Ministry is midwifery

I met with a woman today. She is growing in leaps and bounds. I’d like to take the credit: “It’s because you’ve been meeting with me.” I think her friend feels the same: “It’s because of the things I’ve said to you.” Or perhaps our pastor can take the credit: “It’s because of my sermon that impacted you so greatly.” But the truth is, ultimately, that it’s none of these. She is growing because of God’s work in her heart through his gospel.

Ministry is midwifery. It is God who gives new life—all we do is assist in the process. I read the story of Jesus with a friend who is won by his beauty. I cry and pray with a woman grieving the death of her child. I watch the gospel uproot a young woman’s perfectionism. I read the Bible, pray, speak of God’s grace, but it is God who changes people’s hearts. I often go away from meeting women with a sense of immense privilege that I get to witness his work up close in people’s lives. My midwife hands assist, but life is from the Lord.

A similar truth came to me earlier this year, when a ministry bore unexpected fruit. Once again, the temptation was to claim the credit; but my euphoria was tempered with caution when the Spirit brought these words to mind:

Unless the Lord builds the house,
those who build it labour in vain.
Unless the Lord watches over the city,
the watchman stays awake in vain.
It is in vain that you rise up early
and go late to rest,
eating the bread of anxious toil;
for he gives to his beloved sleep.
(Ps 127:1-2)

I was reminded that this is God’s work, not ours. He is the one who brings growth. If I am ever tempted to run too hard and too fast; to lay all my energy and effort on the altar of my ambition; to let pride in my hard work and achievements creep in, as if growth comes through my effort—then may I humble myself deeply in repentance. I am not the Saviour of the world. There is only one Messiah, and that is not me.

And so I can sleep, knowing that God alone doesn’t slumber. That he alone runs the world. That he alone saves. That in his mercy he may invite me to be part of this work but he doesn’t need me. If I ignore this—if I start to think that I don’t need rest, that I can do it all, that it rests on my work—then I do so at my peril. God is God and I am not.

As I reflected on these truths, another passage came to mind:

I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth… According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. (1 Cor 3:6-7, 10-11)

We may plant or water, but it is God who gives the growth. We are mere servants, our tasks assigned by God. He gives us the privilege of being his fellow-workers, but we work with the grace he supplies. We are nothing; he is everything (1 Cor 3:5-10).

Let us beware if we are ever tempted to build on another foundation besides Jesus Christ! If we choose to build with anything other than the gold of the gospel, we will see our work burnt up on the last day (1 Cor 3:12-15).

And so I am left with six great imperatives:

1. Build on the gospel: All true ministry is founded on the gospel, and all true growth comes by grace. There is no other foundation. There is no other work. We build in Christ’s name and for his glory.
2. Work: And so we work hard. God calls us to assist in the process of new birth, to plant and water with diligence, to build with wisdom and care, trusting him for the results.
3. Rest: There is only one God. There is only one Saviour. We can rest and sleep, entrusting the growth to him. Indeed, if we want to keep serving, we must rest and sleep, for we are creatures, not the Creator.
4. Pray: Since this is God’s work, not ours, we pray. We don’t fret, rely on our own efforts, or become weighed down under others’ burdens, but hand our cares and theirs over to God in prayer.
5. Trust: Sometimes, people and ministries grow with unexpected speed. At other times, people reject or turn from Christ, or a ministry we started collapses and dies. We may never see the fruit of our work. But that does not mean that God is not at work. His gospel, his Word, his Spirit, are doing their quiet work in people’s hearts and lives. We can trust him to bring new birth and growth in his own timing and his own way.
6. Give thanks: When we do see new birth and growth, there is only one proper response: thanksgiving. For all this comes from the merciful and generous hands of God. He doesn’t need us. He could do his work without us. Yet he gives us the privilege of sharing in his work and the joy of seeing him work through us. The proper response is not pride, but thanksgiving. So let us give thanks.

Midwifery. Farming. Building. Whatever the metaphor, the truth is the same: we may work, but the results belong to God. He is the one who grants new birth, who gives the growth, who establishes the work of our hands. Let us build, work, rest, trust, pray, and give thanks, for this is God’s work, not ours.

