In just about 15 weeks from now I will be flying from California to Hawaii to begin working with YWAM Ships Kona and begin the next big step of my life journey. I've already had many months to process and prepare for this change, and yet the onset of fall has suddenly brought on a new weight and reality to this prospect of change. I am torn between many very strong emotions, each in a different direction. My flesh feels the anxiety of the unknown laying before me and the loss of security which living with my family unit has always provided me. My spirit feels the elation and excitement of stepping into an adventure of faith with Jesus and other people who love Him like I do. My heart feels both the sorrow of separation from my loved ones as well as feeling deeply loved by God to be given such a perfect and unexpected opportunity to shine in the unique way He has created me to. And my mind feels the heavy weight of responsibility that serving in ministry carries. "Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly." Many people jump into ministry from the passion and compassion in their hearts, and they step forward boldly to fulfill their understanding of the Great Commission. This is a wonderful instinct to heed, and at the same time I am also wary to do so with both the wisdom of a serpent and the innocence of a dove. (Matthew 10:16) Everyone has their own idea of what ministry looks like and what making disciples of all nations looks like. We can each only walk faithfully from our own understanding and conviction as we remain in relationship with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. That's why we see so many different expressions of ministry spread across different cultures and denominations, and also why we should never rush to judge the forms of expression that are different from our own. At the end of our lives, we will be held accountable to God and not to anyone else. All I can do is strive to honor and obey God in everything I say and do, and encourage others to likewise do the same. One thing that I will freely admit to have struggled with is the concept of evangelism - particularly while serving with an evangelistic missionary organization. I believe evangelism to be an important function of the church and one of the gifts poured out by the Holy Spirit, but I can't say that it is a gift I myself carry. I am eloquent enough to express myself with a degree of clarity, and I will happily engage in as long or deep a conversation with anyone who wants to know about my own faith and walk with God, but I have never felt the urge or any amount of comfort in crossing someone else's boundary of personal space in order to initiate such a conversation. An appreciation for and better understanding of the heart of evangelism is something I pray God will continue to grow in me. Because this is a mental hesitation of mine, I have actively sought for God to show me what my life in ministry is to look like. I'm sure it will be a blend of using the strength of my own gifts as well as being stretched to rely on the strengths of others when stepping outside of my own comfort zone. One thing this has brought to my mind is the life of Jesus Himself. What did evangelism look like for Jesus? Admittedly, Jesus walked and lived in an entirely different time, culture, and context than anything I ever will. He was the message itself, and not merely the propagator of it. He also did very little to ever promote Himself or His message aside from simply living it out boldly and speaking to those who came to hear Him. He was publicly baptized and He did call disciples to Himself, but He never put up flyers or advertised for his next sermon. His very presence and His growing reputation generated a crowd which followed Him, and people joined and left that crowd at their own choice. Jesus was far more interested in keeping the few who genuinely cared than the hundreds of gawkers who just wanted to see what kind of entertainment He could provide. Jesus always made it a habit to present Himself at the synagogue first - the place of worship where the attendees were already professing to be seekers of God's truth. In other words, He went first to those who by all rights should have received Him. Some did, and others didn't, but He always had to give them the choice first in order to highlight their true heart postures and motivations. After that, He would go into open and secluded places and let people follow Him if they wanted to hear more. After respectfully and lawfully introducing Himself to those religious authorities of the area, he would step away from the grip of their control so He could bring teaching in a neutral context. He came to reform the system, not start a war with it - even though He also came with the knowledge that those in power would be the ones to start a war against Him. So what, then, can I as a follower of Jesus learn form this model? For starters, I don't posit to carry a revolutionary new message that will turn the modern day church on its head. But I do believe I carry seeds of the love and forgiveness I have been shown, and I also believe that by sharing that love I can help others understand God's heart for them better. Hopefully even well enough for them to want to step into their own relationships with Him too. "If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. Even though my mission is not nearly as grand as His, I believe that I can still use His general approach and walk in similar humility. To first go to those who claim to know and love God, and then to make myself available to those who know they are in need and who might not believe they are worthy of divine interaction. After all, Jesus didn't come for the healthy, but for the sick. (Mark 2:17) We were all lost in our sin, but it was those who recognized their own brokenness that came to Jesus are were healed. As one who has known the taste of that brokenness, I believe it is my place to share the joy of my own healing in order to give hope that it is freely available to any other broken souls seeking relief. That's what ministry looks like for me.
