This Sunday I’ll participate in my dad’s final appreciation banquet, thanking all the people who have supported his ministry with RBM for over 45 years.
There are approximately 600 individuals who have signed up to attend, all excited to hear about the past and present ministry of Bob Beery, as well as to hear the plan for the future.
My dad is retiring next year, and that means that the network accessing 30 public schools, which he has worked so hard to build, will soon disappear unless a replacement is found for him.
This predicament reminds me of the words of Qohelet, the wise teacher of Ecclesiastes. It just so happens that I’m teaching on this wisdom book Sunday night after my dad’s banquet.
“So I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors under the sun, because sometimes a person who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun? For all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation. Even in the night his heart does not rest. This also is vanity.”
– Ecclesiastes 2:20-23
Whether or not a replacement is found for my dad remains to be seen. And even if a replacement is found, there’s a pretty good chance that this person will do at least some parts of the ministry differently than my dad has done ministry for the past 45 years.
All of this is hevel, hevel, hevel (Hebrew for “vapor”), and it may lead some of us to worry and anxiety.
But when we come to adopt a posture of total trust in God, it frees us to enjoy our lives as we actually experience them, not as we hope them to be.
Ministries like RBM come and go as the Lord sees fit.
Perhaps my dad’s network of churches and schools will remain intact for the next servant whom God will use for the next 45 years. Perhaps this network will fizzle out and disappear.
Whatever may be the case, we must act in prayer and wisdom to do what we deem best while trusting completely that God ultimately knows best.