Here I Am. Send Me. - 01
It is good to desire to be an elder.
When I first became a Christian, I learned things I never knew before. I had many eureka moments. I was like a little mouse recently born who was beginning to open his eyes. I could see. I was seeing!
Before Christ, my eyes worked fine, but I couldn't see things as they really existed. My mind hardly went beyond the tips of my fingers and the things in front of my nose. Life was the way it was. What you could see and touch is what you had to work with.
Sure, Church and God and the Bible and prayer and Jesus were a part of something we did as a family, but it was simply a closet of the house. We kept it to Sunday mornings, table graces, and nighttime prayers. The house was the rest of the secular world and even out into the cosmos (for which I had little interest and no imagination).
In my childhood, I concluded that the house was so much bigger than one closet. In fact, I didn’t even need to go into the closet to get most of my things done.
But in my college years, after becoming a newborn mouse, I was starting to see it differently. I was beginning to realize that the Church, God, the Bible, prayer and Jesus were the house. Or should I say they were the foundation upon which the whole house stood and was held together.
My point is, I was learning to see things differently. And when a thing became new to me, I immediately wanted to share it with my family and friends. I loved them. What else should I have done?
In the coming pages, I want to dig around on a sentence Paul wrote to Timothy. He wrote:
The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task.1
My hope would be that everyone reading my words would aspire to do noble things for the LORD. Of course, not everyone can become an overseer in the church. The requirements that Paul lists, after the verse above, describe characteristics that can only be recognized in the life over time. Elders should be older.
But that is OK. We’ve all got time. And plenty of other noble tasks to perform while we aspire to someday hold the office.
I reflect as I think back to the start of my Christian walk. Here are a few sobering thoughts for little mice who love God:
It is good when God teaches you things.
It is good to share those things with others.2
It is good to have a heart that wants what is good, even though others might not agree with all that you call good. (And, truth be told, some of those “disagreers” may be other mice from your Church community.)
It is good to learn that some of the things you think God taught you, are not from God. You can be wrong.
It is good to be a humble young man, and old man, though it is difficult.
It is good to grow up over time. To take the necessary time to prove responsible with the things God entrusts to you. To hold down a job. To learn. To make decisions and experience the outcomes of those decisions. To raise a family, God willing. (All of these will help you understand the challenges of micedom.)
It is good to aspire to be an elder, for it is a noble task.
See 1 Timothy 3:1
Paul mentions, in 1 Timothy 3:2, that an elder should be able to teach. So it is a good thing to begin at a younger age. It shows a ready heart and mind.