“Pastors enter congregations vocationally in order to embrace the totality of human life in Jesus' name. We are convinced there is no detail, however unpromising, in people's lives in which Christ may not work his will. Pastors agree to stay with the people in their communities week in and week out, year in and year out, to proclaim and guide, encourage and instruct as God works his purposes (gloriously, as it will eventually turn out) in the meandering and disturbingly inconstant lives of our congregations.
This necessarily means taking seriously, and in faith, the dull routines, the empty boredom, and the unattractive responsibilities that make up much of most people's lives. It means witnessing to the transcendent in the fog and rain. It means living hopefully among people who from time to time get flickering glimpses of the Glory, but then live through stretches, sometimes long ones, of unaccountable grayness. Most pastoral work takes place in obscurity: deciphering grace in the shadows, searching out meaning in a difficult text, blowing on the embers of a hard-used life. This is hard work and not conspicuously glamorous.”
― Eugene H. Peterson,
Under the Unpredictable Plant and
Exploration in Vocational Holiness.
May your "Ten Minutes" in ministry obscurity pour out "glimpses of Glory" that will last for all eternity. Remember why you began this journey and keep "blowing on the embers" as your heart burns for the Glory of God and the souls of men.
Yours in obscurity, that Jesus might shine,
~ PJVS
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