This article first appeared at GoThereFor.com.

The hero of my story

We begin by thinking we are the authors and heroes of our stories. We give ourselves a starring role. We start with plans, aspirations and expectations: studies, marriage, children, career. Perhaps our dreams have the appearance of selflessness: ministry, mission, service. But still we are the heroes, preferably sung rather than unsung. Our families flourish. Our ministries are fruitful. Our plans succeed.

And then they don’t. Earlier this year, I was at the hospital – again – with my chronically ill son. We walked past the room where my husband had chemotherapy two years ago. Sometimes I wonder if I imagined that chemotherapy has a smell, and then I walk down that corridor and realise, nope, it wasn’t just in my mind. It’s a chemical smell that sticks to the back of your throat and lingers in your nasal passages. One sniff, and I was swallowed up by memories: weeks of sitting by Steve’s hospital bed, and months of watching him endure chemotherapy. We’re now in that nervous waiting stage where we don’t know whether the cancer will return. In a few weeks, we’ll get the results of another scan. You learn not to dwell on it; but the awareness is always there, like something flickering at the edge of your sight. This has become my story; a very different story from the one I would have written for myself.

Life refuses to shape itself to the neat narratives we write for it. When you’re young, you lay your plans: you’ll study this course, get that job, marry, have this many kids, do these ministries. At some point you realise life isn’t turning out the way you thought it would. Sometimes, as in my case, this might be because life takes an unexpected turn – our son’s chronic ill health, my husband’s cancer – but often it’s simply because we’ve reached a certain age and our hopes haven’t been realised (aka: the midlife crisis). This can lead to grief and fear. But it’s also an opportunity to learn something we should have known already: that we’re not the author of our stories; God is. He is the one who ordains every one of our days (Psalm 139:16 cf. Prov 16:9).

God is the author of my story. And he’s a far better author than I could ever be. I wouldn’t have written so much hardship into the recent pages of our life. But as I look back, I’m surprised to realise that, in some ways, the suffering is the part I’m most grateful for. It’s helped me see just how weak I am, and driven me to rely on God’s strength. It’s chased me into his arms, and deepened my knowledge of him. It compels me to set my hope on eternity rather than this life, and moves me to comfort others with the comfort I’ve received (2 Cor 1:3-7). I don’t fear the future like I used to, because God has been with me in the darkest times. I have tested him, and he has proved true. His faithfulness seems tangible to me now, solid rock under my feet. My faith is more stable, my joy more intense, and Jesus more precious. No one would ask for it – the grief, pain and fear – but in God’s mercy I have gained more than I have lost.

Of course, this perspective is only possible at one of those pauses in the story when you stop and reflect on what is past. On the darker pages that perspective is lost. There was one morning – I don’t like to remember it – when I woke out of a deep sleep to gut-wrenching tears and faced fully, perhaps for the first time, what all this might mean: my husband gone and four children to bring up on my own. On that day going on seemed too hard, because I don’t want to live this story – who would? Yet I know that, however dark these pages – however hard it is to see now – the day will come when I will see and understand. For the author of this story is a master story-teller, and no sentence is wasted. He crafts every paragraph with care and precision. I may be bruised and battered and broken – sometimes I wonder if I will make it at all – but he turns my weakness into strength and my brokenness into blessing. This story may pass through darkness, yet in his hands, I know it will end in joy.

Better than that, this author hasn’t stayed outside the story, an omniscient, removed narrator; he has become a character on its pages. He knows what it is to cry out in the dark, and he is the one who overcomes the darkness. For in the end, this isn’t my story at all. Not only am I not the author of my story, I’m not the hero either. My part in this narrative serves to do one thing: highlight and direct attention to Jesus. He is the hero of this story, not me. My story is a tiny part of a much bigger one, the story of God making and winning a people for himself, from the creation of the first quark, to the crisis of the cross, to the climax when everything is brought under the kingship of the Son (1 Cor 15: 22-28; Eph 1:3-10; Col 1:15-20).

