The calling and ministry of every believer is but one simple thing. We do not get to define it, and although it is deeply personal, it is not unique.
I have been spending the better part of this week poring over old photos of our family’s time living in Thailand. Even though we were there for only three years, we managed to take more pictures during this period than the next seven years combined. Thailand was such a colorful chapter of our lives and so much happened during this time – there was simply too many stories for us to try and capture a photo of.
To be honest though, reviewing these photos has been incredibly difficult, and not really due to the sheer number of images. The stories in and behind many of these images are a mixed bag of beauty, heartache, awe and desperation. The better part of five years of our lives were dominated by either preparing for, going to, living in and coming back from doing Christian ministry work in Thailand. We poured our heart and soul into this effort every day as we sought to live a life where faith and compassion could somehow overcome career ambition and material gain. It was not just the culmination of our hopes and dreams for making the world a better place because of who believe God truly is – it was the fulfillment of what we believed our life’s calling and identity was really all about.
Sadly, we were ill-prepared for the harsh reality that would confront us there. As it turns out career ambition and material gain is not unique to those outside the Christian tradition. It happens to run just as deeply in the well-intentioned ranks of foreign missionaries and career ministers. It merely takes a different shape, and it often goes unnoticed until the lives of other well-intentioned souls lay broken and bewildered at the side of the road. By the time we left Thailand to return to America, it was not due to any disillusionment from Thai people or their culture. We were leaving a ministry and organization that we could no longer identify ourselves with and who we felt had utterly betrayed us. In the process, the years since have become a difficult exploration about letting go of what we thought our identity as followers of Christ was really all about. Where had we gone wrong and how had we allowed ourselves to put our trust in systems and structures that elevated “Christian leadership” over the calling to truly be like Jesus?
I do not have time or space enough to unravel the convoluted web that believers, under the banner of our Lord’s authority, has managed to tangle themselves up in. However, in my time after leaving Thailand and official Christian ministry, I have come into a deeper place of understanding my own personal journey and identity in Christ. And it has brought me more peace and abiding joy than anything I had previously pursued in Jesus’ name. So much of what I had to unlearn and come to terms with is the humble admission that the calling and ministry work to which I had aspired to for so many years (far before we ever went to Thailand) was not centered around a desire to lay down my life for Jesus’ sake, but to gain his and other Christian’s recognition – for my own sake.
Around the halls of Christendom, I had picked up on the dream of finding a personal calling to discover and fulfill my “ministry” – that is, my personal contribution in life to God’s glory and Kingdom. The work to which I aspired to accomplish great things in His’ name and to inspire others to love and follow Him. This was taught to me as the special “calling” and purpose that God had designed for each of His children. This was packaged and sold to me by well-meaning people, many of whom had moderate success in the ministry examples that they proclaimed. However, I would discover they had also never suffered such an utter breaking of their self-will to recognize that the Cross alone is the tool by which we must define our ministry and calling.
I would eventually discover a different shape of Christian altogether, one whose success in life was not defined by any accomplishment or recognition that had motivated those whom I had previously been encouraged to imitate. These humble believers had been so shaped by pain and disappointment as to share in an uncommon sense of peace, grace, mercy and love. They exuded the kind of solid character and unshakeable experience that I was longing for, but could not find in my devotion to Kingdom ministry work. It was clear to me that they were navigating by a different kind of star. Why did my pursuit of a ministry and calling leave me feeling burdened and in turmoil? Did not my Lord say, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light”?
I began to realize that I had placed the cart before the horse. The calling and ministry of every believer is but one simple thing. We do not get to define it, and although it is deeply personal, it is not unique. It has already been set before every one of us who would seek to follow Jesus into real life. For the truth is that we each have only one true calling, one ministry in this Kingdom which we carry around in broken vessels: to be shaped into the very image of Christ. This is God’s primary purpose and plan for every child of God, every believer who comes seeking spiritual direction and personal fulfillment. That we would become like His Son – so that in the process, we come to understand that we too are truly the sons and daughters of God.
We want spiritual revival to break out among us, signs and wonders to transform lives, ecstatic worship and supreme revelation to impart greater truth. But few of us want what the Son has carefully prepared for each of us on this path of his – the sign of Jonah (Matt. 12:38-39).
We long to be raised up in glory, but we don’t want to first follow unto death. We want to experience deep, abiding spiritual truth but we don’t want to experience the deeper, painful work of taking up a Cross and sharing in the disgrace of our Master. Whether we succeed or fail in our efforts to bring people to Christ or build a growing ministry here on earth has little to do with what God actually desires to be at work within each of us. Being shaped into Christ’s likeness is not skin deep – it’s more than simply bearing a passing resemblance to Jesus. It’s a heart transplant – a complete rewiring of our identity that can say with utmost honesty: “I do nothing of my own agenda, but I watch and wait to see what my Father is doing.” (Jn. 5:19)
Unfortunately for our flesh, this kind of heart transplant is completely fatal. We cannot gain this identity through prayer, fasting, or by spiritual gifts. While the path of spiritual formation can often include such practices, we will only find this new identity through an utter breaking of our deepest selves, resulting in a very real kind of death. One that will require our deepest hopes and dreams for our life to truly die. This means the Cross will take a different shape for every person, each one uniquely fitted to the shape of our soul through the Spirit at work in us. This also means that we can only gain what the Son is offering us on the Cross through a living and active faith – the kind that is not mustered up through any effort or will-power on our part.
Please understand that this kind of faith can only be spelled one way – TRUST. If we do not truly trust and believe that our Father will use the inevitable pain and suffering of our lives to accomplish the abiding work of His Spirit, which is Christ in us, then we will always find another way. It’s our fleshly nature, the survival instinct wired into the very base of every human brain. When God corners us at the dead end of our worst moments and offers us a cross, if we do not truly believe that death is our only hope, we will fight and flee.
We can deceive ourselves that we are growing spiritually or learning great truths by pouring ourselves into all kinds of teachings or ministry practices, but one thing will always be lacking: A deep and abiding peace that can look at the Cross with joy, knowing that our present sufferings are working within us a greater weight of glory – the surpassing knowledge that God is always with us no matter what seems to be happening around us. Death and trust in a resurrection will become our only spiritual practice, the only hope of recovering what we are really seeking in this life and beyond.
Where is peace lacking in our hearts? Where do we feel most shaken in our identity? What do we most fear will happen if we let our greatest dreams die a painful death? These are the areas we are invited to keep bringing to the foot of the Cross and to work at trusting the One who will accomplish what we need most in the right time and place.
Prayer:
“Father – what is it about your Love that I am still struggling to believe? Show me where I still do not trust in your goodness. Show me were my hope in your resurrection power has grown weary of waiting. Help me to not fight you or flee from you, but to trust that your perfect love is able to take the object of my death and turn it into an instrument for my salvation. Amen.”