Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Sometimes God works THROUGH us, but He is Always Working IN us



Any ministry any of us ever does is always being compared against what others do.  We compare numbers constantly.  It is what somewhere in our Western world we have determined is the gauge to call someone “successful” or “fruitful.”
     In 1 Kings 17 we are introduced to Elijah.  Now I get excited when I think of Elijah.  I have over and over again read the stories of all the great things God did through him.  What a successful, fruitful prophet he was.  And again my mind imposes on it all the same standard for gauging his ministry (and mine).  But recently God pointed out something I never saw.

     There in 1Kings 17 as we meet Elijah we see just what God first called him to.  Ready for this?  It is massive!  It is breathtaking!  God called him and said, “Depart from here...and hide yourself by the brook Cherith...you shall drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.”  That is it!  That was his calling.  And every morning and every evening the ravens brought Elijah his food, and he drank of water from the brook.
     I almost felt as though I missed something in my re-reading of that the other day.  But this was the call of God.  He was merely to go and sit by this brook.  That is all! 
     Eventually that brook dried up because there was no rain in the land.  But until then he was merely to remain by that brook, drink its water, and wait each morning and evening for the ravens to bring him bread and meat.  I found this a rather peculiar calling.
        I had to wonder if God knew who He was dealing with.  This was Elijah, one of the “Greats” in the faith.  This was the one who would eventually go call out the wickedness of King Ahab, and stand on Mount Carmel BY HIMSELF against the 450 prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18), and on and on and on.  Great acts of faith and fruitfulness in ministry.  And yet this (sit by a brook) was all God called him to do.
         If I didn’t know that God had called him to such I would begin to question Elijah.  What was he doing?  He could have just run and begun calling out kings and people on their sin and calling them to repentance.  He could have mixed the time of rest and reflection by this brook, and still accomplished a great amount of active ministry.  But he didn’t. And nobody could for a moment say Elijah was anything but faithful.  He did all God called him to do.
       Somewhere we miss it and begin to make it about so much else, that GOD never intended it to be.  So just what was God up to?

         Of course the narrative never answers the question we ask.  It is never plainly answered, or even hinted at.  I suppose we might speculate, but we all know the great dangers in that.
    A great parallel to this is in Luke 10:38-42.  That story of Jesus arriving at the house of Martha, to eat a meal with some friends of His.  Seemingly from the moment Jesus enters the house Martha is busy.  What she is doing is every bit honorable and necessary.  After all, if you are going to have a dinner, you need to ready the place and the food.  Her busyness can simply be summed up by the words, “[She] was distracted with much serving.”
    But God loves service, right?  Of course He does.  He calls us to it, right?  Of course He does.  And make no mistake about it, we are constantly serving...EVERYWHERE, ALL the TIME.
    We work jobs and serve our families well by providing for them.  We raise kids and serve them well by teaching, loving, and caring for them.  We show our service for others by sacrificing time for some need they have made known.  And in all this God is honored.  And seemingly if we only served, ministered more, we would be more in step with God’s ultimate desire and design.  Or so we think.
    Martha thought this way.  She had heard enough of Jesus’ teaching over the years that she knew He delighted in servants.  And so processing all this in real time she looks at Jesus and inquires, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone?  Tell her then to help me.”  It makes sense, right?
       Yet Jesus turns this in a direction we don’t anticipate.  He responds, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but ONE THING is NECESSARY.  Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”  And what was that GOOD PORTION?  Mary is said to have been sitting at the Lord’s feet listening to His teaching. 

The CALL to SIT...and Wait (Listen and Watch)

         I can’t help but feel these stories are so closely linked.  It is merely that it is a bit easier to see in Luke 10.  The point: God at times calls us to lay down our good service for HIM.   And the reason: HE has something better for us. 
    When Jesus shows up for dinner, you may think making the best meal FOR Him is most necessary.  And yes, that is a very honorable aspiration.  But don’t forget - JESUS CAME FOR DINNER.  You will benefit more to LISTEN and BE WITH HIM.    And clearly Elijah knew the spiritual landscape of the divided kingdom and the great need for preaching.  But He knew something else.  He needed GOD.  And His preoccupation with all serving would hinder him from knowing and filling up on God.
    How was his perspective on the greatness of GOD changed as ravens brought him bread and meat?  The grandeur of GOD’s control over ALL CREATION was on display.  Ravens brought him food.  We’d marvel if this were our reality.  But serving Him would not afford us this insight.
    God has not called me to a brook.  I have not been encountered by ravens.  But God has had me DOING LESS lately.  My life’s rhythms have been so disrupted  as I have labored to serve my wife and kids, agonized over my son, seen my mom’s health pushed to the brink of death...that all I have been able to do is to SIT with GOD.  I will not look back on these past 10 weeks of my life and call this the most fruitful or successful season of ministry.
    But then again, God doesn’t call for my fruitfulness, He calls for my faithfulness.  And His aim is the CONQUEST of MY HEART!  And He creates faithfulness in me by bringing me to these lonely, curious seasons by a “brook”.   And in this place HE REVEALS HIMSELF.  This is the glorious GOSPEL.  God is HERE, in these curious places!  And HE is accomplishing something awesome: My TRANSFORMATION.   And much like Elijah, I trust that after this season has passed, that the ministry He has for me will flourish, but not until He has fulfilled His purposes IN ME.

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