The New is Unfolding

I remember when it started.  It was in May of 1966 when God called me to preach.  I remember when it ended.  It was in August of 2015.  My preaching career spanned those 49 years.  Once I started preaching, I could not imagine a life without the Sunday sermon.  All this changed that hot August day as I stood on a dirt road telling a layman of the church I was serving that I had to step back from preaching at his church.  What is surprising is that I could walk away so easily from something I could not live without.  What happened that August day was that God lifted from me the urgency of preaching.   

Some changes in our spiritual life are hard to imagine.  When we have committed ourselves to some ministry for a long time, it is hard to imagine that God might be leading us away from it.  It could be short term mission work, or teaching a Sunday School class, or ushering on Sunday, or visiting in a nursing home. It may be that God has to lead us away from one thing in order for us to step into what He is planning for us.  We do not always go willingly because we are such fans of the status quo, or perhaps, we think that stepping back may mean the end of what we have come to know as an important ministry.  

Toward the end of my ministry I became convinced that one of the problems with planning a program for the church was with the planners.  We were often tempted to think that if the old was working, there was no need for the new which resulted in rubber stamping stuff which probably should be packed in moth balls.  Surely, it is true that God's plan for the work of His Kingdom is constantly unfolding into the new.  If the plan is unfolding into something that has never before existed, it only makes sense that He would call some of us who are busy with other stuff to turn loose of what is behind and press forward to what is ahead.  (Philippians 3:13-14)