COUNT IT ALL JOY!!

I hope all is going well with you and yours today, Beloved. Whatever is going on in your life, this is something important to remember:

"But not only that! We even take pride in our problems, because we know that trouble produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope." [Romans 5:3-4 (CEB)]

It goes along with a passage from James that says "Count it all joy . . "--

"Profiting from Trials

'My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.'" [James 1:2-8 (NKJV)]

After almost a whole year when I was first in ministry serving three rural churches in the eastern panhandle of West Virginia, I was exhausted from fighting a severe allergy to mold. The parsonage I lived in had pollution in the well water from an overflowing septic field that was in a neighbor's yard. And the dirt basement of the parsonage was sometimes flooded as well.

The cool air from the basement was drawn up throughout the house by a big powerful fan in the attic. It was an old fashioned, but tried and true method of keeping houses cool in the summer before the days of modern air conditioning.

The reaction to the mold brings migraines, upper respiratory infections, asthma, and the kind of zoominess that causes lack of sleep. I felt like I had had about seven cups of coffee before even getting out of bed. Did you know that caffeine on coffee beans and tea leaves is cause by mold growing on the beans and leaves. Decaf comes from either not allowing the mold to grow or by rinsing the beans or leaves in bleach or some other substance that kills the mold.

Anyway, sometime in early May when I had been serving the three point charge for about ten months, I kept hearing the Lord say, "Count it all joy. . ."

I knew it was a Bible passage, but I was in such a snit with the Lord because I was tired and upset about being sick and exhausted because of the house. So it took about three weeks to actually look up the passage, and I was only more irritated.

I gave the Lord a really hard time about it, telling Him that I was doing my best but didn't see why I would be so sick and no one seemed to want to help me with it.

That wasn't true. The parishioners were doing what they could to help me, and it wasn't until I had the allergy shots that I really knew what was wrong.

I questioned my call to ministry.

I complained about being a pastor in a rural parish when I had been in the Urban Ministry Track at my seminary and felt much more called to the people in the city.

I fussed at the Lord because my plans were to quietly serve my first charge until I was an ordained Elder and then apply to the Board of Global Ministries to be in mission in the former Soviet Union.

I even asked the Lord if He really knew where I was and that I had skills and experience, gifts and graces that were not very useful at all where I was placed.

The scripture passage kept coming to mind, though, and the Holy Spirit seemed very insistent about it.

In addition, I kept having a dream that a man from Russia was telling me that the United Methodist pastors and people needed help to get the people from the US involved in the Board of Global Ministries understand what the former Soviets wanted and needed instead of just giving them what they thought was lacking. It was a dream kind of like the story St. Paul describes when the Macedonian is telling him that they need Paul to come and talk to them about the Lord.

(Any time a dream includes some kind of reference to an apostle or a prophet, it makes me very leery . . . the Lord can be soooo demanding. Nevertheles, He always comes through and gives us what we need for whatever it is He is asking us to do. And instead of operating out of our own energy and intellect, it is always better to allow the Holy Spirit to have His own way. Often I need His help to get out of His way, however,)

In my experience whenever I ask the Holy Spirit a direct question, He always finds a way to answer me. Maybe not when I want an answer, and maybe not the answer I want or expect, but He always makes it clear.

So when I attended my first annual conference as an ordained deacon I wanted the answers to three questions:

1. Lord,do you know where I am and what I am doing?

2. Did you really call me to ordained ministry, Abba?

3. Are you going to use my Russian language skills and experience in ministry if I am really called?

By the time of the Saturday evening dinner, the Lord had answered me in no uncertain terms. That came in two ways.

The first was that because I happened to be standing in a certain place at a particular time, I learned that one of the first people to be ordained as a United Methodist Minister in the Eurasian region of the former Soviet Union was visiting the annual conference with his wife, his son and a young man who was like a nephew to them.

When I overheard the conversation about their visit, I mentioned that I could help as an escort-interpreter if there was a need. The man who had been talking about them said it wasn't necessary and dashed away to rejoin the Russian pastor.

