Priority #6, My Ministry - What I've Learned

One of the most difficult things I have learned about ministry is how to let go when you've done all you can to help someone and you realize that other than pray (which is powerful in itself), there are some situations and even some people that you have to let go of and turn over to God. Sometimes the hardest walk is walking away, or at least moving yourself to a safe location so that the Lord can do what He does best, and so that the wounds that you incurred while trying to help them heal.

Wikipedia says that the "first step in rescuing a drowning victim is to ensure your own safety...Conscious victims may panic and thus hinder rescue efforts. Often, a victim will cling to the rescuer and try to pull himself out of the water, submerging the rescuer in the process...If the victim pushes the rescuer under water, the rescuer should dive downwards to escape the victim."

There are people that I love that I am not able to help because every attempt to reach out to them ends up with them pulling me under. When I first realized that I was not able to help them, I went through a period of brokeness and mourning for ME. How could they not accept help from ME??? Don't they know who I am??? Haven't they seen my business card??? I'm joking, I don't have a business card. But I learned to identify with Christ in that "He came to that which was His own, but His own did not receive Him." (John 1:11). Matthew 13:58 says that in His own hometown, "He did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief." They just couldn't get past who they knew Him to be in the past. "Isn't that Mary and Joseph's boy?"

Friend Hubby and I were laughing one day about the fact that sometimes we seem to hear God better when we leave our hometown. We get in the car on a road trip and about an hour or 2 away, the words of prophecy just begin to flow. The saying is true that familiarity breeds contempt. Jesus' miracles were proliferate AWAY from those who knew His humanity best.

If you have ever been the victim of a control freak and then delivered, if you are wise, you will not put someone else in that same position and try to manipulate them into doing what you want, staying where you want them, remaining with whom you think they ought to remain with, or even the opposite trying to get the other person to leave where you want them or who you don't want them to be with. Think about that when people you love and want to minister to chose to go their own way. Remember that they can't get so far out there that God is not able to reach them. He's got some innkeepers along the way. We've just got to learn to trust that He loves those whom we love far greater than we do and He is a God who does exceedingly, abundantly, above all we can ask or think.

Though it sounds cliche, sometimes you really do have to "let go and let God."