Numbers 11
11 So Moses asked the Lord, “Why have You brought such trouble on Your servant? Why are You angry with me, and why do You burden me with all these people? 12 Did I conceive all these people? Did I give them birth so You should tell me, ‘Carry them at your breast, as a nursing woman carries a baby,’ to the land that You swore to give their fathers?”
We are saved to serve. There is nothing we can do to earn our salvation but once we are saved we have responsibilities towards our Savior. The call to ministry, whether vocational pastor or lay person, is a call that requires the believer to deal with people. The joke among some pastors is, “Ministry would be a lot easier if it were not for all the people.”
Too bad. God is in the people business. “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For the person who does not love his brother he has seen cannot love the God he has not seen.” (1 John 4:20) The term brother goes beyond a biological brother. Whether you consider it the brotherhood of the church or the broader brotherhood of mankind, the love of people is at the heart of Christ and should be at the heart of the Christian.
“But people are difficult,” you say. Yes they are and you are among those that are difficult. Ministry is not easy and it is not always pretty. It goes beyond hospital visits to sweet, elderly people who have served in the church for decades. Ministry opportunities often come in the darkest hours of a person’s life. When people are hurting; when people are angry; when people feel hopeless; this is when the door is open to allow someone in whose heart is open to their plight. Moses, the friend of God, the man that spoke to God directly, saw the ugliness of ministry and expressed his frustration to the God that called him to his ministry. It does not change the nature of the call.
