Doing is secondary to being. I tend to forget that. Doing what God wants me to do is a good thing, right? It’s obedience, and obedience is simple: “do these things, don’t do these other things.” So I try my hardest to obey, only to fail time and again. The reason I fail is simple: there are many things God wants me to do, that I don’t enjoy doing. I can only force myself to do things that are unpleasant, frightening or just plain boring for so long before I turn to find some comfortable, time wasting, fun distraction. If I focus on doing what God wants me to do without being the person He wants me to be I’m doomed to failure from the start. Who I am determines what I will do. But how can I focus on being something I am not yet? If who I am determines what I do, then there’s nothing I can do to change who I am. Left to my own I am doomed.
Thankfully God does not leave me alone. Only He can transform my heart and my desires so that I long to do the things that He commands. I can’t transform myself any more than I could make myself be born again, but I can go along with the transformation. I can chose not to resist it. I can get rid of the things that might slow it down. I can surrender the things that my flesh desires, and cast off any hope or dream that would distract me from doing what God wants me to do. I can find refreshment and encouragement and wisdom in God’s word. I can come before Him in prayer asking Him to work in my life, begging for a new heart that longs for His glory, and finds the greatest joy in His presence and in obeying His commands. And I can do that every single day, in fact I have to, because “my heart is prone to wander.”
But doesn’t doing all that land me right back where I started: with a focus on my own actions and exercising my own weak will? I don’t think so. In this case it is not about God giving the instructions and me following them. It’s about inviting and trusting that God is in the middle of those actions, giving me the strength to do them, that He is in me and working through me, that He commands, and then gives me the desire and the ability to obey, and for some inexpicable reason rewards me for doing so.
What does all this have to do with support raising? Support raising requires a lot of actions. I have to make phone calls, give presentations, speak at churches, write letters, and do many other things that are incredibly difficult for me. It’s easy to get overwhelmed with the task before me, or to equate being a successful fund raiser with being a successful Christian. I presume that any ministry can fall into this same trap.
Thanks for reminding me all these thigs.