ministry

From humble beginnings…

I have been thinking about Jesus’ parable of the mustard seed recently. Here’s what Jesus said:

“The Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed planted in a field.
It is the smallest of all seeds, but it becomes the largest of garden plants;
it grows into a tree, and birds come and make nests in its branches.”
Matthew 13:31-32 NLT

The Kingdom of Heaven – the place where Jesus reigns, the place where we find ourselves in relationship with him – starts small. It starts humble. The smallest of all seeds. But it grows. It grows into great things which have an impact on the world around them. The tree big enough for birds to find shelter in its branches.

I walk every day along a path with some of the greatest trees. They are huge. And as I was walking the other day I was stopped dead in my tracks by the thought that there was a time that these trees were nothing more than a tiny seed falling into good soil.

This tree, in particular, is right at the beginning of my walking route. It is a beautiful tree, and there is no arguing that it is a majestic specimen. But even this was once only a tiny seed. It took good conditions, and a whole lot of time. And now the birds can find shelter in its branches.

I think we sometimes find ourselves frustrated with time it takes for the growth to happen. I think sometimes we miss the mustard seed all together – not noticing that it has been planted, not sensing the growth process as it begins beneath the surface.

I think I have been in that kind of season recently. But tonight I have hope. Tonight, I think I have begun to glimpse the first hints of green shoots poking through the dark soil.

If you could spare a prayer for me, for the community of faith where I serve as Associate Minister, for the future of the Kingdom and for humble beginnings that grow into great trees, I would appreciate it.

Random!

I have had a lot going on lately and could use an early night, so I am doing my blog early. I don’t have a theme for today’s post, just a number of random thoughts. I have one friend who is a blogger who does “Random Thought Thursdays”…I’m sort of stealing her idea (thanks Becky!), but not doing it on a Thursday. Here we go:

1) I have mentioned before how blessed I have been by my colleagues in ministry. This week I have been especially blessed. A lot of really awesome friends-who-are-pastors have given me some of their time. Some have called (Alton! Jeremy!), some I have called (Janet!) and some have had time to grab a bite to eat (thanks Fred!). In each of these encounters I have been deeply blessed and hopefully have found a way to give back some blessing.

2) Haven’t been able to walk as much as I want to because Koski is still recovering from her spay surgery. I have intense guilt about leaving her in her crate in her cone while I go out walking. She FREAKS out. It’s not fun for either of us. So in order to get enough exercise, today I tried a workout from an iPhone app called Cards WOD (WOD stands for Workout Of the Day). It’s a great little program. You assign different moves to the different suits and then it ‘shuffles’ them and you do the number of reps that corresponds with the card value and suit (8 of hearts equals 8 jumping jacks, 2 of spades equals 2 pushups, etc.). Aces are a value of 20 and face cards are a value of 10. The jokers are one-offs that totally suck (50 burpees or 200 double unders). I only did about 80 percent of the work out (and no jokers) today, but it was a good workout. And as I get better at it, I should be able to do it in half an hour.

3) Loving the weather. It is warm and sunny and breezy today. It is supposed to be warm with a surplus of sun. It’s great to feel like the long grey winter is coming to an end. Can’t get enough of Spring!

4) Having coffee with a congregant this evening. It’s hilarious to me how much I look forward to a Skinny Vanilla Latte at Starbucks! Yum!

5) I am doing well on the financial struggle front. I have been able to stick to my budget and make adjustments where necessary. I was very worried about this month because it was time to buy Koski’s food ($100 output, but it feeds her for more than 3 months). But by the grace of God, I’ve been able to adjust the other expenses during the month to absorb this. If things go as expected for the next two weeks, my VISA should be completely paid off for the first time in a couple of years and I will be well on my way to rebuilding the loan I took out of savings to pay off the majority of the VISA. This is awesome, and I am feeling much “lighter” about the whole thing. I like knowing where my money is going and I haven’t felt really deprived of shopping. It’s become a bit of a game to see what bargains I can get when it comes to grocery shopping, as well.

What a privilege…

It is hard to put today into words…there have been so many great moments and I think most of them (from the outside looking in) would appear utterly mundane. But from my perspective, they have affirmed once again that God is at work in our world and that I have the privilege of being there to see Him at work.

In prayers and insights shared today, in a quiet compliment, in the chance to serve, I found the deep blessing of God and abundant life that Jesus promised.

So this is a short post to simply express my gratitude to God for all the good gifts in my life and for the privilege of this call to full-time ministry.