I’m a Christian and I must confess:  sometimes I use words I don’t understand, at least fully; words like righteousness, faith, peace.  As I’m writing this I’m  trying to think of how I would define these words  without merely invoking some vague ideas capped  with the almost rhetorical question, “do you know  what I mean?”

I notice in conversations that I meander at times,  nickel and dime-ing my way to and from these ten  dollar words.  My hope is that my captive audience  will gain some vague notion of what I mean.  As I’m  doing this, the person I’m speaking with  emphatically nods their head in agreement.  Yet I  fear this person probably walks away feeling like  what I said was dead on but not quite able to tell their roommate what we talked about.

As someone venturing into full time college ministry, this doubt or question begins to stagger into my thoughts:

am I really qualified to do this?

Not by any professional standards–certainly not.  Let’s see, I became a Christian in ’06.  I was involved with campus ministry for 2 years as a student.  I have a measly degree in Psychology.  No paid work experience.  There are hundreds if not thousands of people more qualified than me.  People who have been Christians their whole lives.  People who have actually read the entire Bible, I haven’t even read the entire Old Testament yet!

But I feel led here.

?

Despite these doubts, I am on staff with Cru, a local ministry here in Bowling Green.  See, ministry, and Christian life in general, are a funny thing.  People who have little experience and often times no skills are told–no they’re admonished–to go out and share their faith with the world–and they change lives.  High school and college students, young and green in they’re faith, are raised up and sent out on mission trips all over the country and the world to share their faith.  They feel led.

There is a story in the bible about a guy named Moses, everyone knows this story…Charleton Heston–”let my people go” right?  But God comes to Moses, telling him that he will be God’s mouth to the Hebrew people and lead them out of slavery to a land long promised to their ancestors.  To this, Moses quickly replies something to the effect of, “with all do respect, I can’t do that…do you know me? I don’t speak well, I have a stutter, and besides I just can’t.”  God then presses in on Moses and says, “of course you can, and of course I know you, I made you–and all living things for that matter.  You can do it Moses, because I AM with you, I will give you the words and blaze the trail.” [Exodus]

While Moses is the one who led the Hebrew people out of slavery and delivered them to the doorstep of  this promised land, its not really he who did it.  Moses, in and of himself, had little to do with it.  God made certain that his own fingerprints were all over this story:  seven plagues, splitting an entire sea in half, a sky-high pillar of smoke and fire…

So as doubt creeps up, as this potentially crippling question of ability staggers in I hold fast in the words of Jesus [matthew 28].  As the prophet Isaiah says, “Upon a watchtower I stand, O Lord,
continually by day, and at my post I am stationed whole nights.”   I stand with the word of God compelling me forward–serving as a reminder that I have but to go and HE will do the rest.

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.