In those days I always roomed with one of my best friends from Seminary who had been my neighbor in the seminary apartments for students with families. She had left our room before I woke up since she had a breakfast meeting with her co-pastors and some parishioners.

I left the area where I heard about the visiting Russian pastor and went to look for my friend to touch base with her.

Lo and behold, she was standing with a group of people who were conversing with the Russian pastor and his family. The congregation my friend was serving had sponsored the Russian pastor and brought them to the annual conference.

Upon joining the conversation, I spoke to the Russians in their own language and ended up being asked by the senior pastor to stay with the Russians throughout the day. I gladly accepted and ended up not only being invited to a luncheon they attended with our new bishop, but also translated for the Russian pastor when he addressed all the clergy and lay members at the conference --nearly 1000 people.

So I was convinced that the Lord knew where I was and that He did intend that I use my Russian language skills for His Glory.

By the end of the evening, the Lord also made it completely clear that He had called me to ministry and anointed me. At the Saturday evening banquet I sat with my friend who was my roommate. At out table were also her parents who are ministers as well.

After dinner, the main speaker was a retired bishop from the midwest. He gave a very stirring speech against racism and the responsibility we had as pastors and believers in the Lord to work harder against the prejudice and bigotry that affected so many lives in such awful ways.

He also lifted up the importance of being in mission in Africa and in other areas of the world that needed the full Gospel not only to be preached, but to be acted out. He told a story that illustrated how deeply important being the hands and feet of the Lord -- as well as living out what is important to His heart is.

When the bishop had visited Liberia toward the end of the civil war that had raged there in the late '80s and early 90's, he was taken to the Methodist mission compound not far from Monrovia, the nation's capital. He said that while he was being shown around, he was brought to the cemetery and shown an unusual grave marker. The sign said that the heart of a missionary woman was buried there, though her body was interred back in the United States. While serving there, the woman had died of an ailment that she most likely would have survived if she had been in the U.S. or had been transported there in time.

Before she passed away, she told her husband that she wanted her heart to be buried in Liberia because she loved the people there so much.

This was a touching story and the bishop was visibly moved during his re-telling of it.

But the amazing thing for me was that on this night before the first anniversary of my ordination as a pastor, the bishop was telling the same story I had heard the night before I had answered my call to ministry ten years earlier. And on that night ten years before, the story had been told by the husband of the woman whose heart was buried on the United Methodist Mission grounds in Liberia.

He was the lead Spiritual Director when I was on my Cursillo weekend in Cocoa, Florida. The afternoon after he told the story of his family's missionary work in Liberia, I felt led to announce that I was answering the call to ministry the Lord had placed on my heart when I was six years old.

Needless to say, I was awed and amazed. That was perhaps the most powerful way the Holy Spirit had answered questions I had put out to Him up until that time.

So . . . if you are having a rough time, please take a moment and deliberately ask the Lord to help you understand why. Ask Him to sustain you and to deliver you from whatever is difficult. Tell Him you know He will use it for good.

Even if you are not sure any of that is true, please ask Him to help you believe it and to help you receive the gifts of faith and hope to see you through. Please ask Him to show you how much He loves you and that He indeed has good plans for you.

I promise He will find a way to sustain you, to deliver you, and to make the good plans He has for you to come true. You only have to open the door to your heart a little way. You only have to have the smallest little bit of faith -- even if your doubts and questions seem huge and overwhelming.

They can't overwhelm the Lord.

And He soooooo wants you to be able to trust Him so that you can receive His love and blessings.

Whatever you are going through, won't you please take a moment to give Him a chance to help you and to prove to you that He exists? To prove to you that He loves you? To prove to you that you can count on Him? To prove to you that He will provide for you, to guard you, to guide you and to protect you.

God is faithful and God is completely good. He is able to do so much more than we can even think to ask. He loves you more than you can imagine and has very wonderful amazing plans for you.

Please give Him a chance to show you.

I tell you all this and pray for you in the Name of the Father, our Abba; the Son, our sweet Lord Jesus; and the Holy Spirit, our Comforter and powerful Companion.

Alleluia!! Amen and Amen.