Boulders

Since turning 50, I have been amazed at how many times a day that fact jumps out at me. Turning 50 has brought quite a bit of clarity to me. By that I mean that I have an increased sense of urgency. I want the remaining years of my life to matter more than the first ones have. Unfortunately for me, that means I have to change some things about me that I have actually come to like. I have discovered that some things I have found comfort in, ideas and convictions I have allowed to shape my perception of myself, beliefs that have become identity badges, are actually not biblically supportable, and in a few cases, not even healthy. Here's what I've learned:


Convictions we hold as significant, and from which we derive personal satisfaction, when shown to be biblically unsupportable, will often still remain like stubborn boulders in the heart. This is especially true of those radical extensions of good theology that are allowed to build up our pride. Don’t be surprised if God has to blow them up with the dynamite of humiliation.

By radical extensions of good theology I mean those applications of right thinking that I have allowed to take on the status of biblical absolutes. The fact is, they are not absolute. They may have, at one time, been logical ways to demonstrate biblical truth, but they were never the truth themselves.

This whole pattern of thought has been forced on me by the convergence of two powerful influences that God has brought my way. The first I have already mentioned: my desire to make my remaining years more significant that the first ones have been. But secondly, I have been - in the providence of God - surrounded in my work by a group of young (30 somethings!), bright, biblically grounded, passionate pastoral associates who identify and mock many of my "boulders" as a function of merely showing up to work! One of my biggest boulders is my idea of respect. I think I deserve it, and I think I know the form it should take, and the way it should be afforded to me. But, thanks to their honesty, I have found that what I was really dealing with was wanting to be submitted to, pampered, applauded, looked out for. Out of the biblical principle of honor for authority had come a wrong-headed perception on my part, and it had become a huge boulder in my soul. And, until recently, it wouldn't budge. I got my feelings hurt as a matter of course, and always felt that they were wrong. But now I understand that my hurt was largely because I had misapplied the principle of honoring authority. I wanted to be pampered, and they wanted progress. I wanted them to work for me, and they wanted to work with me for the progress of the Kingdom. For God's work to progress, he having to blow up that boulder, and re-teach me that respect for authority on the one hand must mean a respectable authority on the other hand. When both work together, everyone feels honored, respected, valued, and the Kingdom of God makes progress. And that's just one boulder!

It is humiliating to realize that, at 50, there are still so many lessons to learn, and boulders to remove. But I am committed to removing them, to getting rid of anything that will stand in the way of the Lord working through my life in a way that maximizes His glory, and multiplies my joy. I hope this gives you some desire to start looking at our own field - your heart - and seeing if there might be some demolition work to be done. My advice: blow up the boulders while their small, or better yet . . . don't let them settle in the first place.

Hope this helps,

Daviod

Running Away

Lately I have had conversations with more than a couple people who share an impulse that I have several times a week. We just want to run away. Do you know what I'm talking about? You might be driving or walking or sitting at your desk and all of a sudden you just get this overwhelming desire to just run away.

My Dad used to get that feeling every Monday. He was a preacher, and Mondays were usually "down" days. I can remember him coming to the breakfast table on Monday morning (back in the days when families regularly ate breakfast together) and saying "David, let's just head for the hills." That was his way of saying, "let's just skip out on all our responsibilities today, and run away."

I have spent time wondering about this feeling, this powerful, spontaneous desire to escape, to leave responsibility behind. Here's some of what I've discovered.

For me, this desire to run usually means that I'm running low on life. Its like my fuel gauge is in the red zone, and the "low fuel" light comes on, and it triggers my flight response. It also means that, being low on fuel, I intuitively understand that the duties, and meetings, and responsibilities I am facing will overwhelm me unless I get some more emotional fuel in the tank. So, here's what I have found works in these down times: I give in to the desire, and run away.

Let me explain. Over and over in the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) we read that Jesus would leave the crowds and go away to a quiet place to pray. It seems that even the Savior - God's Son - felt at times that he had to get away. I can only speculate that, being fully human, he felt like I feel sometimes - completely exhausted by people, by projects, by the expectations and obligation of life. And so he left. He left the people, and went away to be by himself, and to be with God. And therein lies the treasure: he didn't just run away from life, he ran to God. He left empty, and returned full.

