By Michael Milton | President and the James M. Baird Jr. Professor of Pastoral Theology at Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte, North Carolina.
John 21:1-22(This message was delivered to chaplains and spouses on spiritual retreat at The Cove.)
We all love to beat up on Peter. He is unbridled, braggadocios, embarrassingly bold and at times violent. He is also a man who was greatly used of God: to preach at Pentecost, to lead the Church at Jerusalem, to minister to the Church at Rome, to minister to suffering saints in Asia Minor.
In other words, he is like us. He leans on self to minister at times and then has to turn again—or even be turned by Paul—to lean on grace. He is just a preacher.
My friend is a chaplain who has been deployed twice in three years—a husband, father and godly man. He never fails to listen to the soldier who drops in to talk about a family matter, job matter or to just chat about a ball game. He is the kind of chaplain who sees ministry just beneath the surface of the old master sergeant who wants to talk about the Monday night football game or laugh with the first lieutenant as he recounts his nervousness on his first Thanksgiving with his fiancé's family. He is a good chaplain, but he is wondering about God's call on his life.
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"What is God doing in my life, in my ministry? I just don't know." This question swirled around in his thoughts.
I think that if we admit it, we can identify with him on some level. We all at one time or another have a Gethsemane moment when the pressures and the realities of the ministry to which we are called collide with the people we know ourselves to be.
Sometimes it happens when friends are killed and we are spared. Sometimes it happens when we do our best and get bad OERs (Officer Evaluation Report). Sometimes it is when we are at our best and get a bad MRI.
"What is God doing in my life, in my ministry?" We, too, say, "I just don't know."
I would say that "poor-in-spirit" is not a bad place to be; it's a good place to be. It is a place where God can use us in even greater ways. There are things—gospel things, sacred-encounter things—that must happen in order to hear God's answer to our dark-night-of-the-soul plea for understanding.
Where do we turn? Look at the account of Peter's renewal and re-commissioning by Jesus in
John 21:1-22.
John is a gospel storyteller. He is the one we always point to when we are witnessing to someone who needs the Lord, right? "Just read a little bit of John every night before bed." We know that God's Word doesn't return void, and we know John always will deliver. For John's purpose statement in his gospel is clear:
"But these things are written so you may believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name" (John 20:31).
