For years I wanted to have the title, "pastor". God had clearly promised me that would be the case nearly 8 years ago. So being young and dumb, I thought that meant NOW. Needless to say, after being in full-time vocational ministry for about 5 years I realized I didn't want to be a pastor. (That's apparently when God thought it was time to make good on his promise.) I dodged it for about a year after that. I finally realized the gravity of such responsibility...
Would I really be willing to die to self?
Ready to enter into the messiness of people's lives (as well as my own)?
Truly thinking about others above myself?
Ironically, the more I avoid the title, the more lives are entwined in mine.
Pastor is not a title, it's a risky dangerous vulnerability that requires less and less of you and more and more of God.
And within that is a promise. Not the one I thought though. The reality is, the promise to care for others, to pastor:
Will bring you to your knees.
Will bring you to tears.
Will bring you to the edge and require you jump.
Will bring harm.
The sheer laundry list of toxic people who only want to feed their ego instead of the poor, who want to shelter their pride instead of those on the street, who would rather justify themselves rather than act justly makes me want to vomit. People who call themselves Christians. Some who call themselves "pastor."
But the promise of less of you brings hope for more of God in people's lives. As titles fade and transparency colors your relational landscape people can find more of what matters (which is not us).
I do not deserve the title of pastor. I often wonder if I am making any difference at all. And maybe that's the point...because it is not about me.
So God, bring the pain, the tears, the scars, the brokenness if it means I have to depend on you. Bring me to my knees to have a proper view of your world. Bring me to the edge and tell me to jump. Bring people who are toxic and try to harm. That way I recognize those things in me that still must die.
Define me.
