He Must Increase
Praying for God to open doors of opportunity is a common petition we bring to him. Whether we want him to give us that job change we want, that new baby, or just an ounce more happiness in this broken world, we long for God’s fatherly blessing. That is, unless that open door is stained in blood.
Last week I fell working on my house. I was patching cracks in the plaster. I was almost finished with a wall in a very awkward stairwell when my feet slipped and my arm broke through 130 year old glass in the stairwell window. As I fell my arm caught a piece of glass just above my elbow, making a clean slice through every nerve and vain except my artery.
As soon as it happened I knew it was bad. I could no longer feel my hand and the blood I was losing seemed lethal. I was working alone. And so I was honestly afraid I was going to bleed out right in that house. So I grabbed my arm as hard as I could with my working hand, and I walked from the back of the house to the front. I didn’t know what else to do other than cry for help. As soon as I shouldered open my screen doors I stepped out into my front yard yelling for anyone who could hear. It was the middle of the day so I wasn’t sure if anyone would hear me. All I could think about was how much blood was pouring onto my pants, and how much I didn’t want to die in the front yard of this old house we just purchased only three weeks ago. I had my wife and daughters on my mind.
Fortunately my neighbor, who I barely even had a chance to meet, heard my cries for help. For some reason she had her windows open on her second floor apartment during one of the hottest days of the month. And so as she was freshening up in the bathroom she heard me, saw me and grabbed her bathrobe tie and ran down the stairs to my aid. Again, fortunately she was a retired nurse. So she used her bath tie and a screw driver to tourniquet my arm. There were also two young children who heard my cries and rushed in to tell their parents. Between the retired nurse and the kids’ parents, they took the necessary steps to try and stop the bleeding and get the paramedics.
The rest is as you would expect. I was airlifted to the University of Iowa hospital. There they performed surgery on my arm to resupply my arm with blood and nerves. The blood supply was fixed right away, but the nerve repair is more precarious. The plumbing works but the electrical does not yet. But the doctors are optimistic I’ll recover.
Like many who go through suffering and injury, I have learned some lessons. Aside from standard ladder safety and other OSHA type common sense, there is a deeply spiritual lesson in all this. And it seems this is the means God has sovereignly chose to teach me.
Im a physically weaker man today than I was two weeks ago. And this is hard for me because I am only a month into starting the work to plant a church in Clinton, a community that needs all hands on deck. I was hoping to throw all my physical strength, my mental abilities, and my creative energy into making disciples, planting the church, restoring my house, and renewing the city. It feels like I have less power to do this. But Gods been showing me that what really innervates the Christian vocation is not my own power, but his. In my weakness, the power of Christ crucified manifests.
I’m realizing how quickly I dismiss and disbelieve the gospel. Moving to this place has channeled a lot of my creative, physical, and mental capabilities. And I would consider myself a pretty capable guy. So living in Clinton, in an old house, with a church to plant, I was ready to prove that I was a match for the task. I was fully squared up to the work ahead. I wanted to do everything. But living and working with this mindset can quickly obscure the gospel. Because it’s the gospel that says the work is finished. The deepest work, the most cosmically significant labor, has already been accomplished before I even lifted a finger. And as a Christian, God wants the gospel to fuel my vocation, animated by the power of the Holy Spirit. It should be no surprise then that God would delight to illuminate this most fundamental reality in my life.
This morning I was reading a book on pastoring. And the author quoted an old Lutheran pastor. I think this quote is timely:
Pastoral theology is the God given practical disposition of the soul, acquired by certain means, by which a servant of the church is equipped to perform all the tasks that come to him in that capacity—validity, in a legitimate manner to the glory of God, and for his own and his hearers’ salvation.
The practical disposition of the soul is what old pastors used to call the habitus. It’s the character disposition of the man called by God to shepherd the flock of God. And this disposition was exemplified the best by Jesus cousin, John the Baptist, and was articulated the clearest with his words “He must increase, but I must decrease.” As others have put it, pastors are just errand boys for Jesus. In all that I hope to do in pastoral ministry, the best that I have to offer is the word of Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit. None of this is me. This is all about pointing others to the nourishment of Christ.
It is no surprise than that God would sanctify me and my vocation by “certain means”—means that include suffering. Because if I’m honest. My sin sick flesh loves showing people what I did or can do. But I’m called to show others what God did and is doing. I am called to the task of proclaiming that by grace Christ was crucified to make us right with God, and that by the power of the Spirit through faith we are transformed into his glorious image day by day. And so I believe God ordained my fall to produce joy in me at the testing of my faith. The suffering tests because I am now forced to acknowledge my physical need, which reveals my spiritual need that’s always been there. I am completely dependent on God for my life, my work, my ministry, and the redemption of my body in glory. All of it is a gift I receive by his work, not mine.
And so as I must with the gospel, I am becoming more habituated into receiving. It’s hard, but it’s good. All the remaining plaster patching was done by others. My mom has painted and trimmed for me. My wife is picking up so much slack I cant even name it all. And so many others are lining up to offer a hand. This isn’t about me. That’s what I’m learning. People want to help because they want to receive the sanctifying work of God that comes through a life of service. All of it is about Jesus. All of what we do must point to him. Because he alone is eternal life. He must increase, and I must decrease.
