Young encourages pastors to renew their strength, fly like eagles

HOUSTON—“The Bible you and I preach is for you and me,” Ed Young told ministers at the President’s Luncheon of the annual meeting of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention Nov. 10, encouraging them with the opportunity to “mount up with wings and fly like eagles.”

“Those profound words we give out the first day of every week are for you and for me,” he insisted. “We can fly.”

The pastor of Second Baptist Church in Houston directed believers to heed the instruction of Isaiah 40:31 to wait on the Lord every day. “We wait until God shows up with the answers, the direction and the insight” for that day.

After waiting, strength will be renewed, he said. “We need our passion to come back.”

Young said, “As I wait on the Lord what happens to me over and over again is I’m adjusting my priorities in detail, but my general priorities do not change.”

Discernment becomes the critical characteristic leaders must develop in order to maintain the priorities God gives for ministry. “Prioritize the big things, and you’ll be able to run and not get tired,” Young explained.

“The tough thing is the second part—we walk and do not faint—that’s the little things.” Young said most ministers are pretty good at discerning the big things but fail in the little things.

“It’s the mundane things that we do that nobody sees and nobody knows—stay faithful to the little things,” he reminded “The first of them is waiting on the Lord.”