Yeah, that's great and all...but...

I just wanna to know - am I pulling people closer
I just wanna be - pulling them to You... Steve Taylor, I just Wanna Know

Lately I have been finding the ministries that I have been engaged in more interesting and more fulfilling than work. This is a usual thing for me, but it has been much more acute lately and that fact got me thinking a bit. I am positive that God wants me to serve and that He wants me to use the spiritual gifts that He has given me in that service. The trick, for me, is twofold: I need to find just as much satisfaction in Him as I find in serving Him and I need to measure the effectiveness of my ministry against the great commission.

If I could find just as much rest and fulfillment in communing with and contemplating Him while not thinking about the next topic I need to teach, or how I am going to build "wonder" and "discovery" into my next lesson I think that would make my ministry more genuine and heartfelt. It would certainly bring me to love the ones I minister more and more as I would be more in touch with Him and His great love for them.

In addition if I could examine my ministry in light of what people need rather than how I will deliver what I am tasked with to them, well, it is self-evident what that would mean. What kind of makes me a bit crazy is that I may not be as "into" doing things differently. Measuring my ministry against results rather than some vague (or not so vague) sense of fulfillment my indeed flip it on its ear and give the fruit inspection something tangible to feel, smell, and taste. It would also help me derive my fulfillment from the results rather than the vehicle used to get those results.

I hope I am not too presumptuous in saying that this is a struggle that the Spirit has brought into my life.

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