Prominence and humility

“We all want to finish well, but so many of us do not. Why? Because we too easily cherish our roles in the Great Wedding more than the Wedding itself. This is why John the Baptist must become our mentor.”

These words from Jon Bloom struck me this morning. He goes on. “For the past year John had blazed across Judea like a shooting star, the first real prophet in Israel for four centuries. John’s disciples had been right in the middle of this remarkable move of God. Then abruptly, they weren’t. The surge moved past them to Jesus. Of course it was wrong to be envious of the Messiah. But still, how could their beloved rabbi — and they with him — suddenly be relegated to the periphery after all that God had done through them?”

In Bloom’s retelling of the story (John 3:25-30), John looks on his disciples with compassion. He understood their conflict — sincere godly ambition for the kingdom, and selfish ambition to have prominent roles in it. “This was a moment of unraveling for them, of heart exposure.” Then John explains “the bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine and it is now complete. He must become greater, I must become less.”

I was reading something yesterday about Christian leadership as stewardship, how the Christian leader should be a servant of all, and willing to be least. Bloom is hitting the same theme. “When the blessed Lord grants one a role to play, one must perform it faithfully but never grasp it. The role is not the reward. The Lord is the reward.” 

I too have a mixture of ambition for the kingdom, and ambition to have a prominent role in it. But we all have a prominent role -- adopted children of our heavenly Father (Gal 4:6) personally welcomed by Jesus our reigning elder brother (Hebrews 2:11) But it is God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit who really have the prominent role. May we remember that.

Jon Bloom's book, Things Not Seen.  (free to download to your computer or device). 

Faith and reality

Rick Warren writes "Faith is not denying reality. Faith is facing reality without being discouraged by it."

I say "Amen, bro!" Faith is hard when life comes at you. You're tempted to think God can't be there or else this mess would never have happened. But the promises of God are not predictions we'll have a trouble free existence. The promises are what we cling to when trouble comes.

My identity in God

In light of God's truth, what should I believe about myself?

 I believe that by God's grace I have been chosen, imperfect as I am, to be a member of God's family and to have a significant role in his Kingdom. He has chosen me and takes on himself the complicated task of qualifying me for this. I will pursue this calling in relationship to God, opening my heart and laying bare my soul with its imperfections to him. He knows about them already, and has chosen me anyway. I believe that his grace in my life is bigger than my shortcomings. I can lay my longings and frustrations, both good or evil, before him, and experience his peace, even when the good longings are not yet met and the evil longings have not yet gone away. I will continue in this faith I have learned, to walk in emotional honesty with God and seek his peace in my difficulties. The peace of pleasant circumstances is good when it happens but cannot be relied upon. This same grace and calling I rejoice in is also given to my brothers and sisters. So I will not disbelieve in their calling when I perceive them as imperfect. I will seek to understand their hearts, consider that I as well as they might be imperfect in the issue at hand, and pray for them that God helps them in their weaknesses, as I pray that God helps me.

 I see this in many Scriptures, here are three:

 Paul's thorn in the flesh (2 Cor 12). God did not remove it but said his grace was sufficient. God doesn't promise that he will always remove problems and distressing circumstances from our lives, sometimes he leads us through them.

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer." 2 Cor 1:3-6

Jeremiah's promise of the New Covenant (Jer 31:31-34). God's people didn't keep the first covenant, but rather than write off his people, God rewrites the covenant so they will keep it. God's commitment to his people endures in spite of their shortcomings.

How good and pleasant it is

How good and pleasant it is when brothers and sisters come together in unity,
Giving thanks for one another, making new treasures from old memories.
May I remember this day when my brokenness surfaces again,
When I ought to know better but don't.
May I remember this day when my brother, my sister, disappoint me.
May I be patient as you are, O God, shining the light of truth and grace on our messy mix,
Good and evil jumbled together.
O God, who will receive whatever harvest we do yield,
And cast into the fire whatever thorns have choked us,
Give me wisdom to see and be like you today.

Praying the Psalms

I didn't take naturally to the Psalms. They are poetry, and I'm a prose kind of guy. Logic and reason -- left to myself I'll head for Paul's epistles time after time.

Plus being poetry, they are kind of raw. Lord, I'm all alone here, why aren't you doing anything to help? My enemy is really bad, and I've been good. Make his kids into homeless orphans.

