This past weekend I watched a movie where two men were being held captive by terrorists and forced to build something their captors wanted.
One of them, bemoaning his situation and ailing from a medical condition, complained to his fellow captive “They could kill you, they’re gonna kill me either way, and even if they don’t, I’ll probably be dead in a week.”
His companion, looking at the situation through a different lens, replied “well then this is a very important week for you, isn’t it?”
None of us knows exactly how much time we have left; it could be minutes, decades, or anywhere in between. The time we have here on earth is the only time that “counts” for making an eternal difference. Once we close our eyes for the last time and take our last breath here in this life, we’ll no longer be able to help save souls or build God’s Kingdom. The attitude we should have as Christians is “well then, the rest of this lifetime is very important, isn’t it?”
Are we making the most of the opportunities we have?
Since my last post my family and I got to travel to see some relatives we haven’t seen in a long time, and even met someone that joined the family since I last saw them. It was a trip that involved a lot of driving and covered hundreds of miles, but it was wonderful to celebrate some milestone birthdays with loved ones.
We piled into the minivan in Northern Virginia, and over the course of several days drove up to Connecticut and back. The kids have never been that far north before, and it was a great reunion full of laughs and new memories. We celebrated the birthdays of my twin aunt and uncle, along with my mom.
During the trip we attended my uncle’s long-time church. It’s always interesting to go somewhere new and hear a pastor you’re not accustomed to hearing. His message was titled “God Can Use You.”
Regular readers of this blog know that one of my main goals behind my posts is encouraging you to embrace the calling God has for your life, and use the talents and resources He’s made accessible to you so that you can bring glory to Him. Hearing this pastor’s message reminded me that some people struggle with believing that “God Can Use You.” If you wrestle with that notion, I want to spur you on today: He can do amazing things with your life through your obedience to Him.
Over the course of this trip, we spent a lot of time sitting in traffic. On multiple occasions accidents caused two lanes of traffic to merge down to one, other times spring construction led to delays and backups, and sometimes the rain made us all slow down. My passengers were very patient and hung in there like champs. During one of our times stuck in a crawl, I looked over to my left and saw a bright orange Lamborghini creeping along in the traffic going the opposite direction.
Can you imagine? What a waste that was! Here’s a machine that’s built for speed, for curvy roads, for all-around high performance. Yet here it was, far from fulfilling its potential. It’s a perfect illustration of what life is like when you’re a Christian that doesn’t buy into the idea that God can use you to do something big. It’s untapped capability.
Maybe it’s something you’ve felt before, but fought. Maybe you know what God would have you do, but you fear the unknown. Don’t give in to the idea that you’re not (insert your favorite adjective) enough for God to use your life to make the world or His kingdom better. If, one day, you stand before the Almighty, and He asks you the question “what have you done with the tools I entrusted to you?,” do you want the traffic-bound Lamborghini to be the mental image that sums up your life?
Lord, Your version of success and the world’s version of success are two very different things. Grant me the insight to know what You’d have me do, the resources to do it, and the boldness to leave my comfort zone in order to take the next step. Amen
You may have an idea for how you’d like to execute a plan, but sometimes your resources dictate your strategy.
Let me give you an example of what I mean.
In college a buddy of mine, Rich, and I both had paintball guns, ammo, and masks. The nearest paintball place was…I don’t know…forever away, and I’m sure it wasn’t cheap. Our school was situated in a pretty rural setting, and this was a generation ago, so stuff we could get away with back then probably wouldn’t fly today. The two of us figured “hey, there are acres of forest nearby, how about we do some one-on-one out in the woods?”
We were both game, so we went out to the woods one day with our paintball gear. We agreed on the boundaries, set up a time limit, and discussed some other rules. I had my Walmart special…a cheapo pump-action paintball gun that came with a 10-round tube and a mini CO2 cylinder that fit inside the handle. I don’t know where Rich got his, but I know it was a semi-automatic paintball gun with a hopper that held about 200 rounds and a CO2 canister that was just about as big as the hopper.
He could probably spray about a dozen paintballs in the time it took me to fire off two. The ratio was even worse if I wanted to shoot with accuracy. If I got into a firefight with Rich, he’d obliterate me. I’d be pink or yellow for a week. The only way I could win was if I somehow got the drop on him, but I needed a strategy.
