A Table of Contents for LIFE!

Currently I am reading "A Resilient Life" by Gordon MacDonald. The subtitle states, "Winning is a Process, Not a Destination."

The book is the story of young Gordies high school track coach who made his athletes endure grueling workouts and refused to let them quit no matter how discouraged or fatigued they were. As the book jacket describes, he developed a plan for each athlete, then pushed them beyond their limits until they had tapped every ounce of their potential. It was decades later that Gordie realized that his wise coach was actually teaching them how to win in life! He calls the runners in life who are victorious RESILENT runners. To be anything less, is to be a quitter.

I'm only half way into the book and it is having a profoundly encouraging impact on me. Normally, I'd write a summary or review or highlight a meaningful section, but instead, I find simply the table of contents to be a fantastic checklist for life. Perhaps these chapter titles alone, if they do not inspire you to buy the book, may just simply inspire you!

(DO NOT "SCAN" - Read These Slowly and Reflectively, Please!)

RESILIENT PEOPLE ARE COMMITTED TO FINISHING STRONG
Quitting is Not an Option
"Walking" is Unthinkable
Building Resilience is a Daily Pursuit
The Face of Aimlessness
The Face of a Champion

RESILIENT PEOPLE RUN INSPIRED BY A BIG-PICTURE VIEW OF LIFE
Resilient People Have a Sense of Life-Direction
Resilient People Foresee the Great Questions of Life's Passage
Resilient People Cultivate Christian Character
Resilient People Listen for a Call from God
Resilient People Are Confident in Their Giftedness
Resilient People Live Generous Lives

RESILIENT PEOPLE RUN FREE OF THE WEIGHT OF THE PAST
Resilient People Understand the Importance of Repairing the Past
Resilient People Respect the Power of Memory
Resilient People Practice Repentance
Resilient People Are Quick to Forgive
Resilient People Overflow with Gratitude
Resilient People Squueze the Past for All Its Wisdom

RESILIENT PEOPLE TRAIN TO GO THE DISTANCE
Resilient People Prepare Themselves for the "Emergencies" of Life
Resilient People Know Exactly What Has to be Accomplished
Resilient People Keep Themselves Physically Fit
Resilient People Grow Their Minds
Resilient People Harness Their Emotions
Resilient People Trim Their Egos
Resilient People Open Their Hearts to the Presense of God

RESILIENT PEOPLE RUN IN THE COMPANY OF THE "HAPPY FEW"
The Value of Lingering
The Peril of the Solitary Life
How Friendship Works
There are Certain People


As you read those, if you didn't sense the Holy Spirit giving you a few you can work on, I'd check your pulse, you might be dead. I'll keep to myself the ones that convicted me! But this book (and just the table of contents!) are giving me pause and helping me reflect on how I can become a more resilient person. I like the phrase "resilient" - it's close to RE-SILENCE. As my whole life situation radically changed this past summer, I am learning a new "silence" that I've never known before. For me, resilience is beginning with silence in the presense of God, and then moving on from there.

Won't you run with me? Let me run with you toward the finish line!

Working Hard? Or Hardly Working? Or....

“Working hard for God” is that a good thing? I’m not so sure any more. I’ve been working hard for God since age ten, (when I got my call to children’s ministry.) And I’ve been putting the Energizer Bunny to shame ever since with my non-stop ministry activity. Sacrificing for God has been something I’ve been happy to do – but was God happy with the sacrifices I chose?

I equated activity and busyness with passion for God. I thought the best way to love God was to serve God with every fiber of my being. How wrong I was. Now, I am not saying that we shouldn’t be serving God, or that we shouldn’t give our best effort and energy in that service, but that I have learned tragically that service is NOT what God is looking for primarily. All of the service you give can be good and helpful and godly and benefit the Kingdom, but NOT be what God is asking you to do. Oswald Chambers (my new best friend) writes, “Always guard against self-chosen service for God; self-sacrifice may be a disease.” (!) How can serving God be a disease!? He warns elsewhere of “juggling with yourself” – something I can certainly relate to!

