Unlikely, Unexpected Ministry

 

Photo by Rolf Dietrich Brecher 2014

I had a dream in which a dear lady from church entered Hospice care. It was a small place, with only one visitor per patient at a time. Her family all had to go together to attend to an urgent matter, so they asked me to stay with her.

She is in pain, but as I pray with her, she starts to relax and falls asleep. Her husband returns soon thereafter and I leave so that he can stay with her. Outside it’s dark, and I have no car, phone or money with me. As I walk away from the hospice facility toward home, the road becomes pitch black. I can’t even see my hand in front of my face and am frightened of getting lost or attacked.

Way off in the distance, in the middle of nowhere, I see an Outback chain restaurant, lit up, with nothing around it. I decide to go in to get my bearings and be in a place of safety. The restaurant is noisy and crowded, and aromas from the kitchen make me realize I’m hungry, but I have no way to pay for the food.

A man who used to attend our former church comes up to me and I see that he’s sitting with some members from that church. He says the church would like to pay for my dinner. I thank him and tell him that’s not necessary, but he insists, saying, “You have to eat, because you have a long night ahead of you.”

He explains that he has a message to deliver to me. There is a chronic care facility further up the road that would like me to visit and pray with the patients one-on-one. I agree to go, and again find myself walking in the dark with no landmarks other than the restaurant getting smaller and dimmer the further away I get.

Finally I spot a well-lit building, with a sign saying it is a chronic care facility. When I get there, many hospital staff are busy around the nurses’ station. I introduce myself to one of the nurses and tell her why I’m there. She says that I’m needed in the operating room, where one of the surgeons has asked for me.

I go there and he explains that he needs me to give a patient a spinal injection of stem cells. I protest, saying that I’m not qualified, that it’s been years since I even did a spinal tap, and that I have never given a spinal injection. He says it will rejuvenate the patient’s spinal cord and allow him to walk again. He hands me a large metal contraption holding a very large needle and syringe full of clear fluid.

I awake with mixed emotions – wanting to help the patient by letting God use me for a miracle of healing, but fear that I could injure him, and regret over being rusty in my medical skills. And yet the dream gave me hope that God could use me in unexpected ways, thankfulness that He has not placed me on the shelf (1 Corinthians 9:27), and that He guides me and provides for me in the opportunities He gives.

When trying to interpret the dream, I realized that the ministry doors God opened (1 Corinthians 16:9; 2 Corinthians 2:12) were unexpected and outside my comfort zone. On our way home to Heaven, to eternal life with Jesus Christ, the path may sometimes be dark, and how we serve Him may take unexpected turns, at least from our perspective.

Despite my medical training and profession, I have never felt led to minister by visiting and praying with those in the hospital, although I have provided informal counsel to those who ask me about various aspects of their medical care or conditions, and I pray daily for family, church family, friends and acquaintances who are ill or going through other special trials. However, I greatly respect others who have chosen this highly valued ministry. Visiting someone in the hospital is as if we have visited Christ Himself (Matthew 25:34-40), and the prayer of faith shall save the sick (James 5:15).

Nor have I ever felt led to use my training or profession to go on a medical mission, and I have been retired from clinical practice for so long that I doubt it would even be possible. But nothing is too difficult for God! (Isaiah 59:1).

As the saying goes, “God looks not for ability but for availability.” When He uses an unlikely subject to accomplish an unexpected ministry, God gets all the glory, for that person could not have done it in His own strength. Once we are saved by trusting in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15:1-4) as the only Way to Heaven (John 14:6), God empowers us to learn, follow and do His will through His Holy Spirit living in our hearts (2 Corinthians 1:22).

Lately my prayer has been, “Father, please use me in whatever way you see fit.”  I am blessed that God has called me to sing to His glory, including Christian lyrics I have written, and to teach His Word, both of which seem unlikely and unexpected in my own ability, as I grew up challenged by an often severe stuttering problem.

I began writing this blog on Memorial Day weekend 11 years ago, after seeing the movie “Julie and Julia” in which the heroine decides to test one of Julia Child’s recipes daily and write a blog post about it. An unlikely inspiration for a Christian blog, and unexpected that God would allow me to continue it to the present day!

My husband and I are blessed that He continues to use us in a physically challenging form of dance ministry, which is unlikely and unexpected given our age and my husband’s battle with cancer.

Yet looking back, we can see God’s provision and preparation in our lives for these ministries long before we were even saved! He gave me a love of music, poetry, dance and song, and a home where these gifts would be encouraged. I attended a school where we had writing assignments every day, and continuing to write medical articles after retiring from clinical practice no doubt helped with the discipline of writing a weekly blog.

God brought my husband and me together through a series of “coincidences” defying all probability, and He strengthened our marriage even when others thought the unexpected partnership was unlikely to succeed, given differences in our upbringing and backgrounds. We danced together at our first meeting and loved it, giving us motivation to hone our dance skills for years before we were saved and devoted this gift to Him.

I don’t believe that God has called me through this dream to shift gears and abandon the ministries He has so graciously appointed to us. However, sometimes He does ask His children to set a different course, even when a current ministry seems to be fruitful. For example, we are blessed to know a missionary leader who followed God’s call to resign as Pastor from a growing church he had planted, and to become the full-time founding director of a missionary organization that has trained and supported indigenous pastors all over the globe.

Thank God that no matter what form our primary ministry takes, no matter where we are, and no matter what physical or financial limitations we may have, we can and should pray for souls to be saved, and lift up our brothers and sisters in Christ in prayer (1 Thessalonians 5:17), interceding for them as we come boldly to His throne of grace! (Hebrews 4:16).

I believe God is showing me that He is my Commander, Provider and Guide in all that He has set forth for me to do. In the dream, He gave various assignments, which I could complete only with His help. Without Him, we can do nothing (John 15:5), but with Him, all things are possible!  (Matthew 19:26).

When the path was dark, He supernaturally led me to the next destination (Psalm 119:105). When I didn’t know where I was going, He illuminated the buildings where I had divine appointments and communicated with me through His children. When I was hungry, He fed me (Psalm 37:25), using brothers and sisters in Christ to do so, as we are to build up and help one another, bearing one another’s burdens and fulfilling His law (Galatians 6:2).

The restaurant being an Outback restaurant I believe is a reference to the Australian Outback, which Wikipedia describes as “a remote, vast, sparsely populated area of Australia.… more remote than the bush.” It reminds me that sometimes God’s calling on the lives of His children is to spread His Word across the globe, to the most desolate places, and yet that He will never leave us nor forsake us (Hebrews 13:5), for He is with us wherever we go (Psalm 139:7).

Had I taken the leap of faith in the dream and administered the spinal injection, I believe He would have guided my hands and used the surgeon who asked for my help to instruct me in the proper technique, to perform a healing miracle, allowing the lame to walk (Matthew 11:5) through His power and grace! What a blessing when God uses us to accomplish His perfect will! And yet, what regret and loss we will experience if we learn at the Judgment Seat that we failed to walk through ministry doors He opened (1 Corinthians 3:10-15).

May we all let God use us as He sees fit, even if it is in an unlikely and unexpected ministry that takes us far from our comfort zone! May we be blessed in knowing that God sees our labor and will reward us richly!

© 2023 Laurie Collett