Sometimes, our Christian life is a little prescriptive.  We keep up with current trends and we keep up appearances for the sake of ticking the Christian box.  Whatever your ministry, whether it is calling up your friend from work who has had a bad day, leading worship, leading a church/cluster/small group, making coffee, hospitality, serving the poor, having a career of integrity etc etc, I dare you to stop what you are doing to ask God what He wants you to do with it.

What is it that scares us about doing this?  I have come to the conclusion that none of us are very humble.  It is a fact reiterated most profoundly and perhaps unwittingly by the lead singer of Counting Crows that if you place someone on a pedestal you will watch them fall.  This is because human beings cannot and will not ever live up to the standard of Christ or, if you like, in the eyes of the world, ‘perfection’.  This is also why our heroes always disappoint us.  This is why Todd Bentley appears to have fallen so dramatically.  What he has done is so commonplace amongst anyone else in the world, but his elevation to a status that is ’superhuman’, has caused the impact of his topple to appear gargantuan.    Where do his followers look now?  I pray that they look to God, where their gaze should have been all along, in order that they do not still stare at Todd.  The only reaction they can give by staring at him now is a pointed finger, a new avenue through which to vent passion of a sort. This is not God’s intent.   God blessed that man for a time, but perhaps he too fell into routine and forgot to lose control enough to ask God what He wanted.

Arrogance comes in thinking that this could not happen to any one of us.  The minute we make that assertion is the minute that we begin a journey towards the floor from the pedestal.  It is our duty to come humbly before God and admit that we cannot run the Church, His bride.  How could we??  How dare we, in fact?

When I used to lead worship, I remember praying to ask God where He wanted us to go in the service.  Every time He spoke.  Are we scared of asking because we worry that He might not answer and we will have lost control?  Are we scared that He will say something ‘ridiculous’ like “I don’t want any singing today”?  What on earth would we do then??

Start small.  Ask God a few questions in your prayers;

What would you like me to do today?

Who do you want me to contact today?

Is there something I need to change today?

The results will be huge.