Planning or Pastoring?

Is planning for me?

I find it interesting but in the midst of studying for my planning law midterm, I have to stop and think for a few minutes. This is all very interesting, very important and I could go into great detail but the issue is the same as it is with most every job, career, etc. Even if we manage to do great things in the name of this world, the result will still be the same - at the end of the ages it will all burn. Everything in this world is meaningless!

In contrast, the things that matter are the concerns of God - helping the suffering, the lost, the least, the lonely, the maimed, the widows and orphans, etc. Their plight is a foreshadowing of the end of the time. This world will eventually die, we will die. There is one way out of this and it is the thing of most significance. It is the miracle of salvation, accessible to all through faith in Jesus Christ! knowing this truth, shouldn't I do everything I can to advance the Gospel? Maybe planning is how God will use me to do this but I long for more... (below)

Of course, if I placed all of my stock into my study or my career, certainly people could be helped and certainly plight could be improved all things working out to the best. The more I study planning, the more seldom this seems to happen but who knows, maybe something I will do will really help people. Think of the impact of one of the earliest planners - Joseph. After prophetically hearing from God of a coming famine, he planned to have the country increase production and store it so that the country (and region) would survive seven years of drought and famine! Certainly this was important!

In today's capitalistic society with occupational specialization of the workforce, (training us to be machines and experts, etc.) there is seemingly little room for people like me with a variety of interests, let alone a dualism. The problem (if it really is a problem) is that I think it's safe to say that I'd rather be a pastor than a planner if the following things could be true:

1. I'd be certain that I could pay off my debt and make a living being a pastor... or otherwise being a pastor and have a career on the side (if this is possible in our society). This boils down to a fear of a lack of God's provision.

2. I'd be able to trust that if I got education in this field, I'd be able to use it. This is a fear that I'd be wasting time if I wasn't to use the education I'd be paying for and spending time on.

3. That I would be permanently rejected as a pastor (or believer) because of something I'd do, say, think, etc. This is a fear of rejection.


Does this lead me to drop out of school? No, but it's hard to consider the effect of being in school forever because I feel like I should live each day as if it's my last and that Jesus is coming.... If I really believed this, I'd live my life very differently but just because I don't live my life differently doesn't mean that I shouldn't. The point being that I have to keep Jesus central in my life - no career, education, person, relationship, wife, parent, friend, government, or anything else should come between me and God. Additionally and most importantly, no idol, no demon, no power on heaven or on earth can or should separate me from God! Regardless of my career - planner or pastor or anything else, I am a follower of my savior Jesus Christ first and foremost! I can never forget this (or to live like this)!

The laborers are always going to be few and there are always going to be planning problems to solve - the micro-econ phrases come back to me... "we live in an environment of scarcity." The question becomes do I become a laborer to help advance solid planning and help people for the time being or do I work to be a laborer for the Gospel, become a fisher of men and work to help people seek and find their Father and worship him for Eternity! Certainly I can help share Jesus with people where ever I work but there is something going on in the church these days that requires God to move and requires people who want to be used by God to help make it all happen.

This is the age of broken city walls, an age where God is calling Nehemiahs to rebuild the temple, rebuild the church and help stymie the rise of a Godless Western Civilization. If America become post-Christian, many will suffer, many will die. If there's any greater cause to help end the reign of tyranny and evil that is materialism and secular humanism as it enslaves people to a hopeless existence, I don't know it yet. Someone must carry the banner high, someone must persevere, we need pastors and men of God and I want to be one of those people - with or without the call to explicitly be a pastor.

I've had dreams about being persecuted and going to prison for my faith and my role in actively spreading it - in being a paul. There's a peace about this because I know that in whatever suffering I experience, Christ will be with me, even in prison God forbid. Certainly if I would be willing to go to prison, I'd be willing to live in poverty? in debt? in the realization that God loves me for who I am - my life is an open book to him and he will help me in my current and future plight. Any rejection will be met by a Father with his arms open to me — I've got to believe all of these truths and be comfortable in the nature of the God I love and follow. We believe in a Good God! He will provide provision for those who he has called, we must have faith!