Since the tools at my disposal didn’t give me a lot of offensive horsepower, I decided I’d find a good ambush spot and try to make my first shot be the only shot I’d need. Once we split up and headed into the woods, I took off running along one of the trails, looking for a spot that suited my needs. I forget the exact measure that we agreed on, but we were able to go up to five or 10 steps off the trail on either side. I found a spot that gave me a decent field of fire and was far enough off the trail that he shouldn’t spot me right away.
I pushed a bunch of leaves into a pile and then sort of crawled under them, spreading them out over me as best I could. The idea was to stay hidden so he’d get close enough for me to take my shot. Once I got my camouflage set up, I chambered a round, turned off the safety, and waited.
It’s funny how nerve-wracking waiting can be. Trying to lay silently under a pile of leaves doesn’t really work for a significant length of time, and any noise you make seems like it gets amplified. You don’t have the same quality of vision wearing a clunky mask, and it starts to get fogged up as you get hot.
Eventually Rich came into view, patrolling the trail. He was locked, loaded and on high alert, ready to grease anything that moved. As he approached, it looked like he was going to get close to me without noticing my position. I tracked him with the gun, lining up my shot as my finger tightened on the trigger. I went for it. I took the shot, hoping to end the game with one trigger pull.
I missed.
The shot gave away my position and Rich unleashed paint fury as he ran out of the kill zone. It all happened so fast I didn’t even try to load another round as Rich’s suppressing fire rained down paintballs all through the area I was hiding in. Then, he was gone. I blew my only chance. It turns out that aside from about 10 seconds, this wasn’t a very exciting paintball match. Time soon ran out and we were both still alive; it was a draw.
The thing is, though, I don’t see how I could’ve obtained a better outcome. My circumstances dictated that no matter how aggressive I wanted to be, I had to choose a path that considered the resources at my disposal and gave me greater odds of success.
The same may hold true for you in your Christian walk. After Christ gets hold of you, He usually has some things He wants you to accomplish in your life. It may be as simple as forgiving someone you feel has wronged you. For Saul (later Paul), the plan after his salvation was to be a missionary and church planter. For us, reading the Bible almost 2,000 years later, we say “well, yeah, it’s Paul…being a missionary and planting churches is what he did.” Sure, but there was a time when that plan wasn’t so clear. Paul didn’t know right away that he was going to make four missionary trips, get shipwrecked three or four times, get bitten by a poisonous snake, receive 39 lashes on five different occasions, endure an earthquake in prison, and be stoned and left for dead. By the time he died, he had survived all of those things, but before he even encountered the first one of them, he had to start somewhere.
Maybe you’ll one day be a giant of the faith. Maybe you already are. Here’s the thing though: God sometimes limits your resources, or removes opportunities from your life so He can steer you toward something you wouldn’t have otherwise chosen. We usually think of it as something bad, but it’s more like a divine course correction.
All that to say…if you’ve been looking for a way to serve God but aren’t quite sure how to get started, consider this question instead: taking into account the time, skills, and other resources at your disposal, what CAN you do? The fewer the options, the clearer the choice.
Lord, I know in my head You have a plan for my life and You want me to use the tools I have to bring You glory. Help me to see the direction I should go, what I should do, and how You want me to get started. Please also help me to realize and accept that even if I don’t get it exactly right, I’m not going to ruin Your plans. Amen
Any Star Trek fans here? Even if you’re not one of them, stick around for this one.
When I was a kid I watched the William Shatner Star Trek movies like, a bazillion times. I think part of the reason I liked them so much at the time was because they were some of the first “grown up” movies I was allowed to see. To this day, I don’t think I’ve seen an entire episode of the 1960s Star Trek TV show, but I can probably still rattle off some lines from Star Trek II-VI (not “The Motion Picture” though…it moved too slow to watch more than once).
For those of you who aren’t familiar, William Shatner played the pompous, arrogant, yet dashing and heroic James T. Kirk, Captain of the starship Enterprise. His exploits are legendary, and depend as much on his daring impulsiveness as they do good fortune. Surrounded by a terrific supporting cast (Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy, Scottie, Sulu, Checkov, Uhura, and all the rest), the crew embarked upon epic adventures where they saved Earth, and probably the universe, multiple times.
