thinking about You "removing" leaders....

July 5, 2008

….. I’ve been thinking and wondering about when people who seem to be really strong believers, and/or leaders in the church, suddenly seem to get removed from “ministry/ service” through illness or even death. I know we need to really have faith in God for healing… but sometimes I wonder if He doesn’t take home (or at least remove from “active service” … though sometimes that leads to “prayer service” which can be even more effective, I’m thinking)… anyway, take home people sometimes because the others have had so many opportunities and have spurned God… and so maybe He removes His servants (permanently, through death, or temporarily through illness etc) and allows people to follow their own devices, until they wake up and see where it is taking them… bottoming out… and they haven’t got those “good people” to turn to, to depend on anymore, and so if they really want God, they have to turn to Him, seek Him, themselves… Even in the church, I think God sometimes removes “good, strong leaders” if the rest of the church becomes too dependent on them, instead of coming to know and depend on God themselves… Hmmm… this is something worth looking at in scripture; just off the top of my head I can think of some instances in the Bible where this might have been the case…

Oh, also, sometimes “good servants of the Lord” themselves need to be picked off and isolated and slowed down because they get so involved in “the work” that it becomes “their work” instead of God’s, and/or they begin to put “the work” ahead of their relationship with God, and He has to call them back to Himself… and sometimes maybe the only way He can do that is to let them get too sick to keep on “working” …. I think we really have, far to often, put more emphasis on “the work,” than on our “relationship with God.” God didn’t save us primarily to “work,” but to walk with Him, know Him, love and worship and glorify Him… The “work” that He really desires for each of us, if we are really on that path with Him, will then follow “naturally” and without strain or stress, because it will be led by Holy Spirit who will walk us through it step-by-step, moment-by-moment according to God’s desires (not ours, or what others think is good or ‘right’); and He will empower us and provide whatever else is needed. Something else I need to consider…