I was not highly pumped hearing that I was called to ministry. Of course, I did not know what to expect but as I grew to love studying the word of God and sharing it, I thought "Ok, this may not be so bad!"
I am 25 years old and I have been baptized for almost 3 years now. The Lord revealed to me that I was called to ministry, more specifically, the teaching aspect of ministry about 5 months ago and I have been walking in that call ever since.
Now, I did not know that this one word, 'ministry' carries a lot more weight behind it.
I strongly believe that if you are called to do the work of the Lord, the Lord will not send you out alone. He will equip you with what you need, hence, for the past few months, I have been in training.
The first thing I was taught was how to hear the voice of God. It started with interpreting dreams using the Bible and that was how my love for the word came about, which is crucial for teaching. I have ministered roughly 4 or 5 times in church since realizing my call and it has been wonderful but I thought that being called to teach the word, meant that was all I was going to do... Boy, was I way off.
Now, my Father is so thoughtful throughout this training that He allowed me to take the easier lessons first. I am still up at 4:00 am, not because I want to, but because I am now undergoing the more difficult lessons, which have me thinking heavily about my new responsibility.
I did not know that going into ministry means that at odd hours of the night, my phone will ring with people requesting prayers. I am an introvert and I am the type of person who values my sleep, hence, I do not like being woken up by noise. So naturally, if a call comes in at 3:00 am, I have been programmed to silence the call. I live with family, I don't drive, so it's obvious that I am not the one people call in case of an emergency. I now see how my decision may not have been the wisest. I still have a lot to learn.
I have to keep reminding myself and people that I am not experienced and I already had my way of doing things but now I have to unlearn some things so that I can do them God's way. I cannot guarantee that I won't silence the call again, because I just think of how exhausted I am working throughout the day and finally being able to get some rest. As much as some persons may find it hard to understand, people in ministry need sleep too, you know. Your Pastors and leaders need rest!
Imagine, whilst you may just be praying for yourself and your family, your Pastors are praying for you, your family, themselves, their family, plus a whole list of people requesting prayers (believers and unbelievers). They need to recharge, so they can keep going. I especially need more sleep than an average person, because apparently, my body likes that and does not fight back when it's well rested. It took me 23 years to fully understand how my body functions and it functions in a different way than your average person.
I know the calls will come again, because it is part of my training and when you fail a test, you have to retake it until you get it right but because my body is already programmed to be on 'do not disturb' mode at certain hours, I clearly have a lot of work to do.
Now the real reason I am still up is because I have a big decision to make. A fellow sister, needs a sister to talk to. Now, this might seem completely harmless and something easy to do, but that is is not the case. This just reminds me of when I was growing up and had no one to talk to and Jesus befriended me. This is my entire life's testimony and I even made a song about it.
The issue I'm really having is with the influence that comes with being in ministry. So far I've only had one person who came to me for advice and it was scary. I had to be prayerful and tried to help her not to make impulsive decisions but to also be prayerful as well. But at the end of the day she ended up just going with the advice I gave her. That's a lot of responsibility; having influence over people.
It's scary when people come to you for advice about life changing situations because often times, if they trust you, they will end up just going with what you say. This just shows me how right I need to be in my walk with Christ. I can be the reason that someone lives or dies and I did not sign up for that but it comes with the call and is part of my training.
I have to be prayerful about this because when I was growing up, I was a mess. I had to grow up faster than I aged. I was going through a lot of things that a child should not have to go through and the last thing I wanted was encouragement. The last thing I wanted to hear was people telling me 'It's going to be ok' because at that time, it was not ok. I had no one who ever listened to me but I don't know if I know how to really listen to someone.
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