Tuesday night is homemade pizza night at the Cartee house. Heather has a weekly Tuesday night meeting so we have boy’s night and I make pizza. Oak, my 4 year old, always wants to help. “Daddy, when can I help you?” x 1000. He badgers me relentlessly until I slide a chair over to the counter and let him stand up beside me to make the pizza. If there is a time and place in my day where I don’t need help, it’s in the kitchen with Oak. He is known for his proclivity at both time wasting and mess making. However, I love that boy and because I want to be with him, I invite him into the pizza. He is not qualified to do even the most basic parts of the work, but I dignify him with my invitation to join me and create value in him by giving him the chance. He knows, that I know he’ll mess it up, but he’s learning that I am not using him because I need him, it’s because I love him.
We are all invited into the work that God lets us do. Our weakness is obvious but his loving kindness dignifies us and reminds us of his care. Understanding this idea helps move your ministry from pressure packed performance to liberated joy. You’ll never fully measure up, but you are and have always been fully loved.
Lead with that perspective. Worship with this in mind. Understand that your opportunities to write or preach or serve or lead are not acknowledgements of your ability, but an expression of love to you from a God who knows your frame and your limitations and your penchant for mess making, still he invites you in…the process is so much more important to him than the product. You have a calling and ministry because you have a Father who loves you and wants to use you. Not because you’re good, but because He is good.