So when you take such a storied franchise and announce that you’re going to reboot it, you have to tread a very fine line between honoring the original and telling a new story with different actors playing familiar characters. The first movie in the rebooted franchise came out in 2009, but until viewers got to see it and start generating a positive or negative buzz, nobody really knew if it was going to be a kick-start for interest in the Star Trek universe or if it was going to be a gigantic slap in the face that resulted in a flop.
The folks that did the new movie did a great job writing the plot so that the new actors were free to play the characters their own way, rather than how their predecessors played them. Without going full nerd on you, someone from the original Star Trek era got thrown back in time and changed just enough history to impact some of the characters in the new movie. In the reboot we meet the colorful cast before they become the confident and experienced legends we know them to be, but the part that keeps it interesting is the fact that we’re never quite sure if the characters we’re watching will be able to rise to meet the challenges we know their predecessors could have conquered.
It’s this doubt that keeps the story engaging, as you wonder whether the heroes will have what it takes to be heroes for the first time.
Hang in there, I’m getting to my point.
Through all of this, there are a handful of characters that spent time in both versions of the Star Trek universe. The movie’s main villain is familiar with the famous, battle-tested Admiral Kirk, and sees in the younger version someone bearing little or no resemblance of the legend. In one of the movie’s great lines, which is the origin of the idea behind this post, this villain speaks to the young Kirk about not measuring up to the well-known hero. “James T. Kirk was a great man, but that was another life.”
Using this sci-fi movie as an analogy, let me switch gears on you. In my mind there are fewer things more haunting than the idea that I don’t measure up to what God wants me to be in this life.
When you think of any hero of the faith, whether recorded in the Bible or not, there was a time in their life before they were that person. Their path was still uncertain; the choices they had yet to make could still take their life in a radically different direction. What if Moses continued refusing God’s calling? What if Billy Graham took over the family farm instead of pursuing evangelism?
In my own life, I am on my way to becoming the person God knows I will one day be…and the same is true for you. The person writing this entry is not as seasoned or (hopefully) as wise as the older version that is yet to come; there are still choices ahead in my life that can either bring me closer to or turn me away from fulfilling the earthly potential the Holy Spirit sees in me. Of course, nobody will be perfect this side of Heaven no matter how hard we try, but with God in charge, our level of trust and obedience to Him has the ability to accomplish undreamed-of things for His kingdom. At the end of my life on Earth, my desire is to leave no unfulfilled potential in my Christian walk, to have no arrows left in my quiver. I don’t want to get to Heaven, see a huge building, and when I ask God what’s in it, He says “that’s the glory you could’ve brought me, but you did not pursue the opportunities I presented to you.”
Are you living in light of the future God has for you, or are you just drifting through this life?
One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” -Mark 12:28-31
People are fantastic at talking themselves out of things.
Did you ever just kind of “know” that you were supposed to take a certain action that had no other origin other than the Holy Spirit moving you to do it? Maybe it was to give some cash to someone you didn’t know. Maybe it was to connect and have a conversation with someone you hadn’t spoken with in a long time. It could’ve just been to speak up at a certain time.
But you didn’t do it.
Ever have a moment like that? Afterwards, you can brush it away, saying “It’s fine, that wouldn’t have made any sense.” On the other hand, maybe you actually resolved to do it. “You know what? No, that doesn’t make sense, but I just feel like I’m supposed to.” Then you never really got around to following through.
I’m curious; for every time God prompts a person to do something that they then follow through on, I’m a little scared to know how many prompts go ignored or are rationalized away.
When God does big things, He invites people to come along with Him; the people that go along and get to be a part of those events usually aren’t the people that say “no.” Sure, there are some “Jonahs” thrown into the mix, but by and large, God wants willing participants. You’ve heard the clichés. “If you want to walk on water, you’ve got to get out of the boat.” You know in your mind that God has an infinite number of ways to unlock your potential, but you struggle with giving up control and actually allowing Him to do it.
I get it. Really, I do.
Don’t let the story end there, though. Just because you struggle with something doesn’t mean it’s not worth the struggle. A step of faith, plus another step of faith, followed by additional steps of faith leads to walking by faith.
