If we have a limited view of God, we are going to be stressed out and feel like God’s work is up to us.
But what if God cared more about the world than I do? What if my efforts in reaching the lost or advancing his kingdom were not the main efforts for God’s cause? The truth is our limits reveal how much God’s power matters.
Leading in Ministry is Stressful.
Most pastors I know (I include myself at the top of the list) live stressful lives. The work we are called to do is nothing short of trying to conjure up miracles each and every day for people we love. We are called to lead people to a life-changing encounter with God who, like Jacob, are prone to wrestle with God every step of the way. We are called to give compassion to those who blow it. We are called to show kindness to those who are mean- spirited. We are called to sacrifice for people who are selfish. We are called to teach people who don’t like to listen. We are called to lead people to live out God’s coming kingdom now, when most people are preoccupied about advancing their own kingdom.
And before I get accused of blaming the community for being a stressed out pastor, I want to be the first to confess that before I ever take on the role of a leader in God’s community, I am first a member of it. So as a pastor, I am just as prone to go astray as the people I am called to lead. Being a pastor creates an ever present dissonance in one’s soul when you have to look in the mirror every day, and that just adds to the stress when you can’t even lead yourself properly.
And it only gets worse.
If we are honest as pastors, the tools for our trade are slim to none. Sure we can go to seminary and accumulate an alphabet of letters after our names, but in the end our education and professional degrees don’t enable us to do the work God calls us to do. Let’s face it even with all of our education and experience, we can’t make people pray, or take a step of faith, or reconcile, or listen to God’s word, or be encouraged, or walk in the Spirit, or use their gifts for God’s purposes, or love their neighbor as themselves. When we recognize the enormity of the task to which we are called (to make disciples of the nations) and reflect for a second on our inadequacy in bringing that call into a reality, it’s not hard to understand Moses’ objections to being called to lead God’s people out of slavery in Egypt. The task was (and still is) too big for God’s called pastors. Moses wasn’t suited for the job. I am not suited for the job. And I hate to be the one to break it to you, but neither are you suited for the job.
when we see clearly both the weight of the task and our own inadequacy for fulfilling that task we have a choice to make.
We can either give up deciding that we don’t have what it takes, or we can decide that God’s power matters in ministry more than our power ever could. When I was in Egypt, I saw first hand how much God’s power matters more than my own.
A Lesson on God’s Power.
In Egypt, I met a young woman there who attended the leadership conference I was helping to lead. For security’s sake, I can’t say much more about her, but she was one of the people who asked me to pray for her and for her country (see this blog post for more info). She was a muslim, and she recently became a follower of Christ. Intrigued, I asked if she would share her story with me. She told me that her encounter with Christ happened when she came across a question online during some web surfing. The question was this, “Do you want to know more about God?” She was curious, so she clicked on the link. She was directed to a website that talked about Jesus and described his life and ministry. There was another link that read, “For more information, click here.” She clicked again. On that page, she was invited to receive a Bible and other materials to help guide her reading of it. She signed up.
When the Bible arrived, she started reading it with great curiosity. As she did, she began to appreciate Jesus. She thought about him throughout the day so much that she began to have vivid dreams about him at night. I can’t share the details, but she had three separate dreams over a period of a few weeks where she encountered Jesus. As a result of her reading and her dreams, she came to faith in Jesus. She is now living for Christ in a predominately muslim environment that is not what you and I would call “safe” to express one’s faith in Jesus.
What stood out to me about her story was that her conversion to Christ happened without one pastor being involved in the process. The Spirit of God led the entire way revealing God’s word, calling her to himself, opening her heart to God, providing the avenue for salvation, and showing her how to walk in faith. God’s power was evident in her life, and I saw first hand how God’s power matters more than my own in ministry.
God’s power matters.
My effort, my skills, my desires, my work means very little to God. God showed me again through my friend’s story of faith that God is in charge of his work. He leads. I follow. When I confess my inadequacy and believe that his power can work through a broken vessel like me (or without me), my stress levels decrease significantly. I learn to trust that God’s power matters more than my own in ministry.
