Lead By Serving

Time to get back on the horse again...after being thrown off.  Can I tell you?  Life as a follower of Jesus isn't without pain and hardship.  It is about the power and grace of Jesus moving you through the hardship to fully appreciate and bask in the joy of His glory at the beginning, through the midst and on to the next hardship.  The health and wealth of the gospel is there, just not quite the way The Evil One wants to disappoint us with.

I lost the most faithful of my readers, July 19th 2013.  My father, not a professed follower of Jesus, faithfully read all of my blogs and it is my hope that he found the real Jesus as I tried to capture the real deal; life on the cutting edge of His grace and glory poured into this imperfect, slowly transformed life of his son.  The spiritual conversations increased as dad realized he was heading to his demise.  While I never heard a profession of faith, as I lived to 'honor my father and mother', I believe dad continued seeing what he read in my blogs.  It was my prayer that as I physically carried my father from his bed in the home to the hospice hospital bed in his computer room that I had privilege to usher my father toward the throne room of heaven living what I blogged about for him.

Closely watching my father's body and eventually his spirit transformed by the surgery and medical procedures attempting to give him return to a good quality of life fail, I moved through the most challenging year of my life, ever.

And.

I would not trade a single second of it for ANYTHING.

The hardest, most challenging and difficult series of events were things I would have never entered into if it were up to me.  Engaging my God in prayer, asking Him what I was to do, His response was "Honor your father and your mother".  What it became to mean for me was, when they need you, you drop EVERYTHING and go.

And what I discovered is that Jesus did the exact thing for me.  Every time I needed Him, He was there.

Look, I am not going to lie to you (at least it is not my desire to do so).  Being a follower of Jesus just isn't easy.  The evils of this world surround you (read about Jesus' life in the Bible!).  If it wasn't easy for Jesus, God Himself in the flesh, why do we expect something different?  YET just like Jesus, as we are asked to move through the most challenging and painful series of events in our lives just like Jesus God is with us.  We have access to walk and move in the power and testimony of our Heavenly Father if we choose.

There are bits and pieces of my life that look like, smell like, and expose the very nature of God, and frankly most of the arise when I am weak, challenged and stretched far beyond my ability and capability.  His character rises out of my weakness for His glory.  There were so many times I found myself calling out to God as I cared for my father as he was being ushered off the planet.  There were hours of prayer as I drove many times from our home to mom and dad's.  There were abundant times when all I could do is just sit next to my father.  There were many times when my dad just reached out for my hand or needed a hug in silence.  This was exactly what Jesus did for me in my times of need and it is my hope and prayer that my father reached out to Jesus in his final hours of need.

Here is the question that haunts me.  Was my life enough of Jesus for my father to see and realize he needed Him too?  I'll never fully know the answer, until I arrive in heaven at the end of my life.  I do find comfort as I talk with God.  It seems God tells me I did everything He asked and everything my earthly father asked of me.   As I honored my dad, I honored God.

Now called to minister, this is God's call for me; that I honor those He leads me minister to, doing everything He asks.  Ministering is for ALL of us who call ourselves followers of Jesus.  Human life is purposeful.  Human life is to be lived intentionally.  My wife and I spent three days at a conference.  The underlying current for me?  That leaders cannot call their people to do what they are not doing themselves.  Jesus led by obedience and service to those He encountered.  May it be through us.