I was recently introduced to a book entitled Discover Your Spiritual Type by Corinne Ware. A ministry colleague, Rev. Drew Gray, used these spiritual types at a conference to help pastors and others see their expectations and influences in participating in worship. There are four categories, and to be brief, I found myself pretty strongly in the intellectual category. This means I like to make sense of things, talk about them, analyze them, and figure them out. That even connects to the way I tend to think about God (and I notice even as I type this that I chose the word "think" about God instead of "feel" or "believe"). I tend to write about, teach about, and talk about understanding that comes through theological thought.
Ideally, though, I imagine there ought to be greater balance between these notions of head and heart, and I've found recently that when they get out of balance, God can reach in and shake things up a bit.
After a particularly difficult week as a pastor, I found myself in prayer last night to God asking for help. My prayer was something like this: "I am doing all I can to listen to you, God, and to do what you ask. I never expected that ministry would be easy or smooth sailing all the time. But right now I could use some encouragement that I am on the right path."
I specifically asked that I would receive comfort in the morning.
Soon after I arrived in my office this morning, I got a call from a member of the congregation. She simply to come by and have prayer with me and offer me encouragement for the day. She pointed out to me other members of the congregations who have sent messages of encouragement, specifically mentioned something they learned or enjoyed from my sermon, or given other ways for me to see how much I mean to them and to the church. I had been overlooking these gifts because of other negativity.
God knows my heart, and God knew when I needed a reminder that God loves me and desires good for me. We all need to know that. We all need to be reminded that God loves us and God wants good for us and God wants to fill us up so we can be a blessing to the world around us.
If you need encouragement today, I hope you will hear it in these words. Christ came that humanity could have life and have it abundantly. If I am going to hear the negative, I need to also hear the positive about myself and my ministry, because time is short and God has called me to do something. The same goes for everyone reading these words.
I saw a meme recently that said you can never be the hero in every story. You will surely be the villain in someone's story.
That's hard for me to hear. But the point is to do my best and allow those others to find another hero. I'll keep trying to be the hero in my own story, and maybe a good supporting character in many, many others.
A somewhat meandering view today...
