A Reluctant Reverend part 2

A Reluctant Reverend, part 2

I said that I thought that being reluctant to be a minister might be a good thing.    It’s possible that I feel that way partially because that was my experience.  But there’s more to it than that.  As I looked at many of the figures in the scriptures, I noticed that reluctance is quite common.  Moses really resisted God at the burning bush.  He kept protesting and raising objections about why he shouldn’t be a leader of the Hebrews.  Gideon in the book of Judges resisted God’s call for as long as he could.  And many of the prophets were reluctant to leave their current life to go challenge people with God’s messages.

 Thirdly, despite my generally optimistic outlook, there’s a bit of a cynic in my makeup.  I’m a little leery of people who are especially eager to hold themselves up as paragons of virtue and are absolutely sure that everyone should fall in line behind them.  There’s an old description of ministry as “the care of souls.”  That’s a fearsome responsibility!  It seems to me that it requires one to think carefully before speaking and to avoid simplistic answers to complex questions in our lives.  At least that’s my occasionally achieved goal.  We are each a work in progress.

 What’s on your mind?

 Mike Lamm