Cast Your Burden

One certain thing about pastoral ministry on the reservation is that it is not boring. There are many things that need to be done on a regular basis and have an element of consistency to them, such as planning worship and preparing to preach each week. Then there are things that happen less often but have an element of routine to them, such as meetings related to church business or shopping for things needed at church. And then there are the many things that could come up on any given day for which I can be both prepared for and unprepared at the same time. Broadly-speaking I would call these things pastoral care.

I keep a spreadsheet related to pastoral care. There is a page for each year and on that page I track the things I do in pastoral care. Date, person, and a very brief note as to what took place, including what scripture passage I may have used in praying with them. Pastoral care includes visits to the hospital, home and nursing home. It includes conversations with people ringing the parsonage doorbell. It includes counsel and prayer over the phone in the middle of the night. It includes a few other hard-to-label things as well.

This year has been a banner year for pastoral care. According to my spreadsheet I have had more instances of pastoral care so far this year than any year except for last year, and I’m on pace to break last year’s record in about one more month.

More significant than merely the number of contacts I’ve had this year, and last year too, is the nature of things that I have talked and prayed with people about. My predecessor here in Dulce mentored me over my first few months and he said that it would take five years before I had a true sense of this place and the people here, and them of me. Five years. I was skeptical, but he was right. 

In the last four days I’ve spent time with seven different people and in each case found myself talking and praying over things that I never would have been asked about or told of in those first years. And that is where the idea of being both prepared and unprepared comes in. I can rarely anticipate the particulars when someone rings the doorbell but I can seek the Lord each day and ask Him to give me wisdom and guidance as the day unfolds. I’m no one’s savior and I am not an unfailing source of wisdom or peace or strength or whatever else might be needed at any particular time. But I can be used by the Lord Jesus to point people to Him for all of those things, for whatever they might be in need of at the time. Psalm 55:22 says: 

“Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you.”

In whatever you may be struggling with in life, seek the Lord, and know, on the promise of His word, that He will sustain you. Amen.

 

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.