The boring parts

In the sermon last Sunday, Jack showed us a film clip from the archives of the College basketball tournament. It was a series of exciting plays, set to music.

I don't normally watch basketball on TV. I was thinking, as I watched it, that if basketball were always like these short film clips, I would watch it. It's those long runs of time between the exciting bits that I don't enjoy.

I wonder if ministry is like that. We find joy in the mountaintop experiences. We like the exciting parts, but I think we would rather skip the mundane, hard work in between.

Jack told us on Sunday that God doesn't let us stay on the mountaintop. He brings us back to normal life in the valley. Why does he do that? We seem so much closer to him on top of the mountain.

I think he leads us to the foot of the mountain because that's where the ministry is. It's the everyday, routine tasks that are the often the work of God. It's those items that we don't recognize as ministry, or that we don't see the purpose of, or that we find boring and unglorified that are also the work of God. He calls us to work to get our hands dirty, to touch ordinary lives like our own.

And we should join him, because this is where he dwells.