So forget me being the author of my story. The real Author is far more skilled than I am. Forget me being the hero of my story. Jesus is front and centre on all its pages. Forget this being my story. It’s God’s story, and it’s moving towards the glory of his Son. We’re all caught up in a bigger story, you and I, and that’s exactly the way it should be.

This post first appeared at The Gospel Coalition Australia

Image: Manuscript of David Copperfield, © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

three steps to living one day at a time

Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” (Matthew 6:34)

I’ve spent a lot of my life worrying. Here’s how it works. My mind, unbidden, invents a number of possible futures. I figure out how to respond to each one: “If this happens, then ….” At some hidden level I’m convinced that if I imagine and prepare for enough scenarios, I won’t be surprised by whatever comes. I’ll be ready. Better than that, I’ll hold hardship at bay. Because how can the worst happen if you anticipate it? How can it happen if you prepare for it?

It sounds ridiculous when you put it into words. The future comes whether you anticipate it or not. If I imagine a hundred possible futures, at least 99 of them won’t come to pass. More likely, none of them will come to pass. Something else will happen, something quite unexpected. In the meantime, I will have wasted hours of mental energy (do you measure mental energy in hours?) trying to prepare for all kinds of events that never happen. Even prayer becomes a cover for playing over them in my mind, and working up enough strength to face them.

Three years ago I found out where this kind of mental activity will take you. Thought patterns are like exercise: perform a certain sequence of motions often enough, and your body grows accustomed to them until they become natural. In the same way, your mind gets better and better at thinking in a certain way, until it’s like a well-worn groove that your thoughts travel down.

So during a particularly stressful year, when our son was in the fourth year of his chronic illness and we still had no answers, I could no longer hold things together. Irrational fears flooded my thoughts. In some small and secret corner of my mind, I knew they were fabrications; but with the rest of my mind, I believed them absolutely. I lived on edge, at the point of panic, convinced that in the very next moment, my fears would knock on the door and walk straight in. It was one of the hardest years of my life, just behind the year my husband got cancer. Anyone who lives with high levels of anxiety will know how that’s possible.

The turning point came when I learned to stop listening to my fears (that sounds simple, but of course it wasn’t). I learned not to argue with my thoughts; not to chase down all the possibilities; not to try to come up with answers. I learned to say, “Yep, that’s interesting, another anxious thought. Another fear. But I choose not to listen. I choose not to engage.” I learned to give my fears to God rather than to steel myself to face them. I had to grit my teeth and do this over many months, but the fears gradually subsided. They still nudge at me when I am under stress. But I no longer pay attention, and these days they disappear relatively quickly.

That was the first step towards living one day at a time: learning not to listen to my fears. Here was the second step:

My husband got cancer. He nearly died. He had surgery, he had chemotherapy, and we entered the years-long waiting period we’re in now. You’d think this would be a time of fear. A time of monitoring every physical sign, anticipating the cancer’s return. And yes, there are moments like that, when my husband is unwell, and I wonder if this is it. But there was a moment, after months heavy with grief, when I sat on the steps leading down from our back veranda and pleaded with God, “Take this away. I am sick of feeling so awful. Please take these feelings away and give me some relief.” He heard my prayer.

I realised that I have a choice. I can live these months and years with my husband anticipating and fearing the worst; or I can live these months and years enjoying what we have right now. There’s no great moral superiority in choosing the second option. In some ways it’s not a choice at all; it’s a psychological necessity. More than that, it’s an answer to prayer. God and circumstances have taught me to leave the future in the future, and enjoy and thank him for the blessings of right now.

Ordinary life has become very precious to me. The many hours I spend in the car driving children back and forth, for example, that used to annoy me so much? Well, I won’t deny that they still exhaust me, but now they seem like a privilege. They are a privilege. This ordinary life, with these ordinary duties and these ordinary people in this ordinary house: this is a precious gift. It’s a pity it took my husband getting cancer to see it. But after facing the very real possibility of his death, just to live this life, with its repeated duties, seems to me to be an endlessly repeated blessing.

