“Like cattle descending into the valley,
the Spirit of Jehovah gave them rest.
You led your people this way
to make a glorious name for you.”
– Isaiah 63:14 (CBSC)
Something we all have to think about is how we are going to live our lives: a choice, an intention, some opportunity, every day, every second of every day.
When your choice is to join God, because you have felt His call in your life, a vocation common to thousands and thousands, but a unique work in you anyway, then you have to develop a theology, for the way you work. it will be both common and unique, but no less right or wrong than the next person’s way of serving God.
A personal theology for pastoral ministry is known for all the ways we do things for the One who sends us. It is useful to write it down. Here is my attempt.
Before I delve into this verse from Isaiah, I want to comment on the leading of the Spirit, in a long and leisurely season of reflection on my theology for pastoral ministry: how God uniquely uses me, how He uniquely uses each one of us. of us, its different vessels. of grace – having had enough experience (over a couple of years) now to know something of my style for ministry.
God took me to Eugene Peterson’s Under the Unpredictable Plant, and it hit me with a revelation, a personal flavor of ministry within which to practice, on page 50. Peterson observes that contemporary models for pastoral ministry are strong in power and image. ; inadequate and inappropriate for the ministry of the Lord, the search and salvation of souls. I have had to wrestle with these nuances for power and image, and still will, but my aspiration is to embrace both mystery and anonymity in confluence.
Initially important in my theology for pastoral ministry is the sovereignty of God. It has always amazed me how much more he believed that God was sovereign when he suffered.
The more I suffer, the more I know that God is in total control.
Now, a lot of people will say that doesn’t make sense. But the Holy Spirit has convinced me of it, as a fact, in my experience. It is necessary for our faith to see this. And I am consoled by that knowledge which always seems real in my experience; an irrefutable belief that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called [to endure because they believe] according to his purpose (Romans 8:28).
Because only by faith is there an explanation of what life is like. It means that while life is restless, I have the means of faith as an agreement that deepens my relationship with God.
The next two stanzas from William Cowper’s poem, God Moves in a Mysterious Way, speak to the fascination of resilience expressed in the action of faith:
“God moves in mysterious ways,
His wonders to perform,
He plants his steps in the sea,
And ride the storm.
Deep in unfathomable mines,
His skill never fails
He treasures his brilliant designs,
and works his sovereign will.
-William Cowper (1731 – 1800)
Mysterious and unfathomable is the will of God. That is why we can know that God is eternally sovereign… eternally. Note the other words in this part of the hymn above: skill, perform, plants, wrinkles, the brilliant designs of it…all ideas of great intent. However, of mystery!
Faith involves the faithful in wise actions beyond their knowledge because they accept mysteries that no one can know.
But going back to Eugene Peterson’s revelation, it reminds me of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Prince Myshkin in “The Idiot.” Prince Myshkin is incorrectly assigned the reputation of being an idiot by the users of vice who cross his path; sinners washing away their inclination to sin. Myshkin is an irregular ‘fool for Christ’ and, ironically, his purity confounds those who laugh at him behind his back, even some called to be ministers of Christ.
But they have no answer for the impermeability of their relational gait:
“He definitely doesn’t fit in… without anyone really knowing how it happens, he becomes the central person in these trivialized, obsessive lives. They’re crazy about recognition, sex or money. But even though he easily relates to them, it’s curiously free of his obsessions. Various characters in the story latch onto him to use him. But he isn’t ‘usable.’ men and women try to get away with it, he emerges as significant simply in his humanity.People find themselves turning to him for advice, drawn to this strange man, not knowing why they are drawn to him like filings to a magnet. They have no vocabulary for this phenomenon. But even when he becomes influential, he doesn’t exert his influence…, he doesn’t make anything happen, he doesn’t enjoy power, he doesn’t manipulate souls… The silent source of his detachment. Or is it that he doesn’t have a personal agenda.”
Not only do I find Myshkin’s story compelling, but I find myself in his story, and I often see myself as offering nothing tangible in a mystery-help relationship ministry.
As I go through each of these relationships, I find it absurd to think of forms of power or image or control, and since I am given to pride and greed and partiality, like everyone else, but in these relationships much less happens. – because many times I don’t know the steps to follow, especially how to manipulate cunningly; I routinely have to put it out of my mind when it comes in, simply because the costs are too real and too high to do it wrong.
I am waiting on God and I am guided by His Spirit, and because I am so afraid of losing His will, I try to stay focused with only attention to Him.
I can’t claim this as anything more than a gift; that I am suitably uninterested in coercive situations. I’m not normally a ‘good for something’ person. I often wonder why people would want me to help them. I don’t seem that effective even to myself. But I am often effective. And even when people did set out to ‘use’ me – and many ministerial interactions I’ve been aware of these agendas – people’s use of me usually doesn’t ultimately hold up, not in the way that they may think it will. I can’t explain why; I just don’t do any of these situations and they usually drop to zero. It’s a mystery to me, and I’m thankful I have no idea how God uses me, but I’m glad He does. It has taken me a while to get to a place where I have no reason to complain if God decides to stop using me. That is his prerogative.
***
In my personal theology of pastoral ministry, I avoid drifting unnecessarily into the area of ethics or theology, in favor of choosing to practice whatever God has grown in me.
I conclude at Isaiah 63:14.
There is a rest in me as I wander through the valley of provision, knowing that where He calls me to be used, He goes before me and opens my path, so that I may be discerning as His Spirit guides me. I am convinced to lose my life for the glory of him. It’s all that matters to me.
Like cattle descending into the valley, He satisfies me as He leads me by His Spirit.
