'Spend Time Doing For' vs 'Spending Time With'
Sometimes when I am the middle of doing ministry work, I catch myself thinking... What the heck am I doing? Does God even want me to do this? I was praying about ministry the other night and this thought crossed my mind again. It feels like God just wants us to spend more time with Him, not doing things for Him.
Then I think about relationships... think about if you have a bf/gf... would you like them to do all these things to express their love for you instead of spending time with you? Say, do your homework, or clean up your room, do your laundry, cook you food, etc... until they don't even have any time to spend with you? Or think of the overworking husband who can provide his family with everything except a father. Do you think we do the same to God? Even more so, he can just snap his fingers and the ministry will be done. He doesn't need us to do it for him. Would He find it more meaningful if we just spent time with him instead? Maybe talking to him?
Sometimes I wonder how it is when we do ministry. Is God there with us enjoying doing ministry together. Is it like when you go bike riding with a friend? Or is He just sitting at home waiting for you to finish? ...
When Jesus was asked, "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?" he replied, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind' - this is the great and foremost commandment, and there is a second like it, 'You shall love your neighbour as yourself'. The whole Law and Prophets hang on these two commands." (Mtt 22:37-40, Mark 12:28-34).
The thing God wants us to do most is to love Him. The golden rule comes second to it and so should ministry. I ask myself what is the ratio of 'time spent with God' to 'time doing for God' for myself? Then looking practically at things, how can we know what God wants us to do if we spend more time doing it than finding out what He wants us to do? Just something to mull over.