Cultivating healthy ministry relationships

In his blog posting Tending the Weeds in Your Ministry Relationships , Paul Tripp gives some encouragement on facing your shortcomings and failures in ministry relationships. The closing paragraph is particularly impactful:

You don't have to be afraid of examining your ministry community, no matter how weedy it may be, because God meets you in your difficulty with his amazing grace. And you don't have to deny your failures because your standing before God is not based on your success, but on the perfectly successful life of Christ. So, even in failure, he blesses you with the grace of wisdom, patience, strength, and forgiveness. If you are God's children, it is never just you and your ministry partners, somehow hoping that you can work your way through your problems. No, there is a another Person who inhabits every situation and location of those relationships. He is with you, he is willing, and he is able to come to your aid. In fact, in his grace, he has made you the place where he lives. Perhaps for too long you have let the weeds of sin choke the life out of important ministry relationships. How about standing up and beginning to pull out the weeds? How about believing that, as you do, your Lord of love and mercy will give you just the grace you need at just the moment you need it?

I am thankful God gives us the grace to face our failures with humility and uses them as a reminder of his power and love.