That was the second step towards living one day at a time: learning to be thankful for the blessings of each day. Here was the third:

I recently started a job as the part-time women’s worker at our church. It’s ministry I love, and with Steve’s health so precarious, I need to work in case I have to provide for our children one day. I’ve had busy school terms before – most of our terms are busy – but this term has been stuffed to bursting. Family responsibilities, home duties, hospital visits, a new job, challenging tasks that stretch me to the limit, one after another after another: the moment I let my mind slip into the future I feel overwhelmed by the coming demands, and the little time I have to prepare for them.

Most days there’s more than I can easily handle. I’m not strong enough for the duties of each day. I’m learning what it means to live each day in God’s enabling, with the grace he gives for the next task, the next hour, the next moment. Not to think about tomorrow (except if preparation and planning happens to be one of the duties of today), not to wonder how I am going to face it, but to trust that God will give me strength to do the tasks he gives me today, and tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that, not now, not in advance, but as I come to each day.

That was the third step to learning to live one day at a time: learning to trust in God’s enabling for each day.

The other morning, weary after a night of little sleep, I parked the car on my way to work and sat for a few minutes under some peppercorn trees. These verses popped into my mind, a little jumbled and out of context, but speaking straight to my need:

Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? ... But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us ... Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day … He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me … For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Cor. 11:29; 4:7, 16; 12:9-10)

I am not strong enough to face today, let alone the next week, or the next month, or the next year. I am aware of that to my aching bones. But God is strong. He promises to give me what I need to keep trusting and serving him, moment by moment, day by day, whatever our circumstances. That’s how I face the future: not anticipating and preparing for every eventuality, but enjoying God’s gifts for today, and trusting him that, whatever he has in store, he will provide what I need to face it.

We live one day at a time, in God’s enabling.

This article first appeared at The Gospel Coalition Australia

book review: Word-filled Women's Ministry

Two months ago, I became the part-time women’s worker at our church. I prepared by reading Word-Filled Women’s Ministry, edited by Gloria Furman and Kathleen Nielson. I’m glad I did.

I recommend this book to anyone, male or female, involved in ministry to women. The list of the ten writers from across the globe may be enough to whet your appetite: it includes Kathleen Nielson from the US, Claire Smith from Australia and Carrie Sandom from the UK. Together, they have written a generous and gospel-hearted book that will remind you to centre your ministry on the Bible, give you a wealth of practical ideas for women’s ministry, and help you think through how to encourage women to grow and serve in your local context.

The book opens with an outstanding chapter by Kathleen Nielson about how the word of God lies at the heart of all women’s ministry. Reading this chapter reminded me of drinking in JI Packer’s Knowing God: as this is my favourite Christian book after the Bible, there is no higher praise. I finished it with tears in my eyes, thrilled again by the wonder of God’s word and determined to build every aspect of my ministry on this strong foundation. I strongly suggest you read this chapter together as a ministry team.

The second chapter is by Claire Smith. Her book God’s Good Design is a brilliant, brief and readable alternative to “The Big Blue Book” (which is what we used to call John Piper and Wayne Grudem’s Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood), and this chapter packs the wealth of her knowledge and teaching on this topic into an even smaller space. If someone had questions about what the Bible says about men’s and women’s roles in the church, I’d copy this chapter and hand it to them.

The third chapter is another gem: it’s about how to train women for ministry, and it’s packed with practical ideas gained by Carrie Sandom through years of experience. For me, the highlight is her description of the year-long program she follows with women one-to-one, looking at books of the Bible that will prepare them to meet with others, thus multiplying this important ministry. It’s a plan I hope to use soon.

These three chapters make up Part 1: “The Heart of Women’s Ministry”. Part 2 is about the contexts of women’s ministry—the local church, evangelism and mission. Part 3 explores issues in women’s ministry and includes a valuable chapter on sexual wholeness and how this needs to be talked about more openly among women. The book concludes with a chapter by Nancy Guthrie on the ultimate goal of women’s ministry.

There are two more chapters I want to highlight. The first is a fascinating dialogue between an older woman (Susan Hunt) and a younger woman (Kristie Anyabwile) that puts flesh on the Titus 2:3-5 command for older women to teach younger women. What do younger women long for? What do older women have to offer? This chapter helps readers think through how to encourage cross-generational relationships and discipleship.

