One of the coolest features in the town of Jasper, Indiana is the Jasper City Mill. It is a fully functioning water-powered mill. Sometimes our family would go and admire how it worked. A slow addition of water eventually brings it to a tipping point and within a little time it’s flying fast. And when the wheel starts flying fast then it starts grinding corn and making cornmeal. It’s an amazing thing to watch:
I couldn’t help but think about the nature of pastoral ministry while watching this mill. Just like the water mill, it usually takes a ton of small things combining to get the thing moving. And those little drops are hard work in pastoral ministry. It’s praying at bedsides, having tough conversations, walking through the fire of controversial decisions, and preaching faithful sermons week in and week out. Pastoral ministry is filled with a host of seemingly insignificant things.
Sadly, the wheel doesn’t always spin. Sometimes your faithfulness isn’t tangibly rewarded this side of eternity. You don’t get to sell cornmeal in the gift store. But at other times the wheel starts to spin and you’ve got positive momentum. Every pastor longs for the days when the wheel is turning at lightning speed and you’ve got tangible results.
I wonder if this is why we pray so much for revival. Because times of revival aren’t the times of slow plodding. That’s when the wheel is spinning at full speed and you’re just trying to keep up with its produce. What ministry leader wouldn’t want that?
But in my mind our view of revival is a bit like an empty water wheel that just starts spinning by an unseen hand. I wonder if sometimes my prayer for revival is little more than, “Lord, make my job a lot easier”. Am I praying that God would cause the wheel to spin apart from seasons of faithful plodding? Is my prayer for revival just laziness cloaked in spiritual jargon?
It’s always a sovereign work of God when the wheel starts to spin. But it doesn’t mean that God doesn’t tend to use the means of faithful plodders. Revival usually comes one drip at a time. When we pray for revival we ought to be praying that God would see fit to use our little efforts to bring our gospel work to a tipping point and move the wheel. But even if it doesn’t we are going to keep doing the work of ministry, continue pursuing faithfulness, and leave the work to him.
Our prayers of revival shouldn’t be that God would create something out of nothing. Instead let us pray that perhaps this Sunday the water will fill the basket and it’ll finally move the wheel.
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Photo source: here
