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The Blessing of ObscurityBy Steve Brown Hopes
and dreams cannot be dictated, only directed.
To leave the expansion of my ministry in the hands of those around me is
to slowly contaminate its purity to me. My
spiritual ambition must be in the hands of a sovereign God, not at the mercy of
man. It is in this truth that I find solace in my present
obscurity, that it does not matter that my Father was not a camp preach’n,
fire breath’n, pulpit thrash’n or demon unposses’n preacha!
Instead, he was a drunk that died on the living room floor with oatmeal
for a liver. It is not a glamorous aspect of childhood to have a dad who spent
more days homeless and smashed than employed. This is how it was the last year
of his life, before dying a month after my 15th birthday. My father was known as
a good man with a bad problem. Although
it may seem incredible that this would somehow benefit me, it has molded my
resolve to thwart the spirit of alcohol in my life and those who I hold dear.
Do I wish that my Pops had been saved or even a preacher? Of course, but my God has allowed my life to be different from all of the cookie cutter Pentecostal preacher wanna-be’s who feel that ministering is yelling from behind a pulpit. No, ministering is simply serving. Serving the brokenhearted, the sin-soaked prostitute, the stench-ridden druggie, and the suicidal teen. It is these that make a ministry credible, when you are willing to take the unloved and love them. To scavenge for the castaways and bring them to His lap of love. It is in serving that we obtain the true anointing, the anointing to have the authority to disperse the balm of Gilead to those who have been massacred by life. When will we open our eyes and realize that it’s not a pedigree that creates the anointing, neither is it an affiliation with “big name preachers,” but it is our willingness to take the hand of holiness and reach down into the muck and mire of sin’s landfill to administer His hope. Why
do we seek someone else to validate our ministry?
Just serve and it will prove itself. I understand the frustration of not
moving up in the proverbial success latter of the Pentecostal ranks, but did man
give me my calling? If not,
then man can’t promote it or dictate it; it has to be at the direction of the
anointer. Understand that we serve a Creator who is in control, who has all the
marbles. “Before I formed thee in the
belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified,
and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.” (Jeremiah 1:5) God is the
artist of a masterpiece called My Life,
and every stroke is planned and directed by him. I must trust Him to finish His
work so He may place it before all the world to behold His handiwork through me.
To rely on a name to propel me to ministerial success will only manifest itself
as a work of man, and not the divine. I
felt the call to preach at the age of 15.
At a fire-filled youth camp God told me that I was going to lead youth,
many youth, an army of youth, and he gave me the burden for it.
Now at the age of 23 I am probably nowhere closer to that calling than I
was at 15, and sometimes it seems that it’s never going to happen, even at my
local church. Some may feel that my only ambition is to become the next youth
pastor, but my desire is to do His will, which will manifest itself in due time.
For I serve a God who has all time and eternity in His hand and I know that it
will not come to fruition by some Big Name Preacher, but by the hand of Jesus.
Whether I may or may not preach again or continue in any form of pulpit
ministry, I will always fight for our youth, by prayer and encouragement. For to
be a true minister is to administer the love and grace of my God, and work the
harvest field to which He leads me. ninetyandnine.com
© 2000, Stephen M. Brown -------- Currently Stephen
M. Brown is assistant Youth Pastor at Landmark Tabernacle in Denver. While
most of his time is consumed with church activities and annoying his wife, he
still finds time to hack his way through local area golf courses. |
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