I also appreciated the chapter by the editors on gifts and giftedness. It’s easy, in a complementarian context, for this topic to arouse resentments: why can’t women do this or that? Why aren’t there more pathways for women? But this chapter turns these questions on their heads and asks instead how women can be equipped and encouraged to serve. It explores themes like the ways men and women can support each other in ministry, the different forms that women teaching women takes, and the many contexts open to women that are closed to men. The servant-hearted tone of the chapter—indeed, of the whole book—is summed up in this quote:

There is a place for women to serve. It will not always be the perfect place we envision. We might be called to do things we didn’t plan or want to do along the way … But we must indeed serve—with quiet, submissive, prayerful, relentless strength—because we are serving our Lord. We are serving the church he loves, for whom he died. (p. 212)

If you’re a pastor or leader of a church or ministry, a woman who ministers to women, or a woman considering pathways for service, I encourage you to read this book. In my opinion, it’s one of the best books for women that’s come out in recent years.[1] I plan to pull this book out and read it again, taking notes this time; that’s how good it is. I warmly commend it to you.

[1] Another recent book for women that I highly commend is Jen Wilkins’s Women of the Word, which I reviewed here.

This article first appeared on GoThereFor.com.

Psalm 90: A walk with Moses

It all gets swept away. Or perhaps it’s that we are swept away, like pieces of bark on a river, unable to turn back, pressed against snags and stones. The banks slide by; one glimpse, and the things we pass are gone. And finally, the inevitable: worn down by time and decay, we fragment, break apart, particles mixing into the water like dust.

Fragile. Troubled. Uncertain. That is life. A wild flower scorched by the sun, blown by the wind, its blossom fallen and its beauty forgotten (Ps 103:15-16; Job 14:2; Jas 1:10-11). Grass that springs up new in the morning but by evening is dry and withered (Ps 90:5; Isa 40:6-7). A fleeting breath, an evening shadow that fades away (Ps 102:11, 109:23, 144:4; Job 7:7, 8:9, 14:1-2).

It’s not a comfortable thought. But it’s not one that I can avoid. We live with the possibility that my husband’s cancer may return. My son’s chronic ill health continues. There are changes in work and ministry. My mentor, the woman who helps me navigate these things, is moving away.

Have you ever experienced an earthquake? I have. Though perhaps it was a meteorite that shook the ground—I don’t remember now. What I do remember is the nightmarish sensation of the earth moving underfoot, as if it had turned from solid to liquid; the sense that something you took for granted, didn’t even notice, firm under your feet, could no longer be counted on.

I am standing on shifting ground. Loss and grief and change threaten, and there is nothing I can do to control them. I want to cling to the things and people I depend on, hold tight and not let go. But I am helpless to stop the inevitable, protect those I love, prevent them from leaving, keep them whole, preserve their lives, my life, even for a day.

So I open Psalm 90. I walk with Moses, this “man of God” who knew such great salvation and such deep sorrow. If anyone was familiar with the fragility of life, it was Moses, who watched a whole generation die in the desert. His words are bleak: our days, even the best of them, are full of trouble and sorrow; they quickly pass and we fly away, swept up in the sleep of death, turned back to dust; our years, seventy or eighty if we have the strength, finish with a moan.

Yet there is something that will never change, and it is there in the opening verse of the Psalm: God himself. He is “our dwelling place in all generations”. “From everlasting to everlasting” he is Lord. “A thousand years” in his sight “are but as yesterday when it is past”. Like Moses, we cry to him for mercy, help and salvation, for his love does not fail. He alone can establish the work of our hands.

Life is brief, full of loss and change. The people and things we depend on are fragile and fleeting. We can’t hold onto them. We can’t even direct our own path. But there is one thing that never alters, one thing we can count on, and that is God himself. He is from everlasting to everlasting. He is our strong and secure dwelling place. We take refuge in him.

Father, “teach us to number our days, that we may get a heart of wisdom” (Ps 90:12).

This post first appeared at GoThereFor.com.