Your Ministry

“Open my eyes and help me see: there’s a world outside of me.”

—

-Hawk Nelson, “Shaken” My pastor told us a story about an older woman, who was stiff and arthritic. She went to church every Sunday, and someone once asked her, “Why do you keep coming here if it’s hard for you to just get up the steps?”. And she told this man, “If I stop doing these things and just stay at home all day, I’m afraid I’ll die”. She would go to every service that the church would offer. One day the pastor told everyone that they have a gift to give to others,  that they just have to find out what their own personal ministry is. The old woman asked the pastor, “What is my gift?”, and he was stumped. So he told her, “I honestly don’t know, but I will pray on it and let you know what comes to mind in a week”. After a week of meditative prayer, the pastor was still coming up with nothing. Thankfully, the old woman came in the very next Sunday and told him, “Pastor, I’ve found my gift!”. He told her, “That’s wonderful! May I ask what it is?”. “I call people in my community who I know are shut-ins. I talk to each one of them over the phone, and then call them back the next day. But I only talk to them for 5 minutes a day.” The pastor was curious. “Why only 5 minutes?” She smiled up at him and replied, “Because after five minutes, I’m tempted to talk to them about my own problems. I don’t want to do that. I’m calling so that THEY can talk to someone.” _________________________________ “Lord use me, take me where you want me to go”, sings the chorus of "Shaken". Too often we are absorbed in our own problems, and we forget that there’s a whole world full of people out there. We all have a ministry to share with the world- we just have to figure out what that ministry is. When we all chip in with our own talents to make this world a more loving place, we bring ourselves closer to one another and to the One who made us so beautifully and wonderfully.