Passions and Burdens

A popular question among Christian leaders today is "What's your passion?" In other words, what makes you tick? What keeps you up late at night? What conversations motivate you to action? What are you built for?

For me, my passion came to me in 1985. I believe without a doubt it is a God-given passion. My passion is for the Church. (That's Church with a capital C, i.e., not just my local church but the entire Body of Christ as defined in the New Testament.) My passion is to see the Church grow in unity, grow in numbers, and grow in effectiveness. As I read the story of the early Church in the book of Acts, especially Acts 2:42ff, I think and pray, "God, give us that kind of church."

Yesterday in a long church staff meeting I told them how frustrating church work can be. This was not a news flash to them. They know this better than I do! But my point was to remind us all that ministry is a cycle that never ever ends. There is always one more person to reach, one more person to mature in the faith, one more person to challenge, and one more vacant spot in the nursery. Unlike many jobs, our job has no end in sight.

This being true sometimes a passion becomes a burden. I have allowed my passion to become a heavy burden too many times. Quite honestly, I've struggled with it quite a bit this year. Finally, just the other day, God gave me relief from this. He brought me to Psalm 68:19 which states, "Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens."

This was a refreshing reminder to me. I don't have to carry my burdens each day. God will bear them for me. Now, I will begin each day reviewing this verse. In fact, it is at the top of my to-do list so that I will see it first thing in the morning. I will carry on with my God-given passion and allow God to lead me in the fulfillment of it but I will let God carry my burdens each day. I'm not big enough to carry them on my own.

Costa Rica Update

(This post should have been up prior to the previous post.  For some reason, it didn't show up so I'm posting it again so that the previous post makes a little more sense! GJ)

 

I'm in San Jose, Costa Rica on a mission trip with a team of 12 from our church.

 

Everything is going great so far.  We've been really busy.  We are already exhausted.  We had a little down time this afternoon.  Friday night we had orientation at the missionary house, unloaded, and got settled.  Went out to eat at a typical Tico restaurant.  Saturday AM we went to a July 4 celebration for Gringos.  Phil Jones, our host missionary who is also a band leader/singer, was one of the featured singers so we went to support him.  There were between 5000-10,000 people there.

 

Saturday afternoon we gave away over 650 articles of clothing in the precario (a 3 acre shanty town with 1600+ Nicauraguan refugees) where we are serving this week.  Last night we went to Walkers of the Covenant Church in Alajuela.  My son, Cliff, sang a couple of solos.  He did a great job.  I preached and Pedro did a wonderful job translating for me.

 

This morning we started with a Men's Breakfast at 8.  Then church services in the precario at 10.  Cliff accompanied Phil during praise and worship.  I shared a brief message.  After church, we grilled about 500 hotdogs for the people of the precario.  We came home and grilled hamburgers for lunch.  We've had some down time this afternoon and prep time for tomorrow.  Tonight, after dinner we'll have some more devotional time and sharing.

 

Our folks have been super.  God has already used this experience to move in their lives.  I look forward to our team time tonight to hear how God is speaking to our team.

 

 

A Note from the Pacific side of CR

We are at the Fiesta Resort tonight in Puntarenas, Costa Rica.  I´m in the internet cafe checking emails.  The all inclusive resort is very nice.  They have 3 pools and 3 restaurants to choose from.  The beach is black sand.  We got here around 1 PM today.  Checked in our rooms and went to the pools after eating lunch at the Seafood buffet.

 

Everything is still going well.  We will leave here around 2 tomorrow.  Will be back in San Jose around 4:30.  We´re going to show Madagascar in the precario tomorrow night. The kids are going to love it.  We´re going to leave for the airport at 11 Saturday AM and I´ll see you late Saturday night.  I hope our flights are on time.

 

It´s been a wonderful week.  The team has been awesome.