The next time you're overwhelmed and just have that intense desire to run, go ahead and do it. Just run away from the noise and complexity of life, find a quiet spot, take out your Bible, and begin to read and pray your way into the very presence of Almighty God. Stay awhile . . . He's got time for you. And then, filled up with the wonder of the the Lord, and once again understanding your place in His world, walk back into your responsibilities ready to let your life overflow with the love and grace of Jesus Christ.

Hope this helps,

David

Who Needs the Church?

The question - Who needs the church? - is increasingly easy to answer. A growing segment of society confidently answers "not me." We've known for years that more and more of our neighbors are growing up in an America where the church has become an afterthought. But recently that has changed, and not for the better. We used to bemoan the fact that church and the Bible and religious fervency had been pushed to the far margins of American life. Now, we are facing a far worse predictament. No longer merely overlooked, the church is being described as a danger. A growing number of voices are crying out that the church has become the enemy of free society. And the worse part is that the church continues to produce the evidence to support their charges.

I would like to point out two areas where the church in America is failing. And in our failure, we are offering our opponents more and more reason not only to disregard us, but also to paint us as dangerous to the very people we are trying to help.

The first area is that of leadership. More to the point, the failure of church leaders to be men of integrity has put American clergy on par with our politicians as fodder for late night humor. Almost every day the newpapers carry stories of sexual misconduct, finanical misdealings, or other scandals in which pastors and priests have been involved. The position of value once held by our religious leaders has been eroded over time, and largely because of our own stupidity. Remember the old westerns? The preacher was known as the "parson", a word that actually denoted that he was the "person" in the town with education, with knowledge, with expertise to whom all could come for all kinds of advice and help. He was a valued public asset, and was afforded great respect. Largely that has been lost. Now, it is safe to say that increasingly the clergy are viewed with suspicion by many both in the church, and outside its walls. We are no longer public assets, and in fact, are increasingly been seen as dangerous to those we are trying to lead.

The second area where the church is fast becoming viewed as dangerous to society is the arena of politics. Beginning with the Moral Majority, the church began to flex its political muscle. Since then, a strange co-mingling of Bible and power has had a detrimental effect on the way the church is perceived in America. We have wrongly allowed our political competitiveness to overwhelm the reality that the Kingdom of God is not of this world. Simply put, we have come to think that we can bring in the Kingdom through legislative means, and thus, winning at the polls is the new game in town. This competitiveness has led us to craft a rigid set of political beliefs which we have branded as God's. Those who agree are right and righteous. Those who do not are wrong, and are not on God's side. The end resust? The church has become a political action group, and its message and tactics indistinguishable from that of professional political operatives.

Now I know what you're thinking! Yes, I have painted with a broad brush. Yes, I have spoken in generalities. Yes, I have overstated the case. But, the truth is undeniable that even where the church is led by men of integrity, and where the Gospel is preached and lived out undaunted by political agendas, we no longer can assume that our neighbors hold the church good or even necessary.

So, here's my point. We have to make ourselves necessary, we have to demonstrate ourselves to be good. The church must retreat to the Gospel, and then, living out its ethics and its demands, make ourselves not only unignorable, but undeniably necessary to society.

So who needs the church? The simple answer is that society needs the church, but first the church needs to be the church! We must clean up our act, and declare that God hates sin in all of its forms, even when it means the removal of beloved leaders. We must get back to Jesus, the Savior, whose life continues to model kingdom behavior, and give up the idea that political power can ever be counted on to fulfill the Great Commission. We are on this earth to rescue those who are under the authority of Satan, not balance budgets or argue about troop withdrawals. Let the politico politic; let the legislators legislate. None of what they do can save one soul from sin and fit them for heaven. But, if we agree with Paul that "the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes" then we must never take up a lesser task than proclaiming the Good News of the Kingdom of God through our lips and our lives. The church is the only hope for the world, and we better wake up and realize it.

Hope this helps,

David