All Mixed Up

Moving into October makes me feel like the rush is on. That is, to get done all the things I had planned to do this year, but haven’t even started. A lot of those projects involve things around the church that need to be done to the facilities. Next are the things I had planned to impart to our leadership team. Other areas seem to be on hold for a more advantageous time. I’m kind of looking for the spot either to implement them or sit back and dream awhile. However, there seems to be a stillness of expectancy in my spirit. Almost as if I was waiting on God for something.

On Sunday night, as the people of the church were expressing their appreciation for me, I took the moment to express my frustration towards how slow things seem to move. It’s not even that really. It’s more like the experience of shoveling mud. Maybe it’s even the feeling of being stuck in the mud. I feel like progress is such an uphill battle at times that it would be so tempting to turn off this path and find another one, not so steep. Another way of putting it is to lower my expectations for myself, the church, and the ministry in general.

In contemplating this, I turned to looking, not for excuses, but for maybe a better way than what I was currently doing. I’m used to missing the mark, so I felt more research was in order. As you know, research is boring, time-consuming, and fatiguing. In doing this, I felt like I was forsaking the right way and looking for quick fixes and more fulfilling pursuits. All the while my spirit was saying, “Don’t change. Stay on the path. Victory is ahead.”

Now I know the devil doesn’t speak like that. He’s always trying to get you to leave the path you are on. He’s the one telling you it’s too hard, you are going to fail, and that you missed God. Calvary has come to know that I need a lot of confirmation to realize I am hearing from God. I need a lot of reassurance. That’s why I’m on my face before God, seeking to know his will, each and every step of the way. I have learned the way of the Lord is not the easy way, it’s not the popular way, and it’s not without sacrifice.

One morning in the prayer tower the Lord asked me to look back over the past few years of ministry and see if I could note anything. That’s why I journal. It allows me to pickup on how I felt years ago by reflecting on my own comments from then. Your feelings about things in the past change. When you write about them, you capture a snapshot of what you were going through and the emotions that surrounded it at the time. This is an important thing to me to remind me of where I was and where I am now.

As I reflected on my journal and what the Lord was trying to show me, I got a revelation. Everything that has unfolded has been revealed before it happened. There is an intense spirit of prophecy over my life and ministry. Even when things go awry, God tells me beforehand and prepares my heart and mind to bear up under it. However, now, there is a different tone that I am not yet recognizing.

Everything I said that needed to be accomplished is actually happening. All the plans we have as a church are moving forward. We are becoming a church of regional influence. We are training and sending people into ministry. We are becoming strong and productive believers. It’s hard to see it because of the intense vision that burns in me. Even though we are seeing it happen, it still only faintly compares to the vision of my heart. Where we are and where God wants us to be are very far apart. The dissatisfaction, the discouragement, the disillusionment, are all part of wanting more. Wanting more is the seed of progress. This is what Paul told Timothy when he said “Stir up the gift that is in you.” (2nd Timothy  1:6) The stirring in my soul feels like restlessness, but in actuality it is the driving force of my ministry. There is so much more God wants to do here and now that it creates a sense of frustration and dissatisfaction.

I can only struggle with this, because the alternative is to drift towards apathy. Personal contentment with life does not mean contentment with ministry when the going gets slow and the mud thickens. One thing you don’t want to happen is for the mud around you to dry out and become hard. You must keep it stirred. It’s like concrete trucks with the big drums on their backs. They constantly stir the mixture until it arrives at its destination. People are like that. They tend to sit down and set up, as hard as concrete. They must be continually stirred to cause them to move forward. Once set up, it would take an earthquake to stir things up again.

There is a phenomenon that happens during an earthquake called liquefaction. This is where the vibrations of the earthquake cause normally stiff soil to act like a liquid. This shaking not only topples structures that are not built on the rock, it liquifies the ground making it like mud. One of the ways God keeps us moving forward is through the constant shaking of our lives. It’s like a sifting. Everything that is not of God is constantly shaken free from our lives and we must let go or be shaken to pieces by it.

So, in reality, the feeling of being stuck in the mud is an act of God asking me to stir up what is really important and let go of what is not. He is refining the ministry. The process we have been through has produced results. Therefore, God wants us to do it again, and do it better. Let’s shake off everything that is not essential to the process of training and equipping disciples and create an upward spiral of bigger and better. Let’s increase our God capacity.

Liquefaction produces stress in things and tears them apart at their seams. From God’s perspective this reveals to us where we are missing it and keeps us passionate about the mission he has given us. It also makes us better at what we do. Liquefaction causes even the ground beneath our feet to feel like sinking sand. This teaches us to rely on nothing but the Lord. It produces in us a struggle that causes us to let go of everything that hinders the work of God in our lives and reach for more of him. Stay tuned for some earthshaking announcements soon.

18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.
And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.””

Matthew 28:18-20

Calvary Assemblies of God | 720 N Plum St Union City IN 47390 | Pastor Brian P. Jenkins |  (765) 964-3671 | www.calvaryassembliesofgod.org