Man...I really miss the people.

Well it has been a while since I have blogged and a lot has been going on. Well, not really. We have celebrated another Christmas, we have celebrated a new year, and soon I will celebrate my ninth wedding anniversary. All is good, but is it?

I remember once being asked what the hardest thing about the ministry was. As I pondered the question the first thing that came to mind was “the people.” But then I was asked, what is the greatest blessing of the ministry? My answer…The People. This has been on my mind and my heart over the past few weeks.

I have been “out of the ministry” since September of last year. I can honestly say this is one of the lowest times I have faced in my spiritual life. Let me preface the rest the rest of my comments by saying that my “out of the ministry” statement is not to say that God doesn’t have work to do, but for the past five years I have been working for a Church in some capacity. For the last three years I have been an Assistant Pastor and part of that was being a Youth Pastor for a great group of kids. But now…well I am sitting in a pew and it is driving me nuts!!!

I have to admit what had happened in my life with my former employer was not only shocking but left some pretty deep wounds, but now I am at the point where to wounds don’t hurt as bad, but I miss the people. I love ministering to people. I used to wake up some mornings just so excited and looking forward to sharing with them what God had told me to say. I know we had some rocky times, but even the rocky times are great.

Now I find myself waking up in the morning and going to work, coming home, going to church…shake and repeat. The best way I can express my emotion is to borrow a phrase from a movie I enjoy called “Blackhawk Down.” This is not the greatest of movies but I like one scene in particular because of its significance to the solider.

Let me set it up: the soldiers have invaded a town in Somalia and faced heavy opposition. They have spent countless hours fighting, seeing the fellow soldiers get hit and fall, others get mortally wounded. In this scene a group of soldiers have finally made their way back to base camp and are safe, but as some are rejoicing in their safety, others who just made their way back are preparing themselves to go back out into the fight…why you ask? Queue “Hoot”, one of the soldiers who was out in the fight for the countless hours and is now preparing himself to go back out into the fight...

"Hoot": When I get home people’ll ask me, "Hey Hoot, why do you do it man? Why? You some war junkie?" You know what I'll say? I won't say a word. Why? They won't understand. They won't understand why we do it. They won't understand that it's about the men next to you, and that's it. That's all it is.

I find the ministry very similar. I want to help people because they are men and women of Christ, children of God, they are my brothers and sisters and my vision, my dreams, and my talents were given because of them. Some may not understand that, but I am not a war junkie…it is just about the ones next to me. I want to be back doing something so bad I could almost explode, but for now I will sit. I know the Lord has his timing and that in years to come I will look back and see the reasoning for this time, but for right now I have a pinned up desire to serve the Lord and no ministry to see in the near future. Man, I miss the people.