I would like to share an interesting story with you as an illustration of faithful armorbearing. Some time ago my pastor, Happy Caldwell of Agape Church in Little Rock, Arkansas, met with the Billy Graham Crusade team. The team was planning a series of meetings in our city.

The crusade coordinator began his talk by stating that he had been with Billy Graham the least amount of time of any of the ministers on the staff.

"I have only been with Billy for 23 years," he said.

When I heard that, I was shocked.

In charismatic circles we preach faithfulness and staying with something, but the Billy Graham Crusade team lives it. Some staff members and ministers are ready to give up and go on to their reward if God doesn't open up something new and better for them every year.

We have got to start seeing our position as one called and instituted of God. We must be willing to stay in it for the rest of our lives, if that is what God wants.

It's About Being In God's Will
Recently I got on my knees before God and prayed, "Lord, if it is Your desire that I stay here as my pastor's armorbearer and serve this ministry in that capacity for the rest of my life, then Your will be done."

Friend, it is no fun to be out of the will of God. We in the Church no longer have the time to be operating outside of the will and plan of our heavenly Father.

If you are an associate or staff minister, I want to encourage you to remain faithful, no matter what pressure you may be facing. I will honestly admit that there have been times when I have wanted to throw in the towel and say to God, "This is too hard; this is not fair!"

One day Jesus spoke to me and told me that He was simply asking me to do the same thing He had done on the earth. Jesus fulfilled His Father's desire, and not His own. He is not asking us to do anything He Himself has not already done.

At this moment in my life, I am doing more than I have ever done for God. At this stage of my life, I travel overseas and do things that I have always dreamed of. I believe it is because I have stayed where God put me.

Do Not Despise Small Beginnings
One day a man came into my office, which has a beautiful view of a small mountain right behind my desk.

"Well," he said as he walked in, "how does it feel to be a big man with a huge desk, leather chairs and a view like you've got there?"

Thank the Lord I was in a good mood when he said that. People have no idea what it has taken to get to that place. Any staff minister can relate to my feelings.

If you are not a staff member, I will tell you how it feels.

It feels exactly the same way it felt in 1979 when I had an office with pea-green carpet, an army surplus desk, and a small window with a view of the back of a drug store.

Did I complain? Heavens, no!

Pastor Caldwell had a door laid over two small filing cabinets for a desk. I was jumping up and down with excitement just to be able to say to someone, "Come into my office." It was ugly, but it was my office, the first real one I had ever had. I had "birthed" it in the spirit in prayer, and I was as happy and proud of it as I could be.

Don't Give Up
The Spirit of God may be ministering to you right now because you are at the place of giving up in your ministry. Please don't! Get in the Word and start rejoicing in what you have been blessed with. Put your future into God's hands. Remember, David was faithful to Saul, and look how God exalted him.

One day I walked into my office with everything in the world coming against me. I was discouraged. I felt left out. It seemed that God was going to just have to move me on. At that time, I looked at the Bible on my desk and I cried out to God, saying,"I need help!"

I picked up the Bible and it fell open to Ephesians 5. I know God divinely directed me to that chapter. I began to read, and then I came to Ephesians 5:17-19:

...be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.

As I read that passage, the Lord quickened the word making to me. "Son," He said, "a piano makes beautiful music only when someone sits down and plays it. The joy, peace, and assurance you need is there." He went on to say, "But you have to make the melody come forth. Get up and start dancing before Me."

I did not want to do that, nor did I feel like it, but I did it in faith. I closed my office door and started to leap and jump for joy, praising God. As I did so, the anointing broke the yoke of oppression.

If you are under a spirit of oppression, then before you read any further in this chapter, get up and start rejoicing. You are set free in Jesus' name. This is God's will for you right now.

Serving Your General
Now what about our personal relationship with our officer? In 2 Corinthians 5:16 the Apostle Paul says: "Wherefore, henceforth know we no man after the flesh…." As an armorbearer, you have a called ministry to serve a general of God's army. The Old Testament suggests a very close physical relationship between the officer and his armorbearer.

This may be the case in the New Testament, but such a close personal relationship is not necessary to successfully carry out the responsibility of the armorbearer. God did not call you to be your leader's fishing buddy. I am not called to be my pastor's best friend. We are friends, but that is not our primary relationship.

We should never assume a personal right to know or be a part of our officer's family or private life:

Be not forward [self-assertive and boastfully ambitious] in the presence of the king, and stand not in the place of great men;

For better it is that it be said to you, Come up here, than that you should be put lower in the presence of the prince whose eyes have seen you.
(Proverbs 25:6-7 Amp.)

I will say this, that a personal relationship of some kind is inevitable, but the armorbearer's primary role is not that of personal friend.

The armorbearer's main purpose is to pull down Satan's strongholds for his pastor, church, and city. Do not get your feelings hurt if you are not asked to have dinner with the pastor every Friday night. Your goal is not to get next to the pastor, but to get next to Jesus and to do battle in the Spirit.

Source: God's Armor Bearer by Terry Nance
Excerpt permission granted by Harrison House Publishers