of brokenness and learning to depend more on the
Lord than on myself.
To say a paradigm shift occurred in Romania probably doesn’t
give that day enough credit. The day I decided to just be and live as God is
calling me to. When Kathryn coined this phrase, “Life as Ministry,” it struck a
chord in me. WHY do we make such a big deal about going out to do ministry? It’s
never been about what we do. It’s about who we are and who we listen to. Jesus
walked intimately with His papa and did what He told him to do. That’s all we
are called to as well.
Ministry starts here. It starts now. It’s this paradigm
shift of who is the nations, who is the least of these. This idea of just being
so caught up in God’s love and grace and mercy that we can’t help but share it
with all we meet.
Does it matter if our schedule looks like we only “do”
ministry for four hours a day? Answer: No. If I choose to live my life as
ministry, then ministry is a 24/7 job (though I’m finding as a leader this is
definitely true anyways!).
Life as ministry…it’s a beautiful thing.
