Many times in my life, I have been involved in certain ministries, whether it was children’s church on Sundays, college ministry nights, worship nights, short term mission trips, etc. Now, I find myself doing ministry each month. On the World Race, we get paired with a certain ministry each month and work alongside them doing whatever they have already been doing. Typically, we do ministry about 8ish hours a day, 5 days a week, sort of like a full time job.
But, God does not call us to do ministry, He calls us to live life right beside Him. Just like we go into each of these ministries, walk beside them, do what they are doing, pray what they are praying, we are called to walk beside Jesus, do what He is doing, pray what He is praying.
God did not call us to minister to the least of these, to the widows and orphans, to the elderly for 40 hours a week. He called us to LIVE LIFE with Him each and every second of each and everyday and that means loving on all of His people. Not everyone is called overseas or to work for a Christian ministry, but we are all called to live life for Jesus, with Jesus, and with those around us that make up our community.
We are called to live life with the members of our church, with our roommates, with our friends and family, with our coworkers, with the stranger at the grocery store. Wherever we are and whatever we are doing, God has called us to that, and we are called to live life with Him by loving those around us.
This message hit me hard this past month in Ethiopia. The first week we visited the people in the villages, we did manual labor at HOPEthiopia, we reforested…we were helping the community. The second week a team of doctors and nurses came into town. It seemed that most of them had a belief in a higher power and felt the need to do good but didn’t really have a relationship with the Lord, however with their medical knowledge and care, they were able to more tangibly help these people in the community. Suddenly, I felt inadequate, unable to help these people in the community, and definitely not useful since these doctors had come around.
As two teams, we discussed these problems, and came to the greatest and most real revelation. What the doctors and nurses were doing was so awesome, and they were helping these people with their health, however this was not necessarily sustainable. The people that came in and got their ears cleaned out had clean ears, but they would probably get dirty again, and the medical team would no longer be there. People who got diagnosed with cancer now knew about their disease, but there was no cure.
What we came to offer was the Father’s love, and that is the most sustainable thing anyone could ever give to somebody. These people may be physically healed right now, but they could physically ill in two months with no help. If they become spiritually healed, that means eternal life. FOREVER. God gave each and every one of us an incredible gift, and the greatest thing we can do is to live life right beside Him, so that everyone sees Him in us, experiences His love through us, and comes to know Him for themselves.
This is not where it stopped though. Suddenly, we realized there was a team of doctors and nurses we were able to help at the clinic, but really, we were just given the opportunity to do life with them, love on them, and just get to know these awesome people. What we realized is our ministry was not just the apple orchard we chopped up, the gardens we planted, the houses we built and painted, but it was living life with the people right beside us. God gave us a different “ministry,” and through that He taught us to love HIs people whether they are the poor widows in the hut houses living with donkeys, or the Westernized nurses and doctors who came to Ethiopia to run a health clinic. He taught me to live life for Him, to love on His people, and He would do the rest.
