Don’t Believe in Magic

I want to believe in magic.  I want to believe that if I can do something just the right way, I will make something else happen.  I want to believe that I have some magic words that will bring about the results I desire.  The  bad news is that I have yet to find those magic words, not in life and not in ministry.

We live in a culture where marketing tells us that if we just have this one thing, all of our wildest dreams will come true.  In our sane moments we see through this faulty reasoning.  Typically, however, it seeps into the way we see just about everything.  If we just had this new phone our lives would never experience sorrow again.  If I just buy that devotion book, my faith will never again waver.  If I just buy that curriculum for my students, each student will immediately head out and evangelize an unreached people group.  If I just take my kid to church three times a week, they will never go down the wrong path.

Here’s the bad news: there are no silver bullets.  Not in life.  Not in ministry.  You are not magic, and we can’t buy any magic either.  If you want to get closer to God or more focused on your faith, it will take discipline and consistency as you partner with God to draw near to Him.  If you want to have a meaningful ministry, it will take hard work, and it will take being intentional about creating a culture that creates true discipleship.

If we choose to make our spiritual lives dependent upon a certain spiritual discipline such as a quiet time or Sunday School attendance, we have begun to treat that time as magic.  When we think that if we can just devote those 10 minutes a day then we will grow and achieve that elusive closeness with God, we are mistaken.  What we fail to understand is that a life of faith is just that–a life.  A life of faith is made up of all of the little decisions we make to honor God.  It is a life focused on making God a part of each piece of our day.  It’s a journey, not a set of practices or studies, that changes us over time.

In the same way, if we choose to make our ministry dependent upon a certain program or event, we will inevitably be disappointed in how that one study or one talk fails to do everything that magic would be expected to do.  An effective ministry exists outside of programs and events.  An effective ministry is one where discipleship is happening all of the time.  It’s a movement, not a program, that changes lives over time.

Stop trying to do magic and start partnering with God to bring about change.