Jesus leaves the best ’til last! We need to remember that when the heat is on, fruit seems hard to come by, the bones are tired, and you perhaps question why you are in ministry at all – whether you are a full-time minister, or a sold-out lay member of a church that brings more trouble than triumph.
Jesus came to a wedding in Cana in Galilee, very early on in his ministry (John 2:1-11). The high expectations and joy of a wedding reflect the kind of expectation many of us enter ministry with: the joy of spending your whole life studying God’s word, shepherding His people, and seeing the gospel come alive in people’s hearts. What could be better than that?
But then you hit a wall. A very hard wall. The honeymoon period ends early, pastoral problems are huge, preaching feels dry as dust, and previously unspoken differences emerge in the leadership about ‘how to do church’. Like wine running out at a wedding, we feel ministry wasn’t meant to be like this. But maybe it is!