God is not asking for service. He is asking for me. Service should be merely a result or outcome of my walk with God. I tried to get close to God through serving Him – instead of getting close to Him and then allowing Him to use me. The output of my life may have looked very much the same (though I imagine there would have been much less I’d have been doing) – but the point is not the activity or the amount of it, or even the godly motives, it is the source of the activity. Was it God working in and through me, or me working for God in my efforts to know and please Him? Oswald writes that “We have to be so one with God that we do not continually need to ask for guidance.” Huh? Those words shocked me, I am always asking for guidance! But he continues, “If we are born again of the Spirit of God, it is the abortion of piety to ask God to guide us here and there.” (!) I was passionate in my service and in living out my convictions tirelessly* every day. But Oswald writes, “Beware of making a fetish of consistency to your convictions instead of being devoted to God. ‘I shall never do that’ – in all probability you will have to, if you are a saint.” Belief that “I would never” is a dangerous belief indeed! God may have to teach us a drastic lesson. Chambers states that “The one consistency of the saint is not to a principle, but to the Divine life.” Being devoted to the principle of service can mask the shallowness of the Divine life. One close to God will certainly find him or herself serving, BUT it does not work the other way around. The one serving God is in danger of losing that closeness to the very One he or she serves! Chambers warns, “It is easier to be a fanatic than a faithful soul, because there is something amazingly humbling, particularly to our religious conceit, in being loyal to God.”

If God is not looking for service? What then, is He seeking from us? We wants us to simply know Him, love Him, and follow Him. And He wants us to do so whether or not He will ever use us or whether anyone will ever notice us. We want to be noticed by God, and perhaps if others notice us, He will too! Being faithful to God in tough times and challenges certainly gains His favor and notice, doesn’t it? Forgive me for quoting Oswald Chambers again. “It is one thing to go through a crisis grandly, but another thing to go through every day glorifying God when there is no witness, no limelight no one paying the remotest attention to us.” Just me and God, and no one and nothing else. “If you are rightly devoted to the Lord Jesus,” he continues, “you have reached the sublime height where no one ever thinks of noticing you.”

I have lived to serve God and to equip and encourage others in their service to God. And that has its place, and I will continue to do so, but from a different vantage point going forward. Chambers concludes, as will I with these words. “The test of the life of a saint is not success, but faithfulness in human life as it actually is. We will set up success in Christian work as the aim; the aim is to manifest the glory of God in human life, to live the life hid with Christ in God in human conditions.”

Forgive me for sounding like Yoda again, but I think of his words to Luke, “Excitement! Bah. Adventure! Bah. The Jedi seeks not these things.” I find myself hearing instead wise old Oswald, the Christian Master saying, “Service! Bah. Success! Bah. Notice! Bah. The Christian seeks not these things. He seeks only to be in fellowship with His Creator. All else must flow out of that relationship. There is no try. There is only BE.”

I’m sure you’ve done much to serve God this week. But if you have not spent time with HIM first…. Bah! I beg you, get the order correct – fellowship first, service second.

*tirelessly - and odd word. I used to work tirelessly, meaning - "tired all the time." Now I want to work tirelessly, but meaning serving less tired, or even without being tired, because I am only doing what God is asking me to do, and nothing else. If I am tired I am probably doing too much, and more importantly, I am probably doing things God is not asking me to do.

All Things... Really?

Romans 8:28 promises, "All things work together for good to them that love God."

Ever wondered, "How do I get out of here?!"

Oswald Chambers writes, "The circumstances of a saint's life are ordained of God. In the life of a saint there is no such thing as chance. God by His providence brings you into circumstances that you cannot understand at all, but the Spirit of God understands."

Often we conside a 'saint' to mean a 'Super Christian,' but a saint according to the Bible is simply a follower of Christ, even when that follower isn't following closely, a saint off course is still a saint if you hold to eternal security. A saint who stumbles in sin does not cease to be a saint - otherwise our sainthood would be removed and returned countless times a day! So if you are a believing 'saint' follower of Jesus, you share this promise that whatever your circumstances, God will work them together for good!

But what if your circumstances are a result of your own failure? What then? Does this promise no longer apply? Did God condition this promise on perfection? Far from it! he conditioned it only on our love for Him; "to them that love God." Oswald continues, "All your circumstances are in the hand of God, therefore never think it strange concerning the circumstances you are in." Note, it says "all," not "circumstances that aren't your fault."

