As I do each spring, I will be away from our church for 3-4 days working with our Horizon Texas Conference’s Board of Ordained Ministry. About 45 of us are charged with the responsibility of evaluating candidates called to ordained ministry as either Deacons or Elders.

Before we interview them for over two hours, we read and evaluate 50-60 pages of written responses that each candidate provides. It covers (just to name a few):

their call to ministry;
living to the highest ideals of the Christian faith;
their understanding of United Methodist polity (organization);
the nature of the sacraments;
the nature of God and the nature of evil;
and their understanding of atonement (what happened on the cross)

To be sure, the candidates feel thoroughly tested. At the end of the interviews and much discussion, our Board votes to either endorse the candidate or continue them for another year where they have opportunity to work on growing edges of their work, understanding and ministry.

It can be rigorous, as it should be.

Jesus was clear that to follow him meant taking up a cross. For him, that was literal. For us, that call can be metaphorical. It’s what the 40 days of Lent afford us: the opportunity to be tested in what we think, what we feel and what we practice.

Some of that falls short of the mark because of our sin – our predisposition to think we have a better idea and way of living than God has. This was the temptation Jesus experienced in the desert: to trust his own provision, his own power, his own headlines. But in each instance, he was clear that God’s way and God’s glory were fundamentally more important than his own. So, in his fasting, in his praying and in his thinking, he kept God first before all things.

That is love.

What if we were to open the fullness of our lives to God’s evaluation – all of ourselves instead of just the parts we cherry-pick (as though God doesn’t already see or know of the rest)? What if, like our candidates for ministry, we aspired to live up to the highest ideals of the Christian life? And what if Jesus were to walk with us as he evaluates our efforts?

That is the opportunity given to us during Lent: to be tested, but also to be accompanied by the Christ “who has been tempted in every way, just as we are” (Hebrews 4:15).

So that by Easter, we may be striving more fully to live the highest ideals of the Christian life for the sake of the world Jesus came to redeem.

With you in the walk,

Being Tested

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

A Steady Word in a Season of Change