Dear Trekker,
As I was welcoming a select group of young youth leaders recently to a week of training to make them even more effective, I found myself saying these words: “Thanks for showing up! God cannot do much in and through us unless we “show up” for duty, daily. When we do, God surprises us over and over again! So this week, you’ll learn what we’ve learned in the last 30 years; you’ll learn “our” brand. But, there are no instant fixes or extreme makeovers to make you an effective leader or to do effective youth ministry. Effective ministry has always had an element of mystery. The key to effective ministry is for you to get intimate with the Holy Spirit, and “hustle while you wait” for the Holy Spirit to do His work! For Jesus said, “I will build my Church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” This is what I “remember” I said…it certainly is what I intended to say!
In a culture obsessed with “instant fixes” and “extreme makeovers”, I assured these young leaders they needed to apply themselves, engage heart, mind and hands, and get closer to the Lifegiver. They didn’t need an “extreme makeover”, they simply needed to stay the course… to learn “lessons” well and God would always “show up” and work through their efforts, all for His glory and the advancement of the Kingdom. We are to be faithful; He blesses… and how and when it turns out has a mysterious element, always.
Why are we so focused on the “instant fix”? Are we afraid to work hard and allow the results of our labor to produce fruit over time? Are we caught up into thinking that a successful, fulfilled life (many Christian authors are) is the “instant fix” of the moment. Be sure, the essential ingredient is not a “fix”, but an ongoing relationship that begins in the heart of God and descends into the heart of man.
God will seek and use that person “who has a heart for God.” That phrase has mystery in it! To be sure, the shepherd boy David was chosen because “the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him leader of his people.” (Samuels’s rebuke to King Saul, I Samuel 13:14.) This did not “instantly fix” Israel nor instantly make David a righteous man, who went on to commit gross sin in his life. There was quite a lengthy process until King David could shepherd the Israelites “with integrity of heart and skillful hands.” (Psalm 78:70-72, italics mine)
My thoughts of welcome and even my written words herein have been heavily influenced recently by meditating on Jesus’ shepherding style. One very appropriate, popular image of Jesus is that of “good shepherd”. (Trekker, turn now to John 10:1-21 and read this passage before going further.) Another shepherd passage is Psalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want; He leads me beside still water; He restores my soul”…
Jesus’ shepherding style is most instructive. As a Jewish Rabbi in the 1st century, Jesus simply taught and practiced what he preached. But there were no instant fixes for the twelve; the Lord let each of them develop, warts and all. There seems to be a pattern…sheep, and particularly people, do dumb things and the Lord allows this to happen. Some folks mysteriously “sort it out” over time; they hear the shepherd’s voice and respond. Spirited starts, sudden stops, some stammering and sad stupidities are our pattern.
Yet, good leaders are good learners over time! In the phrase “skillful hands”, (Psalm 78:72, reference David’s leadership), everything we can do, humanly speaking, to prepare ourselves for success… training, hard work, study, persistent inquiry, unabated application, relentless devotion to task, etc. all these must be ongoing. We can choose to apply our self. “Integrity of heart” (Psalm 78:72) is a different matter. Only God sees the heart of each of us, trekker; only God knows our hearts. “Our hearts are deceitful and desperately wicked”, but we can have a new heart as David and Ezekiel describe in their writings. And “integrity of heart” of the man God uses, is a mystery, both in what God does and how He does it. We only know that God the Holy Spirit seems to work through the man or woman whose heart is “clean”, “pure”, sold out to God, undivided in loyalty to God alone, etc. This overflow relationship in the life of others is equally mysterious as it incubates in our own lives! And it defies definition and explanation. We can’t create the overflow, except as we move into ever deeper intimacy with God, over time. God blesses us mysteriously and we bless others, equally in mystery.
So we hustle in our commitment and preparation for life and leadership, i.e. “skillful hands”, while with “integrity of heart” we wait faithfully for God the Holy Spirit to work out His purposes, in His time. And time is the least of God factors. It is a mystery, is it not, the manner in which both “hands and heart” must be present? Man committed to God doing all for His glory; God committed to man, using and blessing us for His eternal purposes! Could this be the “mystery of the Gospel”… Christ in you, the hope of glory, by which Paul encourages the church at Colossae? I think it is!
We are always in the “waiting room” of life, experientially and literally. We choose daily to trust and obey, building a lifestyle of obedience and hope for God’s cleansing and purification. And God “uses” us as we become progressively more usable. But it all is awash in a sea of mystery.
Trekker, the only “extreme makeover” we need has occurred when we are in Christ. “If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation”, Saint Paul says so succinctly. And if there are ever “instant fixes”, it is simply “if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (I John 1:9) Everything else in life, leadership and ministry, simply needs to play out, to unfold. Mysteriously, life succeeds.
Keep on course, trekker,
Your friend,
Jim Meredith