This Devotion Isn’t Good Enough
Have you struggled with the work God is calling you towards? Then this devotion is for you. Originally shared by Beth “Kardia” Lutz with our 2018 Summer Staff.
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Oh, the height and depth of mercy
Oh, the length and breadth of love
Oh, the fullness of redemption
Pledge of endless life above
Take this world, my God’s enough
-”Give Me Jesus”, Sovereign Grace Music
I don’t know if you know, sometimes, how much I wish I could be more for you in the struggles and challenges you face during the summer. That I could fix your problems; that I could strengthen your weariness; that I could heal the brokenness you face, whether that’s in yourself or in your campers. That I could fill you with encouragement and joy.
Every summer, I struggle over trying to be enough for the staff, to be good enough, to be strong enough, to be present enough, to be what people need.
I titled this section of my devotion “This devotion isn’t going to be good enough.” It’s not. I know it’s not. There are so many things I want to remind you of, to encourage and strengthen you with, but I know I’m going to fall short. I know it’s going to be inadequate.
Have you faced that yet this summer? Feeling inadequate? Feeling like what you have to give is not enough? Ministry, I think, is about placing yourself squarely in the crossfire of the brokenness of this world. And we live in a world that’s not getting any less broken.
Sometimes it’s our own brokenness that we have to face.
A Story of Ministry
I was just out of college, and working as a seasonal staff member at a camp. We had hit the winter retreat season, which was the busiest time at this camp besides the summer. It was my fourth weekend working a retreat in a row, and I was starting to get run down. Right before the retreat started, I discovered that my car wouldn’t start, so that was a worry weighing on the back of my mind. That Friday night, as groups were beginning to arrive, I started to feel the beginnings of a sore throat coming up, but I desperately tried to ignore it in hopes that I was mistaken.
We welcome the groups to camp and do a short orientation, and then jump right into some winter activities. That night, I was leading tubing with my group for the weekend. I meet them at the wagon used to pull groups up to the tubing hills. (Usually, we would do the tubing orientation and rules at the wagon before driving to the hill, so that once we got there we could start tubing right away.)
My group consists of about 20 middle school kids, mostly boys—that was just the way it worked out—and a handful of adult chaperones.
I wait for everyone to arrive, and then hop in the front of the wagon and try to get everyone’s attention. Everyone ignores me. I pull out my teacher’s voice. Nada. I’m standing there, throat hurting, feeling tired and miserable, and utterly failing to get this group corralled and listening. These kids were crazy. Finally, one of the adult chaperones kind of yells them down, and I start talking. I had to stop repeatedly throughout my (relatively) short talk to get their attention again. By the end, I had given up even trying. I finished my talk as fast as I could, and all I could think was, “This is going to be a long weekend.”
We make it through tubing, and I’m already done at that point. And this is the group I’m going to have for the entire weekend.
I get up the next morning, go to breakfast, and then the first activity of the day is cross-country skiing. My throat has blossomed into full blown agony, and I have no clue how I’m going to get through the day. I check on the ski equipment and make sure it’s all ready to go, and then head to my office to grab a few last minute things before my group arrives.
On the way to my office, one of the camp’s full time staff members stops me and says, “I need to talk to you.” We go into his office. He shuts the door. And starts talking about an incident that had occurred the previous night. All of the staff working that weekend had been setting up a conference room for the retreat. Part of that setup had included putting up a projector. This staff member had been the one working on the projector and had struggled a little bit to get it centered on the screen. I had made a small joke about it. We all laughed together. I hadn’t thought anything about it, but apparently it was a Big Deal.
So he sat me down in his office and told me how he felt so disrespected by what I had said, and how he was my supervisor and I needed to respect him more, and he couldn’t believe I had done that.
And I was just blindsided. Hadn’t meant anything by the comment; just thought we were joking around as friends. But he had taken it as an attack on his authority.
And so I sat there, and apologized, but running through my head all I could think was, “I’m drowning right now, and you’re throwing on more weight.”
I left his office, and I wanted nothing more than to curl up and cry my eyes out. I was done. I had nothing left. But I had a group. They needed to go cross-country skiing. So I continued down the hallway. I met my group. I put one foot in front of the other and endured.
The Reality of Ministry
Maybe you’ve been there. That’s ministry. It’s hard. It gets messy. It means exhaustion and weariness, and looking foolish, and getting hurt.
During staff training, we talked a lot about the foundations of ministry. We talked a lot about the practice of ministry. Now, these past couple of weeks, you’ve experienced the reality of ministry.
Ministry means kids bringing with them issues and hurt that you feel completely out of your depth to deal with.
Ministry means having to face your own flaws and failures—the selfishness and pride that keeps fighting its way to the front.
Ministry means having weeks where you wonder if you’re even making a difference. Where it seems like everyone around you is connecting with their kids and having this deep, spiritual significant moments, and you’re just not. And you wonder if the problem is you.
But that place of brokenness is what turns us to Jesus. It’s what creates this longing in us for the hope and wholeness that only Jesus can bring. A longing for the day when this brokenness will be made whole and we’ll finally be home.
That song we sang, Give Me Jesus, my favorite line comes at the end of the chorus: “Take this world, my God’s enough.” Do you hear the longing in those words? Have you experienced that yet this summer? Have you been brought to the end of yourself yet? Ministry is about the brokenness of this world, but it’s also about the longing that draws us to Jesus.
The Place of Ministry
There’s a verse I’ve been stuck on lately. And I keep on going back to it because I think it captures so well both the brokenness and the longing that ministry brings you into.
It’s from the book of Hebrews. And to fully understand the context of this verse, you need to understand the Old Testament practice of a sin offering. Once a year, on the Day of Atonement, the high priest of the nation of Israel would select a young goat to serve as a sacrifice, a stand-in, for the sins of the entire nation. He would slaughter the goat, and then take its blood into the Most Holy Place, and sprinkle it on the atonement cover. And that blood would atone for the sins of the people. For their rebellion. For their uncleanness. And so for another year, the wrath of God was appeased by this sacrifice given in the stead of the people.
But the body of the goat would actually be brought outside the camp, to be discarded, to be burned, because it represented all this sin and rebellion. And so it would be destroyed outside the camp. Its brokenness brought the people holiness.
Hebrews 13:11-14 talks about this event. This is what it says:
“The high priest carries the blood of animals into the Most Holy Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood.”
The author of Hebrews is recalling this system of sacrifice and saying that’s what Jesus did for us. He went outside the city gates. He bore the disgrace. He bore the shame. And we were made holy through his blood.
And then the passage continues:
“Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.”
So let’s go to Jesus. Let’s go outside the city gates. Even though doing so might mean facing discomfort and suffering and disgrace.
Why? Because this world is not our home. For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come. We’re drawn to Jesus because we’re longing for home.
Going Outside the Gates
Ministry is about going outside the city gates. And that can be a hard place to be. But we go there, because that’s where Jesus is.
Are you tired? Weary? Discouraged? Bring that to Jesus.
Broken down? Hurt? Lonely? Bring that to Jesus.
Are you battling self-doubts, fears that you’re not enough, that you don’t have what it takes? Bring that to Jesus.
Are you fighting the temptation to give up, to take the easy path, to stop caring so much, to stop giving so much? Bring that to Jesus.
Because he’s worth it. Jesus is worth it.
We get to go to Jesus this summer. We get to bear the disgrace he bore. Because he bore it first. Because of his suffering and shed blood on the cross we’ve been made righteous. We’ve been redeemed and made holy. And so we follow him. Because he’s better than anything this world has to offer.
I have nothing else to give you. There is nothing else.
Only Jesus. Always Jesus.
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“And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.”