Laid Aside

Yesterday in worship, we prayed again the Wesleyan Covenant Prayer. I’ve prayed this prayer every year at New Year’s for many years, and every year it is a powerful and humbling experience. But yesterday, as we prayed it together, one phrase jumped out at me. John Wesley dared to ask the early Methodists, and us still today, to pray this radical phrase: “Let me be employed for thee or laid aside for thee.”

In other words—use me, Lord, if you want to, but I’m also content to sit on the edge, out of the spotlight.

How many of us can really pray that?

All the time, we hear so-called Christian “leaders” (which ought to be the subject of another blog) who issue calls to prayer: “Lord, help me do something significant for your kingdom.” We all want to do just that: to do something that will make a real difference for Christ. We may even (though we would deny it if asked) want to be noticed, heard, appreciated. We want to do something big—but have we asked God if that’s what he wants us to do right now?

What if God asked you…me…us…to step aside for a while? What if God’s plan for me involves waiting and being quiet? What if God’s plan and my plan don’t line up? Am I really willing to pray this prayer? “Let me be employed for thee or laid aside for thee…” Whichever you choose, God.

Paul knew this kind of waiting. After his conversion, he left and went into the wilderness, where he spent somewhere around three years in prayer and preparation. We can’t say Paul was doing something significant during those three years—and church growth experts would say that it was three years wasted. But was it? Not at all, because God had called Paul to be “laid aside.”

God was still at work in Paul’s life then, and in Abraham during his twenty-five years of waiting, in Joseph’s twenty years of work in Egypt, in Moses’ forty years wandering in the wilderness…and in Jesus’ thirty years of growing up. Wasted time? Not at all—not when God has called you to wait.

Let me be employed for thee or laid aside for thee.

Can you pray that prayer, knowing that someone else might get the “glory” you believe you deserve? When God calls you to wait, are you willing to wait?