Dear Friends,
As the year 2005 comes to a close, we look forward to the holidays and festivities that will crowd into these last weeks of the year. As we think of the gifts we will give to those we love, I would like to challenge each one of us as ministry wives. Will you give another ministry family the gift of your prayers? Will you add to your prayer list a fellow pastoral family and pray for them every day? You might choose those you know personally within your own conference or you might just glance through the world Yearbook and choose a name from far away that you don't know. Either way, God does and will honor your prayers for them. As ministry families we first need the Lord, but we also most desperately need the support and fellowship of each other. Jesus is the only answer to the attacks or Satan, and our prayers invite His protection.
One of my favorite writers made this statement:
'The ministry is one of the most perilous of professions. The devil hates the Spirit-filled minister with an intensity second only to that which he feels for Christ Himself. The source of this hatred is not difficult to discover. An effective, Christ-like minister is a constant embarrassment to the devil, a threat to his dominion, a rebuttal of his best arguments and a dogged reminder of his coming overthrow. No wonder he hates him. Satan knows that the downfall of a prophet of God is a strategic victory for him, so he rests not day or night devising hidden snares and deadfalls for the ministry. Perhaps a better figure would be the poison dart that only paralyzes its victim, for I think that Satan has little interest in killing the preacher outright. An ineffective, half-alive minister is better advertisement for hell than a good man dead" (A.W. Tozer, God Tells the Man Who Cares, p. 76).
Right now Jesus is waiting to guide us as ministry families through this most perilous profession. As we pray for each other, may God continue to bless us every one.
Sharon