God’s Idler 2

Allow me to add another dimension to this quest for true and lasting wisdom, this time focusing on ministry support.

How many of you would have sent support to Elijah had you known where he was? How many would have thought or spoken positively about him if you learnt that he was living in the house of a heathen widow? How many of you would have stood for him if he was called by the Sanhedrin to explain his desertion of the faith and ministry?

Would it not have been easier to call for a prayer meeting to call down damnation on this rebellious once used servant of God living in sin in a heathen nation? Wouldn’t you have organised an intervention team to rescue him from his rebellious craving for heathen women?

Let me bring us home.

How many of you will support someone who does not send progress reports of the ministry they are doing? How many would write that cheque or send that money to a person because they hear a small nudge from the Holy Spirit? How many would support a minister who was not ‘ministering’ in the way they know ministry should be done?

How many of us care to know why someone who was so visible in ministry has suddenly disappeared from the radar of visible ministry? How many would send support without waiting for flowery reports from them?

You see, it is much easier to pass judgment on someone before looking to understand their situation. It is much easier to support someone who cooks good ministry reports than it is to support one on God’s idle list. It is much easier to pour praise on a visible ministry than an idle one. And I use idle on the terms I have used on Elijah.

Why must someone prove their worth to deserve your support? Is He serving you or God? Is he accountable to you or God who called him?

(By the way I am not ruling out accountability, only saying that all accountability should be directed to God)

Like I always ask, can you allow God to issue orders on your money without first needing to explain why you must release it?

Must you know the specifics of the ministry God is challenging you to support or even partner with?

Can you, like Philip, go to the desert, deserting a vibrant revival ministry without needing to know why to the desert in the first place?

You see, we are very academic in our proclamations. We know all the verses to quote when they are in line with what we know or have experienced.

But God always trashes those course books and the experiences proceeding from them.

God is about removing all those fences our limited understanding of who He is have erected.

That is what He did with Elijah those three years. And that is what He always does with someone who is willing to go bonkers on His orders.

Or you think Isaiah walking naked and barefoot for three years was conventional? What do you think his wife and children, even forgetting the royal family that he belonged to, think was happening to him?

Why do we want to box God into our experiences? Why do we want Him to fit in our narrow interpretations of who we know Him to be? Why must He follow our doctrinal and theological persuasion?

What am I saying?

Can God entrust something as bizarre as He did with some of the characters He uses to instruct us into His ways when we read His word? Can He confidently send us to crazy places to share His word and love? Can He allow us to swim into those moral sewers to snatch people from the fire because He knows we will remain unstained by the world?

How unconventional is your faith? How radical is your obedience?

Once again, I will ask

What is God’s will in your current situation? How obedient are you walking in that will?

That is wisdom