There is something to be said for a ministry of presence.
In our North American culture it is all too easy to think we must be always doing something, accomplishing this, managing that. But what if we don’t?
Trained as a coach one of the most powerful paradigm shifts I came to learn was to consider that just maybe, everything right now, exactly as it is, is just the way it is supposed to be. Just consider for a moment that nothing is wrong. What might that change for you today?
Now, the technical answer is that there are many things wrong in our world. Justice demands that we do in fact enter into everything that has gone wrong and in the name of the Lord set it straight.
At the same time, what if we could do this work in the peace that comes of God having everything in hand, and the knowledge that we are in the exact right place this very minute.
What might that change for you today?
Because of my own journey through immense difficulties, and the subsequent profound presence of the Lord in the midst of them, I learned that everything need not rush to be fixed. I learned that God is in our messes just as much in our cleanness.
Once we have learned this in our own lives. Once we’ve stopped frantically trying to assuage our own comfort, once we’ve ceased from controlling our outcomes we are well equipped to come alongside others in a gift of presence.
Instead of speaking into the matter we can just sit alongside.
Rather than finding ourselves distraught we can hunker down and be a companion.
A friend of mine had cancer a few years back, and my favorite thing to do was to just climb up onto her bed beside her and simply be there with her.
We had such rich times of prayer and whispers and silence.
In many ways, this is the ministry of Capturing Courage around the world. We are climbing in alongside hard and difficult circumstance and simply bringing a ministry of presence.
With rich times of prayer and heart whispers heard by God and profound silence found in his glory.
None of us are the same afterwards, and we are simply so much richer.
For nothing has changed, and yet everything has changed, once we’ve been in the presence of the Lord together.