Unfortunately, it is also not uncommon for me to feel like a
child in ministry, and it’s not because I am being silly and there is nothing fun
about it. I began full time work in student ministry over a year ago, but it
still feels like I just started yesterday. I am often overwhelmed by the weight
of ministering to students with God’s word, managing relationships in the church,
and balancing ministry and family life simultaneously. But I have noticed that
certain things get easier as I get more experience doing them. So I often think
that all I need is more experience to make me more mature and therefore more
competent in ministry.
That way of thinking is gently rebuked by this paragraph
from Paul Tripp:
“There is a critical difference between
street-level wisdom gained from experience and spiritual maturity. You may know
what's going to happen next, but you may not deal well with these circumstances
because you lack maturity. If all we needed for maturity was experience, we'd
know a lot more mature people, and Jesus would not have needed to come.
Experience will teach you some things, but it has no power to make you holy.
Sadly, when you let experience deceive you, you quit being committed to change,
because you don't think it's needed.”
Experience can be a very good teacher.
It has the power to teach me some things in the work of the ministry. But I
need to remember that it has no power to make me holy.
God help me not to be deceived by
experience. Don’t let me be snared by the trap of maturity based on my
experience. Give me a desire to grow in holiness and therefore a desire to be
committed to change for the rest of my life. Let experience be my teacher; let
it not be the basis of my spiritual maturity. May it ever be that even as I
grow in experience, the mark of my spiritual maturity would be to think of
myself exactly as I ought—a man condemned apart from grace; but by grace, set
free to change no matter how much experience I may obtain.
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