Never Easy

“Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests, the word of God came unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness.” (Lu 3:2 AV)

 

I couldn’t help but listen to the Spirit as He impressed upon my mind and heart the nature of ministry through the experience of John the Baptist.  His ministry started a bit rough.  Led into the wilderness by the Spirit of God, the LORD prepared him to be the forerunner of the Messiah.  In the wilderness, his diet consisted of whatever he could find, including locusts and wild honey.  His raiment was itchy camel’s skin clothing that had to be as hot as it was rough.  This rough start is what made him bold enough to confront the ruling classes of Israel.  From the religious to the political, John did not hold back.  Once his ministry of baptism came to an end, John turned his attention to addressing the ruling class. Specifically, John confronted Herod’s adultery.  Herod married his divorced sister-in-law while her first husband was still alive.  For this, he lost his head.  John’s whole life and ministry were not easy.  Yet, it is what the LORD had designed for him.

As a hospital chaplain, I worked with doctors of all sorts.  From emergency room doctors to specialists and all others in between, it was a privilege to serve as part of the health care team.  It wasn’t out of the ordinary to visit with them and learn of their experiences.  From the beginning of their college careers to their present-day choice of practice, their stories are somewhat similar.  Over a decade of education followed by an internship requiring days without sleep, their stories were of hard work, deprivation, and sacrifice.  Most look at doctors as a privileged class who are overpaid for their services.  Seldom does the public take the time to learn what it took for them to arrive at the position which they currently hold.  My last doctor is a case in point.  He graduated from medical school and was thrust into an internship for about five years.  He then served as an emergency room doctor where he gained wonderful clinical and diagnostic skills.  It wasn’t until he was in his forties that he was finally able to open a private practice.  Twenty plus years of hard work and training, incurring mountains of debt for that training; he now enjoys the fruits of his labor and can live a relatively stable life.  Service to others comes at a cost.  This cost is neither known nor appreciated by those who have little knowledge of it.

But, our devotion is not addressed to those who are served.  Rather, to those who are called to serve or are serving.  Service to God and others is not easy.  Nor does it come easy.  Seldom does it stay easy.  It costs.  Often, dearly.  John the Baptist had a greater impact than he would ever know and died alone at the hand of a vindictive adulterer.  All the work that he did to bring the hearts of the people to their Messiah when three-plus years later, they would kill the very Messiah that had previously accepted.  One would look at his ministry and label it a failure.  Just a house of cards, one might say.  A flash in the pan that never really took root.  When it comes to ministry, it is not the superficial that determines success.  It is faithfulness to that which God has called the servant.  There will be heartaches along the way.  John suffered from a bout of second-guessing.  We may, too.  The point is, the ministry is seldom easy and only those who will endure through the hardest times of it will be in the center of God’s will.