Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor . .

This is the first part of a double post, entitled "Does your chewing gum lose its flavor on the bedpost overnight?"

It's a common thread in all ministry that ministers will get burned out eventually. It may happen a few months in, a few years, whatever. The point is that there will come a time where the minister asks if the time /labor /prayer /stress is worth it. It happens to everyone in any kind of ministry.

More to the point, it happened to me this week. I'm the internet minister (webmistress, podcaster, blogger, etc) for my church. My church tends to be more rural, and less technologically savvy than, say, larger urban churches. So it is a real possibility (nay, probability) that I will spend all of my time creating and maintaining websites that my church members may not care about. Or, they'll think it's a great idea, but never use it.

So I spent all week working through my quandary and my sense of pride and accomplishment and selfishness. And I had a revelation as I was driving, doing some errands today (the best time to get revelations from God). I was thinking about it and complaining, "Why do I spend all my time doing this when no one cares?"

And God said to me, "Why did I send my Son to die, when no one cares?"

And the clouds broke open and angels sang (etc, etc) and I nearly wept because the word was so audible and clear. The point isn't that I do my ministry so that people might use it and be helped. The point of my ministry is that I am obedient to God. The point is that I do because I am called to do it. No other reason why.

It is a humbling thought; that we need to set aside our pride and sense of carnal accomplishment and simply be obedient to God and His call on our lives. It doesn't matter if our ministry affects two people or two thousand people. Ministry is that much more effective when we do it when we don't want to do it. We are that much more faithful when we are simply obedient.

So ministry is like chewing gum. It loses it's flavor; sometimes overnight, sometimes it takes longer. But unlike chewing gum (which is better discarded), it is still our responsibility to continue our ministry and be obedient to God whether we feel like it or not. That's all He asks, really, and what could be simpler than that?