Luke 10:2
Therefore said he unto them, The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest.

 

 Recently I’ve been challenged with a service question.  There are so many ministries available to become involved with.  They all seem (and probably are) very important.  So “What’s the problem?” you ask.  Here it is in a nutshell.

 

 When somebody says, “Yes” and gets involved or they say, “No” and don’t get involved, is it the somebody or the Lord making the decision?

 

 Sometimes a ministry may have a need and someone you’d expect to take it on doesn’t or someone you would never imagine in the role steps up.  What leads people to make the decision to serve (or not) in any ministry? 

 

Some of our decisions are made in fear, some in pride, some in excitement, some under duress and some out of a lack of anything else to do.  Ideally, all of our decisions should be made in prayer.

 

 I often struggle with how involved I should become.  We have a busy family and we homeschool and we are very active in a homeschooling ministry as well as being involved with our church family.  Sometimes I feel guilty because I’m not in the nursery or teaching Sunday School.  I am amazed at how many committees our church has and how many ways I could be involved.  My husband told me that I need to get past feeling guilty if I’m not serving everywhere.  He’s right. There’s no way I can be everything to everybody – so why would I try?  I could be so busy ‘serving’ in so many capacities that I am unable to serve in the one(s) to which God is actually calling me.

 

The question came to me, “When faced with a yes or no decision, do I say no to the opportunity or do I say no to God?”  In the same vein, “When I say yes, am I saying yes to the person asking or am I saying yes because after prayerful consideration I believe that God is leading me to become a part of whatever “it” is?”

 

Here I Am, Wholly Available   by Chris Bowater

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