But in the last few years, I realize how much I need the rawness. I am pretty emotional too, I just hide it. Angry and upset? Don't express it, maybe it will go away. While not acting out my negative emotions is a valuable skill in social life, pretending they aren't there when I'm alone with God is not. God has used the Psalms to teach me when I pray to say what's on my heart, not what I believe should be on my heart. Because when I express my heart to God, he helps calm me much more than pretending I don't really feel that way can calm me.

And the Psalms, although raw and honest, are not just ranting.  They can go from "Lord, don't you care that I'm all alone here," to "You are the great one we all hope for" in just one or two verses. (See Psalm 22:1-3).

When I'm feeling something that isn't right, pretending I don't feel it doesn't help much.
Lecturing myself why I shouldn't feel it is only slightly better.
Laying it before God and saying "help me with this feeling" works much better.

Running to win is a good thing

God must like "it's not quite so simple" moments. He makes so many of them. I had another one today.

Saturday I quoted Ann Voskamp --

What you really wanted is to be extraordinarily, obviously, good at this. At this mothering thing. You wanted to be the best at this. You wanted to take the podium and gold medal in mothering — not take a million timeouts behind some locked bathroom door, turn on the water so no one hears you sobbing at what a mess this whole shebang is, and how you’d like to run away. 

This summed up what I feel so often -- I want to win the prize, to be the best, to be honored and acclaimed. Obviously pride -- I'm not the hero, God is. I should lay aside mydesire to be the center and graciously take my humble place wherever he puts me, acknowledging I need his help.

Then this morning I start thinking, "But wait. Doesn't Paul say we should run to win the prize?" I go looking and I find the reference, 1 Corinthians 9:24. What is he saying? In the beginning of the chapter he defends his rights as an apostle, and adds that even though he preaches the gospel without charge, he is not obligated to preach without charging. He is obligated to preach, but he supports himself preaching as a gift. Then he says although he is free, he makes himself a slave to many, to win as many as possible. He works hard at addressing different people in different ways to maximize his impact. This is when he says only one runner wins the prize, and we should be the one who runs to win.

"But wait, Paul," I want to say. "Haven't you read about the New Covenant, how our competency is not in ourselves but comes from God, how we have this treasure in earthen vessels, how our hope is not in ourselves but Christ in us?" Not only has Paul read that, he wrote that. So running to win the prize doesn't mean going back to us being the hero of our story. It has to mean training and working hard at recognizing God in us, highlighting the treasure, not the earthen vessel, reminding ourselves again and again we hope in him, not in ourselves.

So let us train and run in this course of honoring God in what he does in us and through us, celebrating what he has made of us and makes of us rather than who we are in ourselves.

The Gospel for Mother's Day

I do follow popular blogger Ann Voskamp, despite being well outside her target demographic. She wrote a good one this morning: What every mother can do for herself this Mother's Day. She exposes the dilemma of a mother afraid she hasn't been good enough:

What you really wanted is to be extraordinarily, obviously, good at this. At this mothering thing. You wanted to be the best at this. You wanted to take the podium and gold medal in mothering — not take a million timeouts behind some locked bathroom door, turn on the water so no one hears you sobbing at what a mess this whole shebang is, and how you’d like to run away.

Yes, that is what  I want, to take the podium and gold medal in what I do, to be the best and most famous. Why? Pride. I want to be the hero of my story. That's what led to Adam and Eve's fall.

But there is also brokenness -- because of Adam and Eve's fall, because we don't innately know God like we should, we miss knowing how much he is willing and able to be the hero of our story, so we think it is up to us. If I don't do it, who will. 

But the Gospel says we are not on our own. We have all fallen short, don't measure up, failed at being great and legendary and one of a kind. Like Paul wrote,

"all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," (Rom 3:23)

But that's not all -- there's more to God's story: "all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." (Rom 3:24). We are justified, made adequate, redeemed, invited into a life where God makes so much more of us than we can make of ourselves.

As Ann V says:

What every mother wants, her most unspoken need —  is a truckload of Grace.

Grace that buries her fears that her faith wasn’t enough, and that her faults were too many.

Grace that washes her dirty wounds and wounds the devil’s lies.

Grace that says she doesn’t have to try to measure up to anyone else because Jesus came down — and He measures her as good enough, as worthy enough, as loved more than enough.

Same for us, gentlemen: God offers grace to bury our fears that we aren't enough, can't be tough and strong enough, in control enough to make it all work. God offers capacity when we don't have capacity enough, God offers strength for our weakness.