There’s a term in physics called “inertia.” You’ve probably heard it expressed as one of the famous laws of motion: a body at rest tends to stay at rest, and a body in motion tends to stay in motion, unless acted upon by an outside force. Whatever your life’s trajectory, when God sets something new in your path, He’s presenting you with a task that’s going to require a change in inertia. Being aware of your shortcomings and taking actions intended to combat your weaknesses can help build the momentum you need to overcome your existing inertia.
An example would probably help. When I feel God’s leading to pursue a course of action, my natural tendency is to stew on it for a bit and let the idea grow on me. “Let me sleep on it” is a common mantra in my life. That can be very helpful if I’m thinking about refinancing a mortgage, but it can be a bad thing if it’s following a calling from God. With time the idea fades or the window passes. There are times I’m reluctant to pursue something, but I know I really need to do it anyway. In my case, as a way of holding myself accountable, I tell someone about the idea. I’ve found that if the idea spreads to someone else, it has a tougher time dying. The person or people that know about it can ask me how it’s going. They can hold my feet to the fire, even if they’re just curious about whether or not I was even serious about it. God can use me to do things for His glory, but I have to be willing to make an effort…to take steps to fight through the distractions, to withstand all the other things that compete for my time, attention, and energy. In that fight, I can be my own worst enemy, so I have to take additional measures to move toward that goal.
Let me drill down a bit further, hoping it helps you in your own Christian walk.
I absolutely love it when God uses people that are “unqualified” to accomplish big tasks. David killed Goliath. Moses, at age 80, with a speech impediment, became the voice of God’s people. Jesus gathered 12 “nobodies” and changed the world. These are well-known Bible stories, but these things still happen today. God calls people to do big things that don’t make sense on paper, and He brings them success in order to showcase that it could only have happened through His intervention.
A little about me for those that don’t know me well. I’m very left-brained. My mind naturally gravitates toward math, science, logic, analysis, organization…all the things that are boring or cold for right-brained people, who favor imagination, intuition, the arts, and creativity. Now…I have some of those right-brained qualities, but my natural thought processes lean more toward a left-brained style.
So imagine my surprise when discovering that I feel led to write a fiction book. This is honestly a project that I feel God has laid before me.
That makes no sense, right? If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time you might say “well, he already does a lot of writing, so that’s not really a stretch.” It’s true, I do a lot of writing for DareGreatlyNow.com, but almost none of it is fiction. I have no training in creative writing (or in whatever style blogging is considered, either). These entries are usually only two pages or so, and they’re not difficult to write about because most of them are either my experiences or they come right out of the Bible. I’m talking about a book that’s like, 40,000-50,000 words. The word that keeps coming back to me is unqualified.
Still, if you work at it for a long time, you could probably make that goal happen once, even if it’s difficult. Seemingly to make it apparent that God’s involved and that His strength is made perfect in my weakness, I feel led to write not one fiction book, but a series. Not just a trilogy. This is a seven-part series of books that are about 40,000-50,000 words each. That’s like starting with a blank piece of paper and ending up with The Chronicles of Narnia. Not just The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe…I’m talking even the ones you don’t remember or never heard of. (How many of you are now trying to see if you can name all the books in the series, I wonder?)
Alright, so let’s say I get past the nagging “unqualified” lens. The next word I deal with is “daunting.”
That’s absolutely an overwhelming task. I don’t have the time or the drive to do that! Here’s the thing though: if your vision of a God-initiated project in your life isn’t scaring you at least a little bit, you may not be envisioning something big enough. When God commissions you to do something, He also empowers and equips you to do it. Additional requirements that will need to be in place in order for your endeavor to succeed will be set in motion at the appropriate time. He’s not going to leave you flapping in the wind. As you start taking steps to make it happen (I have a colleague who might say “as you start taking bites of that elephant”), He sustains you and gives you what you need to move ever closer to the goal. By the time it’s over, it becomes evident that it could only have happened with His help.
Well there you have it, I’ve shared with you something that I feel led to pursue. Now I’m on the hook for it. I don’t really have a whole lot of experience with estimating how long this should take, but I’m guessing I’m signing up for something that will likely take the better part of a decade, unless I can somehow quit my job to work on it full time, but, you know, still have money for food, shelter, and all those other things my family’s grown accustomed to.
That’s me; that’s what I’m working with. I said in last week’s post that I’d have more on what God is asking of you. Odds are that you’ve been spending a lot more time at home over the past 10 months or so. That much time can drive a person crazy, but it can also provide opportunities for quieting yourself to hear what God would tell you.
