I Went Down to the Crossroads

 So a few weeks ago, I had it rough. Things were hard and I hit bottom. It’s tough to describe how things are hard. It’s not like being uncomfortable is hard, it’s not ministry is hard; it’s not that I’m tired, or homesick, but it’s just got hard for some reason. My team has had many ups and downs, many breakthroughs and fall downs, and ministry seemed fruitless; actually anything I did seemed fruitless. I think that is why it got hard. Seeing God work with how he was using us wasn’t really happening. It was very frustrating. See you get these big hopes for God to “explode” and stuff and when you can’t see that, that is when you get worn down and stripped to the core. In Mexico, I had a sort of paradigm shift when I heard something about “Not eating the fruit of your labor…” and that had been resonating with me this whole time. So eventually I had become physical in my serving, where “I” was doing things and works and “I” was doing ministry, even though I knew I was doing the work of the Father. Well, and that just sucked…. Team dynamics were crappy and I was just here because I was here, ya know? And what I learned was that, with the problems I was facing, it was all coming down to my door step. I felt like a huge idiot I hadn’t realized this before because it is such a major thing, and that’s why ministry had sucked. There were little breakthroughs here and there ya know? But something just felt missing, like it was all for nothing and unsustainable.

So what changed? Waking up at 6 am, with Jesus changed things, and being more Christ-centered. See the crap that I was facing before was all because of me and that’s why I felt that ministry had been in the dumps, and I had to deal with it bring it to His feet. When we are united with Christ and just focused on that all the time and just loving Him and His relationship with us, that where the fruit will come. It such a twisted mess. I was being too physical, too much of the flesh and not spiritual, and I had been covering it up to my own eyes without even knowing it. And just as our redeemer does what He does, I felt completely renewed. It’s kind of hard to be “in the Spirit” all the time when your life and ministry and stuff are more or less on a schedule, but then I realized how false that is. And after being set straight, ministry has been so freaking good. Jesus has just been so evident. And that’s because it’s Jesus, it’s not the flesh. This is such an elementary concept but so overlooked within everyone’s life.