Waist deep in the crap right where God wants me.

...And hearing this, Jesus *said to them, “ It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick; I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” -Mark 2:17

A couple days before I started working with college students I asked God to give me a few guys I could get fired up to really know Jesus and have a strong passion to get out there and spread the Gospel. Not long after God answered that prayer and I met a bunch of them who wanted to have a weekly Bible study. However over the next week or so I started to notice a lot of issues that I didn't like. Some of them had some spiritual ideas that were just odd and not at all Biblical. Some of them had no people skills or self confidence. Some just didn't strike me as being dedicated. So I started to doubt I had the right group and asked God if there was another set of people he had for me to focus on, after all this couldn't be it right? So I prayed about it and God said to me...

"Jim, this is who I've given you to work with."

So I worked with them. They started to grow in faith and maturity. But before I saw a lot of major results It took longer than a few hours. It didn't even take weeks or months but rather it took years!

Going back about six years ago when I was still in Iraq. I remember rushing over to the combat support hospital to see some people I knew who just got blown up by a car bomb. If you have ever been inside a combat support hospital you know what I mean when I say it looks a bit like a butcher shop for humans. There were guys with shrapnel in their eyes and face. Guys with third degree burns all over their bodies. Guys with there insides on the outside. Now just imagine for a second that the medics in this place had prayed something like "Lord these casualties are just too much for me and this couldn't possible be who you want me to work with. Could I leave this place right now to go treat people with head aches and sore throats instead?"

When Matthew 9:36 says, "Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd." It means Jesus saw a spiritual battlefield full of people who were going to die and go to hell without being treated by receiving eternal life through him. He saw people whose lives had been torn apart by satan and needed help!

In Matthew 28 verses 19 and 20 when Jesus says "makes disciples" and "teaching them to observe all that I commanded you" he really meant to get waist deep down in the crap and get your hands dirty.

There is no rock star status in doing the Lords work.

If you are looking for people who are already "up to standard" you are missing the point and really you may just be coping out of doing the Lords work. If you want God to use you to change the world then focus on where the change is needed. Ministry is not about taking already perfect people and transferring them from one Bible study to another or from one church to another but rather bringing life and hope to the dead.

Do you dislike where God has you? Pray about it. God may want to keep you there for a while!