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I remember hearing the saying as a child "I love you, but I don't like you," or sometimes more kindly "I love you, but right NOW I don't like you." That softened it a bit, but it still always stuck with me distastefully. I couldn't put my finger on why, so I tucked it away into my library of odd sayings and moved on with my life. But recently I heard it again as an adult and it finally hit me with sudden clarity: I don't like that saying because it's a TERRIBLE thing to say to someone you are espousing to love! Now don't get me wrong, I can intellectually agree with the sentiment. Real life means not always having mushy gushy feeling for the people in your life, no matter how much you love them. Real relationships are studded with misunderstandings and differences of opinion, and real people are all capable of being really really annoying! But that doesn't mean you have to tell them to their face how much you dislike them in that very moment. While that emotion you are feeling may be strong, one can hope that it will also be temporary. Yet unlike that emotion, words can never be unspoken, and the seeds of pain that they plant can never truly be erased. It is also important to note that you can love someone without liking them at all. God says to love our enemies, but never says anything about making them feel liked. The two are not mutually dependent in any way. "But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven." Matthew 5:44-45 Jesus is pretty clear about what love looks like, and also what loving your enemy looks like. Love is patient and kind. Loving my enemy means praying for them, which requires me first to forgive them just like our heavenly Father first forgave us while we were still His enemies (Romans 5:8).
Not liking someone doesn't mean you can't love them, but it does pretty unequivocally mean you don't enjoy being around them. If that is truly the case, then there is nothing stopping you from speaking that truth and letting them know how much you dislike their company. But I can say from experience that once you know someone doesn't like you, you don't exactly try to spend very much time with them either. Psychologically, even if some imaginary time limit such as "right now" is set into place, they will never forget that at one time, under some probably undefined circumstances, their presence had become distasteful to you. Instead of fostering trust and consistency in the future of that relationship, you have now introduced the fear of a possible recurrence or even escalation of whatever thing had at one time driven you to dislike them. No matter how many positive experiences you share after that moment, the memory of once being so rejected will always linger on some level, and the knowledge that your enjoyment of them is conditional upon some likely unknown aspect of their behavior will make it that much harder for them to truly feel comfortable and safe around you. Now I'm not saying we should lie to our loved ones or pretend that certain things don't bother us. Lying is also not a good way to foster genuine relationship. I'm just saying that we need to be careful about how we communicate. I don't think any of us are deluded enough to think that God likes our sin, but somehow that's never stopped Him from enjoying our company when we do enter into His presence. Why? Because who you are is not what you do. And I would venture to say that whatever it is that made you love someone is something much more innate and permanent than whatever temporary (or even habitual) action is currently causing you distress. No matter how habitual our own sins may be, God never stops us at the door by saying "I love you, but right now I just don't like you." He makes it clear that He doesn't like those behaviors, and He also never allows them to come in between His relationship with His children. Like God, I'm not saying we need to pretend that we like every little thing that each other does. It's actually very healthy to express when something hurts our feelings or makes us feel uncomfortable or overwhelmed. In order for us to maintain healthy relationships, we have to stay in healthy, open, and honest communication with one another WITHOUT equating a temporary action to someone's entire personhood. YOU are the sum of your personality, experiences, gifts, talents, strengths, weaknesses, values, perspectives, and most importantly your relationship with God. You are who God says you are. You are NOT your bad habits, addictions, snap judgements, overreactions, or BO. I can love my brother for being sweet, compassionate, protective, and truthful, and still dislike his chronic inability to do his own dishes. It may even drive me completely crazy at times, but doing or not doing dishes is a very poor reflection of who he is as an entire person, so it would be truly unloving of me to allow that to create a rift in our relationship. By addressing the behavior without relating it to his identity, I can help encourage him to step up in his maturity and responsibility without first putting him down or making him feel unwanted. I know from personal experience that being made to feel unwanted has never led to a very healthy or positive growth trajectory. Even if the dishes are being done, the long-term damage of feeling relationally rejected is far too high a cost to pay. Every person is unique, and everyone needs to be disciplined in a way that is productive to who they are and how they are wired to receive constructive feedback. Learn who your loved ones are so you can best deliver that feedback in a way that makes your relationship grow stronger rather than pull apart. While enjoyment is a feeling, love is a choice. And I would posit that perhaps it is loving to choose to enjoy someone for who they truly are without letting temporary things they are doing drive a permanent (even if unseen) wedge between you. There will always be some other way of expressing a need for personal space or reformed behavior that doesn't involve telling someone that you don't like them as a person. Let's learn how to love each other well, even while we are being annoyed, rather than letting a temporary state permanently divert the direction of our long-term relationships. |
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March 2023
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