We read throughout the Bible how God uses the weak to lead the strong and how he uses the broken to minister. Over that past couple of years, I could not see how that can be more true in my life. I was once a locally licensed pastor for the Church of the Nazarene. Through that title, I had my foot in many different ministries. I helped with Children’s ministry, I helped with Youth Ministry, I co-led the Young Adults ministry, and I was on the worship team all by the age of 22. My church life looked great. However, I was dealing with trauma that led me to depression and I made some bad choices to alleviate that pain. When I checked myself into the mental hospital, all my bad choices were exposed. The week after I got out of the mental hospital, I had my “pastor” title and license stripped away from me, and rightly so. My pastor didn’t leave my side, but he worked with me through healing until he was called on a new mission to a new church.
There is a certain stigma around pastors that causes people to not be fully authentic. Most people put a wall up and feel like they will be judged by the pastor. Losing my title was a huge blessing to me in many ways. It let me take a look at my decisions, and it let me heal. However, it also opened the door for me to minister to a different audience in a different way. My bad choices led to relapse in addictions and I had to seek recovery in a way I hadn’t in the past. I went from being in a position of “honor” to being an addict. I finally accepted that I would be a recovering addict for the rest of my life and now I am able to use that to minister to others. I had to humble myself and the situations definitely humbled me.
I had a chip on my shoulder when I first got into recovery. My mindset was “do you know who I think I am and all that I have done and accomplished.” I thought I didn’t belong in the rooms of recovery, but I soon learned that I did. After 18 months of being sober, I have mentored a few guys and spoken at many recovery meetings.
I had to be at peace with where I was in life. We become more effective people of God when we are at peace. God has used my brokenness and humility. We were created for the redeeming of brokenness. I couldn’t be offended by the church stripping my title away or all the people at my church, who were once close, now avoiding me and gossiping about me. Being offended is what prevents us from being people of God.
Jesus should have been offended in many situations, like the one we will take a look at in Luke 14:1-6, but he wasn’t. He knew that would have just thwarted the work of God. In this story, we see that Jesus sat across a man with dropsy (probably excess body fluid). Where you sat at a table in those times represented the honor you had. Jesus sat at the position of least honor across from the man with dropsy. If Jesus had been offended, he wouldn’t have been able to see the position that God set him up for to do his work. Though it was unlawful to heal on the sabbath, Jesus had compassion for the man and acted upon it.
We can’t allow the pain of life to keep us from doing God’s mission for us. Jesus took that seat of least honor and humbled himself so that he could do the fathers work. Once that message set in for me, that I had to take the position of least honor, I was able to humble myself and let God work through me. This past week alone, after years of prayers and planting seeds, I had the blessing of seeing my best friend return to God. I broke down in tears. She said that it was because I never left her side through her mental health struggles and addiction when she thought I should have left, that she was appreciative of. Then when she came to me to make amends for how her actions affected me and asked me why I never left, I responded with it was because God never left me. Then God was able to use me as a mouthpiece to her. I told her if she wants to believe in God, it is about shifting her perspective about everything she has been through and to earnestly seek God. That stuck with her for the next month, and she began to see God in everything. That wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t humble myself or experience similar things that she has.