I’m going to show you a less-than-3-minute video that I’ve shown you before, but a lot has changed in the world since the last time I did. It’s an advertisement for a product, but that’s not why I’m showing it to you. I don’t have any financial interest in the video or what it’s advertising. In fact, I haven’t even looked too far into what the video’s selling. I just think it’s a phenomenal video because it articulates a feeling I’ve experienced, so it hits home a little more than normal. I’m hoping that it helps provide some clarity for you, and maybe help you make sense of a restlessness that’s been pulling at the fringes of your mind.
After watching this video, if you have a picture in your mind (anywhere between super fuzzy or remarkably concrete) of what it’s talking about, I encourage you to do what I did in this post: know yourself enough to take some actions that will help you overcome the inertia that would otherwise keep you from following through. If you need to tell someone, tell them. If you need someone to tell but can’t get past how crazy you think it sounds, email me: tim@daregreatlynow.com. If God lays something on your heart, please pursue it. Think of it as the next “step of faith” in your journey toward “walking by faith.”
Let’s pause for a moment to think about what the term “the body of Christ” means. The people of the church across the world constitute “the body of Christ,” but what does that mean?
Think of the average human body. It has two arms, two legs, a brain, a mouth, etc. Each part of the body plays a role. Some of those roles are more visible (a pastor, for example). Others are less prominent, but are still important to glorifying God. Volunteering to clean bathrooms in the name of Christ truly takes a servant’s heart, but isn’t a function that gains a lot of attention. Think of this as a middle toe in the body of Christ.
If you’re a Jesus-follower, you’re a part of the body of Christ, and the Holy Spirit has blessed you with talents that you’re to use for the purpose of glorifying God. For some people, their calling is obvious. If teaching from the Bible comes very naturally to you, it’s probably not terribly difficult to see the direction you should go (the particulars may be a mystery, but the broad strokes aren’t). For others it may not be so clear cut. If you absolutely excel at being a business leader or entrepreneur, it may be confusing to try and see how to glorify God using your God-given talents. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to start a God-focused business. It might mean exactly that, but it could also mean that you should use your talents to run a successful business using God-honoring business practices in order to fill a need that’s not being addressed. Maybe it means that God commissioned you to make a boatload of money that can then be used for His glory. My point is that whatever you are naturally good at should be one of the ways you make an effort to glorify God.
Many of us are glad to see 2020 pass into the history books, but what impact will you make on the year 2021? What is it that you’re here to give, to achieve, for the glory of Christ? Maybe you don’t have something specific in mind, but then again maybe you do. Don’t let the fact that you lack a vision of the final product hold you back from starting the endeavor. About two and a half years ago I started getting a vague picture in my mind. I knew I had a lot of unique experiences, and I knew that I had a knack for writing. I could put them together somehow, but I wasn’t sure what that would look like…a book of some kind? How do I consistently write about my experiences in a way that doesn’t come across as, well, being “me-centric,” but instead honors Christ?
The truth is, this effort is still evolving. Even now I don’t know what the end version will look like. What comes naturally to me is writing about things I’ve observed or done and putting a Godly spin on it. Over and over it comes back to the same thing: I want to encourage people to reach their full potential in Christ, but I need to be flexible about how God actually does that through my efforts. The important thing is that, even if it’s not perfect, I’m pursuing the thing I feel called to do. This is my 150th post, and I still have tons of ideas about future posts. This blog is not wildly successful in terms of a vast readership, but I believe it honors God, and I think many times God wants to see actual obedience before He opens doors to new possibilities or additional responsibilities for His followers. He wants to see you move from “I would” to “I’m doing.” Lots of Christians say “sure, I would do that if I felt God wanted me to,” but I imagine a much smaller percentage say “I think I’m called to do this, and it’s time for me to step out.”
I love it when people make that leap into the unknown, and I want to encourage you to make the jump. Just a word to help buck you up…some of the people that start this process are successful right away. For the vast majority, this is not the case. There will be some struggle, some personal cost, and some frustration when seeing someone else’s quick success. I understand why you may feel that way, but don’t lose sight of the goal and start thinking that lack of quick success translates into a valid excuse for quitting.
Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest, if we do not give up. Galatians 6:9
God put you where you are, He gave you talents and resources, and He wants you to follow through when He tells you which direction to go. Sometimes it will be close to home, other times it will require leaving the comfort and familiarity of your surroundings.
To close today’s post, I’d like to provide a quote from the movie “The Ghost and the Darkness.” In a scene where the main character, John, is conflicted about leaving his pregnant wife to embark on an exciting trip to a far-flung place in order to build an important bridge for his job, his wife helps put him at ease about leaving at a terrible time for their family life. In light of today’s post, it’s a quote that applies to us all, and I hope you’ll apply it in your life.
“You build bridges, John. You have to go where the rivers are.”
This world will crumble and it will get darker, and that provides the Body of Christ with more opportunities to shine brighter. May we all be ready and willing to go where we’re called in order to do God’s work in 2021 and beyond!
I’m pretty sure COVID is never mentioned in the Bible, but the book contains lessons we can apply to our current circumstances. I’m actually kind of surprised this hasn’t occurred to me before.
After centuries of God telling His people, the Israelites, that they need to straighten up (and centuries of them not doing it), He finally dropped the hammer on them. He warned them time and again, but they’d ignore or even kill the prophets. Once He had enough of it, He allowed the Persian Empire (Babylon) to raid Jerusalem and carry away most of the people as captives back to Babylon.
Many of the people refused to accept what was going on. They’d been brought up to believe that as Jews, God favored them. While true, that’s only part of the story. God selected the Jews to be His people, but warned them many times to follow His ways and pursue Him. By failing to do that corporately, over and over again, God finally had enough and allowed Babylon to serve as his instrument of judgment.
Still some chose not to believe what was happening. These people started giving ear to false prophets that popped up. One of them claimed (Jeremiah chapter 28, paraphrased) “Everybody, take heart! God will deliver us from this and we’ll be back home in Jerusalem inside of two years!” This message, though false, appealed to the people, so they believed it and threw their support behind prophets that proclaimed this message.
God, however, intended for these exiles to stay in Babylon for 70 years, and He didn’t hide His intent. Now, if you’re one of these people, living in a foreign land against your will, you’re going to live your life differently if you believe you’re only going to be there two years than if you believed you were probably going to spend the rest of your life there. Of course God wasn’t going to let this be the end of the Jews, but He works on His own timeline, not the one that people decide He should.
To help set the record straight, God had Jeremiah write them a letter. Paraphrasing from Jeremiah chapter 29, the prophet writes “look, everybody, you’re gonna be here for awhile. Build houses for yourself. Plant gardens and eat the stuff that grows in them. Get married to each other and have kids, and give those kids away in marriage. For now, this is your normal. No, it won’t always be like this, but that’s what it is for now.”
That’s our modern-day tie-in. The basic question here is “how many people have put off or canceled major life events because of the current circumstances?” Countless weddings have been postponed, untold numbers of students missed the opportunity to have a traditional in-person graduation ceremony, and it’s simply impossible to know how many other major trips or events have dropped or otherwise been put on hold.
The deeper question, and the one that has a more permanent impact, is “what God-honoring things have been put off or canceled because people decided that the world no longer met their definition of what the world should look like?” There are obvious things, like the cancellation of church services or outreach programs, but there have been varying degrees of success regarding the thing that have taken their place. For example, most churches this past summer probably either completely canceled or had a greatly scaled-back version of Vacation Bible School (VBS). Children are especially open to hearing about what Christ has done for them, and it’s important that Christians reach them. The challenge is addressing the same needs through different means, and the missed opportunities come when there’s no attempt to fill the gap.
That’s just an example. There are elementary-age needs, middle-school-aged needs, high-school-aged needs, needs for singles, for engaged or newlyweds, for men, for women, for families, for widows/widowers, for seniors, for professionals, for stay-at-home parents, and countless sub-groups of any of these demographics. The world needs you…whether it’s your creativity, your technological savvy, a spacious or special property you own, or a brand new idea that can be used to reach people in the name of Christ…this is your opportunity to step out in faith and make an eternal difference.
In this season of COVID, remember not to live like you’re still in Jerusalem. For the moment, we’re in Babylon, and we have to live out our Christianity and witness to non-believers within the parameters of our Babylonian environment. Build houses, plant gardens, and pursue long-term relationships. We may be here for awhile or we may not, but either way, we don’t have the option of letting the ministry opportunities stop. You might be the only thing that an important new undertaking is waiting for.