Even when circumstances are a result of our our failure or sin or neglect, are those circumstances still under God's providence and subject to His promise to work together for good? I can only respond, "YES!" Even my failures can not thwart God's grand purposes - for His purposes are not revolving around events, but around inner transformation, and that often only takes place after failure. So God succeeds either way! His preference would be before, (and we will always agree looking back), but He that began a work in you will carry it on to completion until the Day of Christ Jesus (!) - whether or not you make it easier or harder - His will WILL be done.

So the choice is ours, the easier way (obedience!) or the hard way (through failure), but regardless of which side of failure you are on, TODAY is the day to obey and allow the Spirit of God to do His work in you so that He can get to working it all out for good!

Could Yoda Be Wrong?

Fear leads to anger.
Anger leads to hate.
Hate leads to suffering.

One of Yoda's most famous quotes, from the second half of the Star Wars saga, is his ominous warning to the young Anakin, "Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suf-fer-ing." (Did you read those words with the appropriate Yoda inflection?)

I certainly don't doubt that fear leads to anger, or that anger leads to hate, and hate certainly leads to suffering. What I'd like to challenge from this sage quote is the assumption that the worst possible state of being is suffering.

The point of Yoda's warning is that we are to avoid fear, anger, and especially hate because they lead to the ultimate evil: suffering. ANYTHING to avoid suffering! Please, do not fear... you may suffer! Please, do not get angry or hate... or you may suffer! And suffering is to be avoided at all costs! According to Yoda, suffering is the worst possible outcome of any situation! It must be, because Yoda concludes his platatude with 'suffering.' He adds not, "Suffering leads to...." for there is nothing worse than suffering. (Insteresting, that despite the Jedi's lack of fear or anger so much suffering still entered their personal worlds as the saga unfolded, could they have been avoiding the wrong outcome?)

In sharp contrast to the wise Yoda, are the words of Jesus Christ, who promises "in this world you will have troubles." (John 16:33) Better translated in the KJV as "Tribulation." I'm not about you, but tribulation sounds a lot like suffering to me! And we don't LIKE to suffer! And Jesus doesn't say we might, we says we WILL! So what do we do when we suffer as Christians? I've often tried to make my response to be, "what is God trying to teach me in this?"

Oswald Chambers, as he often does, shatters even my best efforts to look at things from God's point of view, when he writes, "If you are going to be used by God, He will take you through a multitude of experiences that are not meant for you at all, they are meant to make you useful in his hands, to enable you to understand what transpires in other souls so that you will never be surprised at what you come across." I read that and was floored. It may not be "what is God trying to teach me" - for that is still self-focused (what will I get out of this?) - instead, it may be instead, "what is God doing in me for the sake of others?"

Oswald continues, "God's way is always the way of suffering." What would Yoda have to say to that? We resonate with Yoda's warning because we are motivated to AVOID suffering, but God says that suffering is THE WAY to His purposes - purposes that are much lofter than merely the avoidance of pain.

Don't undestand your suffering? Take heart, Oswald comforts, "We never realize at the time what God is putting us through; we go through it more or less misunderstandingly." So rather than rush to understand, or even get through it, rush to obey.

He suggests when we suffer we ask ourselves, "Is Jesus educating you into a personal intimacy with Himself?" I'm learning that Jesus is ever pressing for only one thing - not greater ministry works - but simply genuine intimacy with Himself. He adds, "This can never be until a personal need arises out of a personal problem."

Without a personal knowable God, Yoda's highest acheivement can only a lack of suffering, and even the great master jedi could not avoid that! Fortunately, we have a higher goal than a comfortable life, we can know our Creator! But that knowledge comes only through suffering, for the simple reason (I hate to admit) that suffering is the only thing that seems to draw us Godward. Without suffering - would we ever truly completely turn to God? Apparently not.

Many things lead to suffering, but suffering leads to intimacy with our Creator, so avoid it not!

Suffering, Avoid Not.
Leads to Intimacy with Creator, It Does!

I'm done working for God!

