I'm not ___________ so that I can ___________.
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Last week my friend Steve posted about priorities. And then today Michael Hyatt posted about the importance of saying no. And Jenny posted about how to avoid discouragement in ministry, and her first point was about getting back to the basics, which is hard to do when your priorities are askew. And fellow special needs ministry blogger Amy (from The Inclusive Church) admitted on Twitter that she struggles with that.
God is working on my heart in this area. I'm not sure that I fully agree with Steve's use of Nehemiah 6:3 to support this (because while Nehemiah is saying that he can't come down because he's doing a great work, the issue at hand wasn't the great work but the avoidance of an individual scheming against him), but we do see this principle elsewhere. Christ rests. He waits before running to a need in some instances (like when Lazarus was dying and he waited two days). We see that Christ took time to get away and pray in several verses.
You know the feeding of the 5000? And the story of Christ walking on water to the boat, when the disciples thought he was a ghost? We teach both of those stories, but we often skip what happened in between: "And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray..." (Matthew 14:23). That's why he wasn't on the boat and why he had to walk on water to get to it later. Jesus didn't get on the boat when everyone else did so that he could pray.
How can you fill in those blanks today? I'm not ___________ so that I can __________.
We have to say no to some things to say yes to the right things.
And this is true in special needs ministry too. Right now at our church we're saying no to certain things so that we can say yes to others. We can't do everything. We do desire to grow to a place in which we can say yes to more things but we have to be wise and honest about what we can and can't do right now. Our church isn't _______________ so that we can ____________.
For every person and every church, those blanks will be different. What are your answers to those blanks?
God is working on my heart in this area. I'm not sure that I fully agree with Steve's use of Nehemiah 6:3 to support this (because while Nehemiah is saying that he can't come down because he's doing a great work, the issue at hand wasn't the great work but the avoidance of an individual scheming against him), but we do see this principle elsewhere. Christ rests. He waits before running to a need in some instances (like when Lazarus was dying and he waited two days). We see that Christ took time to get away and pray in several verses.
You know the feeding of the 5000? And the story of Christ walking on water to the boat, when the disciples thought he was a ghost? We teach both of those stories, but we often skip what happened in between: "And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray..." (Matthew 14:23). That's why he wasn't on the boat and why he had to walk on water to get to it later. Jesus didn't get on the boat when everyone else did so that he could pray.
How can you fill in those blanks today? I'm not ___________ so that I can __________.
We have to say no to some things to say yes to the right things.
And this is true in special needs ministry too. Right now at our church we're saying no to certain things so that we can say yes to others. We can't do everything. We do desire to grow to a place in which we can say yes to more things but we have to be wise and honest about what we can and can't do right now. Our church isn't _______________ so that we can ____________.
For every person and every church, those blanks will be different. What are your answers to those blanks?