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Strange times we’re in. While there are many people that no longer have the job they held a month or two ago, many others now work from home. For those folks, the reality is that sometimes they just can’t produce the same quality from home that they’re able to at their normal place of business. I don’t advocate for shoddy workmanship, but it’s important to understand that if you’ve turned in low-quality work of some kind, all is not lost.
We’ve heard many times that God can take terrible things and use them for good. It’s like saying God loves us. We’ve heard it so many times we lose our appreciation for what it means. What if I told you there’s a story in the Bible where God used someone’s poor-quality work to both glorify Himself and accomplish His will at the same time? That might make you feel better when you’re unable to produce the same quality of work you’re accustomed to turning in.
There’s a story in 1 Kings 20 that has a funny little twist. The Bible often glosses over big events in a very short amount of time, and if you blink, you’ll miss it. In this case, the Israelites were at war with a numerically superior foe, the Arameans. Verse 27 says that the Israelites were like two little flocks of goats, but the Arameans covered the countryside.
The Lord was kinda mad at the Arameans in this engagement, so he enabled the Israelites to cut down 100,000 of their enemy in one day, and verse 30 says that the rest fled into a nearby city. Here’s where you’ll miss it if you blink: “But the rest fled to Aphek into the city, and the wall fell on 27,000 men who were left.”
Now, I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen a wall large enough to fall on 27,000 men. In order to have a wall that big fall on so many people at once, we’re talking about failure at a spectacular level. The book doesn’t say anything about how that wall was constructed or what made it collapse; we just know that it happened, it was bad news for the Arameans, and it was all part of God’s plan.
Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not condoning work that’s intentionally sloppy or poor. If you can’t meet the level of what you’re ordinarily capable of though, do the best you can. There may be a divine purpose for that imperfection later on down the line.
Due to the whole “pandemic thing,” there are a lot of disruptions in life, including the cancellation of a lot of church services.
Don’t let that stop you from learning about the power of Christ working in and through you. If you need a substitute lesson today, try this one. There’s no worship music, but it’s almost 40 minutes of learning about how Christ’s power can be increased in you.
Hang tight, keep the faith, and look for new opportunities during this once-in-a-lifetime event we’re living through!
As a fan of
professional football, this is an exciting time of year. It’s playoff season.
There are 32 teams in the league and at the end of the regular season only 12
teams extend their season into the playoffs. As of today there are only four
teams left. This weekend two games will occur, and the winners of those two
games will face off in the Super Bowl during the first weekend of February.
One of the things that
make the playoffs so exciting is that anything can happen. This past weekend
the team with the best record in the league was eliminated by a team that
barely made it into the playoffs. While many of the games in the regular season
are blowouts or otherwise unexciting, each team in the playoffs has earned the
right to be there. The level of play is elevated and the games are more
interesting to watch.
When you’re watching a
great game, it’s a shame that one of the teams has to lose and be eliminated.
As the game draws near to the end and it becomes more evident which team is facing
elimination, you see the desperation as they pull out all the stops. They think
bigger; they take more risks. The really
exciting games are the ones that aren’t decided until the last play of the
game. When teams are neck-in-neck, they both raise their level of play, and the
players sometimes seem to find another gear as they push each other to perform
at their highest potential.
How is this like the
Christian life? Think of it this way: a football game isn’t over until there’s
no time left on the game clock. Sure, there are cases where games go to
overtime, but the vast majority of games end when the clock runs out. Just like
a football game, a Christian only has a finite amount of time to be on the
field, making plays for the team and for the coach. After the clock runs out,
the impact of the individual’s efforts cannot be changed. What’s done is done,
and it’s too late to go back and add anything to it.
While we don’t have the
advantage of seeing how much time is left on the clock in our lives, we can
still make efforts to “up our game” and play to our full potential. Are you
disciplined in your spiritual diet (do you consume good things and avoid bad
things)? Are you surrounding yourself with people that push you to operate at
your highest level?
When we’re done with
this life, we’re going to want to be able to say “I left it all out there on
the field.” Don’t keep anything in reserve; use it all up before the clock runs
out. If you do that, believe me, the coach is going to take notice.
