"I am the one Jesus loves” is a Simple Statement of Identity and Relief
Water seeks its own level, and kingdoms rise to the level of the king. Churches grow best when led by undisturbed leaders.
John wrote, “Peter turned around and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them—the one who also had leaned back on His chest at the supper” (John 21:20).
Recently I was asked in an interview, “What do you think God’s plans are for you now?” It was almost two years since the election loss, when my term as Prime Minister had concluded. After more than 16 years in parliament, including nine in Cabinet and four as PM, I had formally retired from politics.
I was now working in the private sector and had just released my Christian memoir, Plans for Your Good. I think the interviewer expected me to reveal some new ordained vocational calling. Some grand divine appointment. I answered by saying the first thing that came into my head. I had been praying earlier that morning that the Lord would guide me in that interview, as I often did when I was in politics. My answer was simple. I said, “He plans to love me.”
When I was younger, I had plans to go to seminary and train to be a pastor or Bible teacher. Things didn’t work out that way. Politicians are often frustrated journalists, entrepreneurs, or even clergy. God had other plans. So did my father.
The path I ended up on took me to the pinnacle of Australian politics during the most challenging time we had faced as a nation since the Second World War. Pandemic, recession, drought, wildfires, floods, and a rising and aggressive China, threatening us and trying to break our resolve. We stood firm. Throughout these times God sustained me, strengthened me, and enabled me to give the job my very best.
In these types of roles, it is easy to get carried away and start believing that somehow there is a greater sense of mission and calling on your life other than “Christian.” After all, you’re leading a country. This is vanity. I suspect pastors can sometimes feel like this. Sure, the work we may be doing is important, and the lives of many people may depend on you. However, I learned that while serving in such a role was a great privilege, the work was not mine, it was God’s. God could raise anyone up to do what I was doing. My role in this was to just be faithful and obedient. To seek Him, to love Him, to be sensitive to His Spirit. The work was His to accomplish, not mine.
I have no doubt that pastors get incredibly frustrated.
Breakthroughs don’t come. You’re waiting longer than you think you should have to. Projects and initiatives fail. The society around is more secular by the day. You may wonder what difference you are really making. There are grumblings in your congregation, and even leadership, that attendances have slipped. You are exhausted, it all seems to come down to you.
You think to yourself, what on earth is going on? Why is God not blessing the works of my hands (Psalm 90:17)? When is He going to show up? Does He not understand that time is slipping away?
I often felt like this in different ways. Without realizing it, and in good faith, our frustrations reveal that we subconsciously think we have a far better way to advance God’s Kingdom than He does.
When I put it like this, it sounds quite absurd. But we shouldn’t beat ourselves up. It’s quite human and understandable to find ourselves in that position. After all, we’re the ones dealing with it every day. We’re the ones putting up with the criticisms, disappointment, complaints, and the setbacks. We’re the ones doing the call outs, attending meetings, and answering our phone when we’re supposed to be spending time with our family. This takes a toll.
Most significantly, it feels like we’re the only ones who really seem to be taking responsibility for everything. So we take the outcomes personally, especially when things don’t pan out the way we expect.
When I lost the election, I felt I had let God down. Over time, God showed me this was silly. It was just simply time for that season to end and a new one to begin.
The problem is, we get so caught up in all that we are doing that we look past a fundamental point, that we know to be true. If we’re honest with ourselves, the true source of our frustration is that we feel God is not blessing “our” plans for our good, rather than simply trusting that God’s plans are for our good.
All He asks for is our faithfulness, love and obedience. He is the one who is sovereign over the outcomes. It is for Him to accomplish the works. We just have to be willing children and servants in His Kingdom.
So don’t beat yourself up. It’s a typical human response. God gets it that we’re human. How many times have you counselled people with that same advice?
A big part of coming to peace with this is getting what we do in perspective, and taking some of the pressure off.
I love how the apostle John refers to himself as the disciple Jesus loved. In his gospel account he is very careful not to make a big note himself. Of course he was not the only disciple Jesus loved, but that is how John saw himself.
John found his identity, his security, and responsibility in the love of God, and reciprocating in kind. He lived his life as a love letter to God. He saw his life and faith in the context of his personal relationship with his loving God.
Where others may have seen themselves as leaders, apostles, deacons, teachers, John simply saw himself in the context of God’s love for him. He understood what Paul would later write to the Corinthians, that, “above all these things are faith, hope and love.”
You are not what you do, a wise pastor once told me.
But nor are you what you are called to do.
You are the one Jesus loved and transformed your life and as a result of his grace, allows you to participate in His great purposes and plans, that He will accomplish.
His plans are for your good, not your harm, and to give you a future and a hope.
And what are those plans…? To love you.
What could be better than that? His love never fails.
Let’s discover how we can access and see the many blessings of God in our own lives, no matter our circumstances, drawing on Jeremiah 29:11, that God's plans are for our good and not our harm, to give us a future and a hope.