God's power matters more than my own in ministry. – Scott Vermillion Share on X
When I go back and reread the beginning of Exodus and observe God’s encounter with Moses calling him to lead God’s people, it is not lost on me that the call occurred when Moses was 80 years old. His physical strength had left him. His moral strength was gone after having murdered an Egyptian. His positional authority in Pharaoh’s household was gone having fled as a fugitive to Midian to take on the low position of shepherd. His influence in the Hebrew community was gone after living as a foreigner in Midian for over 60 years. To add to his lack of power, he was a stutterer. Every time he spoke, he revealed his inadequacy to those around him. But all of his powerlessness was for a purpose. Moses’ lack of power reveals the importance of God’s power is what matters in ministry. It was not in his own strength that Moses was to save God’s people. It was God’s power that would do the saving.
Embedded in Moses’ call to pastor God’s people is a revelation that God’s power Matters.
We are so accustomed to ministering out of our own power that we can miss it. Hear again what God says to Moses in Exodus 3:7, “The LORD said, ‘I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. 8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey…10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt’” (NIV11, emphasis mine). Moses was in no way asked to bring anything to the table. His role was to follow God’s power which was at work in the lives of the people God loved so much.
It’s not our power that matters in ministry. God’s power is what really matters.
God is the one that sees our misery, hears our cries, expresses his concern, and responds with power to rescue us. Our role as pastors is to follow and let God’s power flow through us, just like Moses. So as I worshiped with my sister who showed me again that God’s power matters more than my own in ministry, I have begun to relax about my powerlessness. I have begun to realize that it is not my passion, or strength, or ingenuity, or skill, or abilities, or work ethic that will save others. God sees our plight, hears our cries, expresses his concern, and comes to our rescue. That’s the gospel story. Jesus saw our slavery to sin, heard our cries for help, expressed his concern for us, and came to our rescue. It was his power on the cross that frees us from a life enslaved to sin, and it is his power of resurrection that makes us alive again to God.
Our call as pastors is just like Moses’ call. God does all the hard work through his own power. We are called to show up as witnesses to that incredible power at work for our benefit. As pastors, we are to be his inadequate vessels that display his power to all of those in charge. It is through our weakness that God reveals his glorious, mighty power.
When We trust that God’s power is the thing that really matters in our ministry, something strange happens. WE can begin to relax.
So in worshiping with the persecuted church, I have learned to lead with a little less stress, and a little more trust. In seeing God’s power first hand in the conversion of a muslim woman without any help from us pastor types, I see what really matters in ministry. It is not my power that matters. It is God’s power that really matters in ministry.
When we lead with an expectation of God working powerfully in the people around us, our stress levels plummet and our expectations soar for what God might be up to in our lives. We can anticipate reconciliation in the moment when we don’t see eye to eye with our spouses. We can become expectant when we hear of the pain of a couple we dearly love describe their journey of parenting a wayward son or daughter. We can begin to daydream of what God might be doing when we hear about good friends who stop talking. We can let hope stir in us when those who mourn share their story of loss.
Why? Not because we can do anything about their circumstances. It’s all because we know that God’s power is at work in all of the above situations. He sees, he hears, he is concerned, and he is coming to their rescue. Maybe not in the way you and I would expect, but his power is at work nonetheless in their lives. And it is also at work in our own lives.
The sooner we start trusting in God’s power for our ministry, the sooner we can begin to relax and stand in awe of what he can do with an inadequate leader who has yielded his or her power to God. All we have to do is show up and be present to the people to whom God sends us.
How would you lead differently if God’s power mattered more than your own?
Ordinarily, I would offer a few ways in which we can trust in God’s power, but this time I want to leave you with a question. Like the online question that stirred my friend to faith in Christ, I want to leave you with a question rather than an answer in hopes to stir your own faith in what God can do with his power. Here it is: How would you lead differently if God’s power mattered more than your own in ministry?
For me when I embrace that God’s power matters more than my own, the stress of the task of ministry and the subsequent revelation of my inadequacy for accomplishing God’s task becomes greatly reduced. What would happen to you if God’s power mattered more than your own for your ministry? I would love to hear your story. Feel free to share how God’s power matters and has changed your life and ministry. Feel free to email me here, or share your story below in the comments.
