Helping or Hurting?

A few years back, I was having problems with pain in my arches. My wife had encouraged me to go to someone who makes special arches/lifts for the shoes. They measured the pressure points on the bottom of my feet when I was standing and used that as a basis to find supports that would help support and strengthen my arches. There were three levels - the biggest for every day, the middle for exercising, and the smallest for walking around home. I struggled to work my way up to the largest but could never keep it on for long. Over the last couple of months, I could wear that large one for longer periods of time. Progress! Or was it? My knees had been feeling better and was going to be in town for a short time, so I put the biggest ones on. By the time I got home, I was struggling to walk again. What was designed to help might actually be part of my knee problems. My feet may have changed enough that I need to upgrade what I have. Designed to help, but in reality, hurting. Many of you don’t care what my feet are doing... that’s fine. What I wanted to do is paint a picture of ministry. Not everything that we think is good, is necessarily helpful to those around us. If a program or study works well in one church, it doesn’t mean it will work well where I am. The men’s study that I go to every Wednesday morning works well there, but if we tried to split it up and go to two separate places, neither group is guaranteed to be successful. The Holy Spirit has to be a major part of it. We’ve tried several activities at church to try reaching our community that have not worked. Were they a mistake? No. Maybe we didn’t entrust it to God as we should, or the timing was off. Some activities that have happened by accident or we were forced to adjust part of it, has been successful. We want to help, but we need to analyze the results too. Just like my shoe supports needing to be re-examined, we should be constantly looking at how we can improve. What is working well, what needs to go, and what things can we adjust to make them work. We must remember that over it all, it must be covered in prayer. If God is leading, it may start out slow, but God will make it fruitful. Father, we like to think we are in control. Give us ears to hear, a heart to serve, and faith to walk where You lead us. Amen