I've been a "worker for God" since I got my call to ministry at the age of ten. (read my testimony on kidology.org) And what a super worker I've been! The spiritual dust I've thrown up in the past decades from my flurry of activity for God would have been impressive, if I hadn't choked on the dust and crashed recently. Now I am learning some hard lessons about what I do for God vs. what I allow God to do thorugh me. Then today, John Piper just shatters the whole idea of my working for God at all, when he writes:

"God is a tireless worker. Think of God as a worker in your life. Yes, it is amazing. We are prone to think of ourselves as workers in God's life. But the Bible wants us first to be amaze that God is a worker in our lives."

What?! God a worker in my life? Mr. Piper even goes so far as to say that "he is so eager to work for us that he goes around looking for more work to do for people who will trust him." and sites 2 Chronicles 16:9, "The eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show his might in behalf of those who heart is whole toward him."

What an amazing thought - God not only working in and through us, but for us! And here all this time I thought I could please God by working so hard for him... could I have missed that instead He wanted to do a work in me? That He was eager to do, but I was too busy serving Him to see what He was trying to do to help me? Piper continues, "He is not just waiting for us to get his help; he is seeking ways to give us help. He is doing this with overflowing eagerness."

I've been eagerly seeking to love and serve him with all my heart and soul - and missed that it was He who first promised to serve me, with all HIS heart and soul!

"I will not turn away from doing good to them; and I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me. I will rejoice in doing them good... with all my heart and all my soul." (Jeremiah 32:40-41 RSV)

OK, God. I'll stop. I'll stop working for you, and let you do a work in me instead. Then, and only then, any "work" I appear to do will be your work only, through me. I'm done trying to impress you. Let me be impressed by you!

Whether God be Good, or Not!

We are often told we ought to obey God for He is good and His purposes are for our good. But what if He were not... nor His purposes? Would then have reason not to obey?

Faith is the act by which we choose be believe God both in mental concent to His sovereignty and to our actions to submit to His authority. It is by faith that we accept that God is good and therefore worthy of our love as well as our obedience, but if we link obedience to God's goodness we give ourselves reason to disobey when we find reason to doubt that God is indeed good. If God's goodness is our motivation for obedience, we will disobey when what He chooses to do (or not do) does not seem good to us. Obedience flowing from God's goodness is a trap we lay for ourselves that will ultimately result in sin because our ways are not His ways so He will always disappoint in the short run, and in our disappointment (not understanding His good purposes at the time) we will choose to bring the good into our life we desire in our own way... which is the definition of sin.

Oswald Chambers writes, "We have the idea that God rewards us for our faith... [not so]; faith brings us into right relationship with God and gives God His opportunity. God has frequently to knock the bottom board out of your experience if you are are a saint in order to get you into contact with Himself."

Oh, I've had the board knocked out from under me, and God has certainly gotten my attention - but there is encouragement here as well - he does this to his saints. Not 'saint' in the common use suggesting someone is a super-Christian (then I am far from sainthood!) but instead as the simple title of a soul that belongs to God. It is His saints He knocks down so that they might look up!

Oswald continues, "God wants you to understand that it is a life of faith, not a life of sentimental enjoymnet of His blessings." See? That is the danger of obeying because 'God is Good' - we are then in search of blessings instead of God Himself. He later warns, "Faith by its very nature must be tried." If God were to 'bless' us as we wish - give us all we want and yearn for... would we ever truly know Him or ever truly love Him?

He concludes, "I will remain true to God's character whatever He may do." That is indeed the test! Not whether everything we touch prospers, like Joseph, but whether we remain faithful equally when we feel more like Job, who lost everything. Oswald warns, "Faith in its actual working out has to go thrugh spells of unsyllabled isolation." It is in that isolation that obedience is tested and is transformed into love. For only love can motivate to obey when the object of the obedience does not seem good at the time.

Therefore, I will not obey God because He is good, nor even because He is worthy. (though He certainly is!) But I will obey God because HE IS GOD whether or not He seems good or worthy.

But in the process I will discover that He is worthy of my love, and that is ultimately what God is truly after. Not to obey God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, but to LOVE HIM with all of ourselves, but we show our love through obedience.

In the end, you don't even have to obey God anymore... just love Him, and you will find obedience ceases to be an issue.