On the Way: Ministering in the Moment

By W. David Hager, Neal Hager and Jim Daly

"On the way living" is a learned skill, not an innate ability. Suddenly the homeless person, the prisoner, the addict, the person who argues with you in the grocery store, the disagreeable boss, the customer becomes an opportunity with a chance to intervene and offer life-changing hope, even when they were not your intended destination. When we put into practice "on the way living," we begin to see people differently--not as a threat or inconvenience, but as a mission field with opportunities to allow God to use us to change minds and hearts so they can experience life and peace.

Slow down, open your eyes and ears to see and hear those moments that God places along your path. Read the amazing stories of persons who have witnessed modern-day miracles that happened to themselves and others when they allowed the Holy Spirit to guide them while they were on their way.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Release date: Oct 2, 2023
• ISBN: 9781666782875

W. David Hager

W. David Hager, MD, is an obstetrician/gynecologist in Lexington, Kentucky, with over forty-five years of professional experience caring for patients, teaching, speaking, and writing. He is the author of The Real Truth about Sexually Transmitted Diseases; Stress and the Woman’s Body; and As Jesus Cared for Women Then and Now and editor of Infection Protocols for Obstetrics and Gynecology and The Reproduction Revolution, as well as numerous scientific publications. He has directed recovery groups for over twenty-five years.

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Preface

Ministry isn’t a moment, it’s a movement requiring daily awareness of the opportunities Holy Spirit is placing before you. You don’t need a pulpit to teach or preach.

The biblical statement the Word became flesh and dwelt among us is not just a statement that Jesus came to earth as a human being. We tend to focus on the larger, emphatic moments that stand out in his ministry like mountain top experiences. Sometimes, however it is the smaller moments in between where we find him diving into the trials and tribulations of humanity. Jesus was just as concerned about the journey from one teaching to the next as he was about the message he would deliver at a destination. On the way is a glimpse into the in between moments in the life of Jesus. Here, we're reminded of just how aware he was of the connection between the everyday needs of the people around him and the ultimate calling of his ministry of salvation. It is also a personal description of how on the way opportunities have occurred in our lives and those we have been in relationship with.

How narrow has our view of evangelism become? We focus on church, Bible studies, small groups, teaching sessions, etc. In our day-to-day lives, we set alarms, establish schedules, check phones, review calendars, hurry from one meeting to another, always wondering when our next break will come. We leave our jobs with an empty emotional tank dreading even the drive home, knowing we may have nothing left to give the family we work to support. We're so locked in to our daily tasks, we may never notice opportunities for service and ministry that exist all around us.

Is this really how Jesus functioned on a day-to-day basis in his life and ministry? I’ve heard many pastors ask, Was Jesus so earthly minded he was no heavenly good? (paraphrased) Of course not. If the purpose of life is as Eph 2:10 says,

It is God himself who has made us what we are and given us new lives from Christ Jesus; and long ages ago he planned that we should spend lives helping others. (TLB)

Are we living out newness of life? Can you count on one or even two hands the things God planned for you long ago to do for others that have been fulfilled?

Using Jesus' example, is it possible for us to revolutionize our ways of going into the entire world and proclaim the gospel to those who desperately need hope, redemption, restoration, and salvation? Jesus called a group of twelve together and not only taught them about His Father but also showed them daily what on the way living looked like. He taught them to be prepared for any and every encounter by fasting, praying and listening to his instructions, but even then, they often seemed unprepared to serve in the spur of the moment. We must be prepared but also available to reach out and serve. We should be on the road but ready to take a detour at any moment; devoted to the cause without neglecting to love our neighbor as ourselves.

The life and miracles of Jesus are more than forty days in the wilderness, the Sermon on The Mount or even an afternoon on Golgotha. Those culminating events, while crucial to the faith, are the touchstones of a DAILY ministry and unique ability to see and participate in the everyday movement of Holy Spirit on the way to each destination. This book is a testimony challenging the believer to discover and participate in that same day-to-day work with Holy Spirit.

Chapter 1

A Chance Encounter—Divinely Appointed

It’s strange to find yourself in a place with God where he can’t give you anything you ask for. You feel frustrated as you examine your heart and motives. You shake your fist as he continues to love you too much to say yes. We look around at a world in need and long to do something about it, but we fail to see the internal work God is calling us to so we won’t get eaten alive in the process. I was fifty-five years old when this reality settled in on me. In so much of my life I had cultivated a discipline and a work ethic that led to success, but I couldn’t minister effectively to the very people I loved the most. I was received by total strangers as an expert and relied on to make key decisions on difficult issues, but I was little prepared for the night of February 3, 2002.

My son and his fiancé sat with me and watched the Rams and the Patriots gut it out in the Super Bowl that night. Halfway through the game, with the leftovers from dinner still cooling on the plate, my wife returned from a weekend trip. I did it guys! Unsure of what she meant we turned the TV down and listened with interest. I drove myself there and back on my weekend trip and never had to stop once. While this may seem like a routine accomplishment, it was a big, and somewhat troubling, step for her as she suffered from a sleeping disorder that made driving very risky, if not impossible. As she would go on to expound on her newfound courage, she would explain to us she was leaving. Not for another trip; this time she was leaving me. She reminded me, as she had before, that my failing to deal with my core issues was crushing us and, in the process, her. We would be divorced in less than six months, she quickly remarried, and my world began to cave in around me. Job 1:21-22 says,

Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away." (KJV)

I never before felt the harsh reality settle in on me like I did that night. Watching my son process as he was about to embark on his own journey with his soon to be wife, feeling my own failures and the Lord’s fire of purification as it so painfully ignited in my gut and my soul. What I spent years neglecting in my walk with The Lord, culminated that night in her leaving. I didn’t know it at the time, but that was the catalyst that started me on the way to my moment at the well with Jesus.

The story in the fourth chapter of John, is one of my favorite encounters Jesus had. It speaks to me because of similarities in my own life. Now this encounter was with a woman, not a man, but her search for the drink that truly satisfies is one I could identify with as well.

John 4:1–42

Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John— although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.

Now he had to go through Samaria. So, he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, Will you give me a drink? (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

The Samaritan woman said to him, You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink? (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)

Jesus answered her, If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.

Sir, the woman said, you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?

Jesus answered, Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

The woman said to him, Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.

He told her, Go, call your husband and come back.

I have no husband, she replied.

Jesus said to her, You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.

Sir, the woman said, I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.

Jesus declared, Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.

The woman said, I know that Messiah (called Christ) is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us."

Then Jesus declared, I, the one speaking to you—I am he.

Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, What do you want? or Why are you talking with her?

Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah? They came out of the town and made their way toward him.

Meanwhile his disciples urged him, Rabbi, eat something. But he said to them, I have food to eat that you know nothing about. Then his disciples said to each other, Could someone have brought him food?

My food, said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Even now the