The Minister's Lot

"Brothers, pray for us." - Paul, Silas, and Timothy, to the church of Christ meeting in 1st Century Thessalonica 

 

"This one morning in the year we reserved to refresh the reader's memory upon the subject of prayer for ministers." - Charles Spurgeon, minister of the Word, to the readers of his daily devotional book

 

"When my heart is troubled, my flesh is aching, my spirit is weary, and my soul doubts one of a thousand available doubts, and I am tempted to quit the glorious work of Jesus Christ, I wonder which of the many specific prayers that has been offered up for me is redeemed...and I stay for yet another day. My debt to those pray-ers I will never be able to repay." - Yours Truly, minister of the word, to those who pray for me.

 

 

I want to make a serious, world-altering, life-giving request of you on behalf of myself and ministry team that God has graciously supplied to us here in Amarillo, Tx.

 

Pray for us.

 

With a full time focus on the Kingdom of Heaven, ours is a unique weight to bear. We do it joyfully, mind you. But it remains looming and large, appearing impossible most of the time. Ours is a message of glory and of doom, and we must speak it without respect for the opinions or reactions of man. There is not a work under the sun that is it's equal in its importance.

 

Please pray for us.

 

Whereas most people look out over the fields of people and see strangers, or potential clients, or a means to some end, or a problem to deal with, or a prisoner who deserves his punishment, or a hungry person who won't work for his food, we are blessed and cursed to only see souls. And with that carry a burden of responsibility that never can exempt us from care. The confines and protection of polite apathy towards those who we despise, dislike, disagree with, or are opposed to us are not luxuries that we have access to. We have been called to care. And when we try to justify and act on our rights as independent human beings, momentarily forgetting our calling, deep down we are defying the Spirit of Christ that is at work in us. It leaves us carrying, along with our rebelliously claimed right to a life of our own, a constant sense of heaviness and guilt until we submit, once again, to our call.

 

So pray for us.

 

We must preach the truth, whether we have mastered it in our own lives or not, shaming ourselves publicly in our inadequacy of following what we proclaim. We must lead the way in suffering like our Savior, making us look foolish in the eyes of the world, tempted constantly to settle into and preach a diluted version of materialistic, comfortable, and self-exalting Christianity - and even our flocks affirm us and reward us when we live and preach the compromised message that bows to what they are at ease with, in living or in doctrine. When we live rightly in our calling, we must suffer from those outside the church, inside the church, and even from within ourselves...all three being witnesses of our naked failures to be in ourselves what we proclaim they must...and all three rebelling against us at the suggestion.

 

So please pray for us.

 

But don't pity us. We who are in ministry for very long have many times faced the Christ's impossible challenge to live His life, felt the resulting despair and confusion and loathing for it, and have been asked by him, "What? Do you want to leave me, too?" We have answered his half-desperate, half-challenging question with our eyes wide open, "To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life." And it is because of the awakening of that life that he keeps unfolding and giving to us that we move towards Jesus as he stretches out his hand. It is because of the surety that nothing else matters that we watch his feet and slowly and insecurely follow in his steps.

 

So please, please pray for us...pray two very important things: 1) Ask we be given peace, joy, and righteousness as we dare count the cost of being His ministers of the Word, and 2) Thank him for the peace, joy and righteousness that he is giving us as we dare count the cost of being His ministers of the Word.

 

I love you.