Is Your Ministry Calling Too Comfortable?
How comfortable should you be, in the place you’ve been called?
Every once in a while, God chooses to show me what my ministry-calling could look like…how uncomfortable it could be.
He showed me once when I was interviewing with a church. On the weekend I was there for an interview, a 160 missionaries were being commissioned to international service. It put my “sacrifice” of moving 800 miles within my own country into perspective.
He showed me again this past week when I visited a church pastor in the inner-city, who explained to me his calling for his neighborhood. I didn’t find many things attractive about his neighborhood. He puts his four kids in physical danger by living in that neighborhood. Only 20% of his congregation has jobs (and those pay minimum wage). The thing that’s most attractive about his neighborhood is God’s calling him to it.
Sometimes God reminds me my calling could require more sacrifice than it currently does. I also hear Him whispering, “It might require that sacrifice in the future.”
I believe I’m where God has called me to be. And there’s nothing inherently wrong with living in suburb and working in a healthy church where the largest danger I face daily is driving to work. There’s nothing wrong with all that…Unless God has called me to be elsewhere.
It’s all relative. But, there’s something about seeing fellow ministers whose calling doesn’t provide them with security or soft furniture in their office that teaches me to be grateful.
It teaches me how to pray for others.
It should teach me not to get comfortable.
It should teach me to not trust the place of my calling, but rather, to trust the One who called me there.
I want to be able to always say “yes” to whatever God’s calling is on my life, without hesitation – whether it’s to a nation with ISIS militants, to Chicago’s inner-city, or to Williamson County, Tennessee.
Comfort is fine… as long as the feeling of comfort comes from knowing you’re exactly where God has called you to be.
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