photo: © Timur Abramov | Dreamstime.com
This short video/dramatization shows a secularized version of the power of ministering out of your pain and loss. (You won’t catch it all until the very end!) It also shows the limitations of our ability to do that apart from Christ. It is a powerful video and will stick in your head. It will take more that 5 minutes to watch, so make the time to do it.
If you are a Christian and are in the middle of the side effects of doing this in your own strength (like the portrayal in the middle of the video), you might question whose strength you are “ministering” in.
Are you trying to gut it out and minister from weakness in your own strength with the expectation of some recognition or return on your “ministry” in the present? Or are you doing it for the glory of God, realizing that the first time you might get recognition or praise, will be from Jesus? That distinction has been helpful for me.
Of course, our motives are rarely pure. They are usually mixed. But when you find yourself getting down, is it because of lack of reciprocation? It is understandably human, and is a barometer of motives. I speak from much negative experience, believe me!
However, it is good to know how to take one’s temperature or blood pressure to know when they are out of range so the problems can be remedied. It works that way in our spiritual life as well
How has the ministry of someone else to you or your ministry to another person, out of pain or loss, been encouraging or helpful?
I have not been over here for a visit in a while and I am sure glad I came by today! Not only did your post encourage me, but Ali’s response did as well!
Years ago I went through a rather difficult time. There was a lot of hurt, bitterness, and to be honest, wrong doing on my side as well as those that initiated some pretty tough times. If I would have started blogging about it in depth back then, I KNOW I would have been reacting and not responding. God needed time to work on my heart and give healing. I wish I could say I handled it all with grace, but I KNOW I over stepped His boundaries for me and said many things I regret…but not “too” much on line…where it is NEVER truly erased, is it?
Thank you so very much for the reminder that I can only be used of Him when I an trusting Him to guide my every step!
thanks for dropping by donnao. when i read about your blog opening today, i took a look. i enjoyed what i got to see:) like you, i’m glad i haven’t written on a blog when i’ve been angry. i’m glad i knew a time when they didn’t exist…blogs and fb. it helps to understand what it is like to relate to people directly:) btw, i can’t believe you used the term “blast from the past” for your archives. i was trying to think of something “original” to refer to my journey into the past. guess i’m not as original as i tho’t i was:)
i can’t add to that great comment!
Well, recently a good friend found out that her husband had been cheating on her for 2 years. She is livid and wants to leave him. She has several Christian friends telling her she has the right to leave him. My question to her is, “… but is it best to leave him.”
Years ago I went through a divorce. It was the easy way out. I had encouragement from my pastor to do this, but was it the best thing? Was the gospel preached through this decision? After the divorce I married again only to be right back into the difficulty of living with another sinner. Did I want to run from the difficulty again? YES! But I didn’t. My heart was full of selfishness and self righteousness. I wanted to be happy more than I wanted God to write his story for my life in a way that sanctified me and glorified him.
The Lord impressed upon me that his love and sanctification is greater than any trial I suffer and that he will glorify himself through it and mold me into the image of his dear son but I must endure. Was the divorce a lost cause for the gospel? Did he glorify himself through my divorce? Absolutely. God turns ashes to beauty. “… to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he may be glorified.” Isaiah 61:3
The pain of watching my girls suffer without their daddy at home never goes away and they are grown and out of the house but that doesn’t mean God hasn’t used this situation to glorify himself. We love and depend upon him more than ever. All that said, I am able to speak to my friend’s desire to give up from a position of knowledge, wisdom and trust in the Lord that only came from the suffering I endured through the divorce.