The Apostle's Heart
Letting go. Let’s just face the fact, us apostles are just not very good at this at all! Pray tell why is it that this ministry is littered with shifting of relationships, only for the Father to give us a heart that clings to every single person that He brings to find rest under our wings?
If you don’t understand this particular price of the apostolic call, you can quickly become jaded. You can quickly give into disappointment or even worse… bitterness. So how then, do you handle that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach that is always accompanied with relationship disappointments?
You might not like my answer. Has it ever occurred to you, to just sit there and feel bad for a while? We are so quick to want those terrible feelings to go away. We want the hurts healed and that horrible knot to get buried. I came to realize early in ministry that it was my ability to be disappointed and hurt, that gave me the love I needed for God’s people.
Look at a dominating leader and I will show you someone that could not handle the hurt any more. I will show you someone that faced so many hits that they threw up their hands and gave up. They erected their own shield to protect themselves. Bad move. Your heart becomes closed and the further you rise up in ministry, your circle becomes smaller and smaller. To protect yourself of course…
Thing is apostle… isn’t Jesus supposed to be your protector? Isn’t the Holy Spirit meant to be the hedge of protection around our hearts? And then - why do you think we hurt so bad? It’s so that we can heal others so much. it’s because we cry so hard, that we can mend others.
When you shield your heart behind anger, justification and fear, you shut God out. You shut the revelation out. You close the door to the anointing. The power of God is designed to flow outwards and it cannot flow out of a heart that no longer desires to take the risk to love.
I don’t judge you - every single time I am hurt or disappointed in ministry, the temptation rises up out of me to run into a corner and hide away. I want to just “cut that person off” and pretend that they never meant as much to me as they really did. I want to convince myself that I “didn’t need them anyway.”
Sounds pretty reasonable… until you realize that this thinking is based on worldly standards that teaches us to “love ourselves first before others.” No guys, the Lord calls us to lay our lives down for others, just like Jesus did.
Colette Toach
www.toach-ministries.com
That means hurting and pushing through. It means allowing the Holy Spirit to heal you and protect you. And yes, it means standing up to minister feeling broken and alone. It means feeling terrible and knowing that it is in your deepest moment of distress that you will find the hand of the Lord Jesus, standing ready to minister to you.
Being an apostle does not protect us from the arrows that are aimed at our backs. It does not mean we suddenly can just “handle” what others do to us. Rather, it is because of the process God has taken us through, that we are equipped to stand up again in the power of God. To once again, step out, brave the cold waters and be used of God.
So get up apostle. You got this. You will rise up, stronger, healed and with a new anointing.
