Listen Up

We, in the ministry, can be so fickle. When someone "rises to the top", everyone wants them. I can understand someone fresh out of college, or maybe someone who is just starting out, or just had a major life-changing event. These people are either "new" or have a "new" message. But what about the hidden? How can there be someone who struggles in the ministry as an unknown for years, and then like a rocket, burst through the atmosphere to a place where the majority want them? Did they wake up that morning a new person? What made them so immediately attractive?

Have many of us become infatuated with image over truth? Maybe many think the next "hot" thing will change our churches. Truth will change us. "You will know the truth and the truth will set you free." Or is truth limited by the vessel's popularity. I have nothing against momentum, ministers or even programs that have that special anointing. But are we limiting ourselves, selling ourselves short by only utilizing the current hot trend, fad or person? It appears to me that Jesus used not only the ordinary, but the invisible and broken too (I Cor. 1:26-29). If God chooses the "foolish things" and the "things that are not", why aren't we? How many of God's messengers are hiding in the bushes? They are not professional ministers. They're not hot or have the current mojo or momentum. They're just regular, overlooked fishermen.

From what I've noticed, God often changes the world by giving His message out first. And that message so often goes to the unexpected and unnoticed. That shouldn't surprise us since God rarely seems to do things the way we think He should.

Now, when I say "message", I'm not talking about a sermon. I'm talking about a voice, just as John the Baptist was "a voice crying out in the wilderness". Note a few things here. First John is crying out....I've spoken with so many frustrated voices over the last several years. They are all saying the same thing....interesting. They are frustrated because they believe God has spoken to them, but they have no platform, venue or authority to share it from so "like a fire shut up in their bones" it cries out.

Notice also that his voice cries out in the wilderness. Probably because the voice would never be tolerated in town. Could you imagine John the Baptist sharing in your cul de sac? I believe God still gives His voice out but we need to look for it. "If you seek Me, you will find Me, if you search with your whole heart." And we'll probably find it in the wilderness, not in the town square. I believe we will find his voice inside smelly fisherman, little children or in those unpopular, unnoticed ones.

However, for one to hear AND accept the voice/message from a child or someone further down the food chain or pecking list, it takes a lot of ego swallowing and humility. And maybe, just maybe, those are the ones God wants hearing, carrying and becoming His voice.