The Art Of Risking Awkwardness

The Art of Acting Intentionally

Life’s Two Most Important Things

I have found that a getting older does not necessarily equate into maturity and experience does not necessarily equate in learning, but one must be intentional and humble to truly learn and mature. It was not long ago that I was in my twenties and although I was aware I had much to learn I acted as though I had most things figured out.  God had a great work of humility in store for me that He has begun working on over the past few years.  One of the things I struggled with as I look back now seems to be a much larger problem facing Christians today, and as we see in Galatians 5, we have faced since the days of Paul in the first century.

Gal. 5:13-17 For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.  But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.

Too much of my twenties were spent with me biting (either verbally or in my mind) at other followers of Jesus because of how they said or did things different than I.  At times I would notice and address actual sin in the lives of others or ways people might be choosing other than God’s desire, be it intentionally or unintentionally.  However, too often my thoughts, judgments, and/or verbal jabs were centered more on how someone went about or wanted to do something different than how I would have.  My focus was not a matter of another’s sin that should be dealt with but about styles, personalities, or decisions that were theirs to make and not mine.  What I have found is in many of these situations, as I look back it has caused some sort of devouring of the relationship even when my thoughts were never shared.

One of my focuses for this new year is to not to focus my attention on how others go about doing the things that they do and decisions they make (which many times results in criticism, judgment, and looking down upon on my part).  Now if something is sinful, or another has given you a role in regard to accountability or counsel, or a decision is not theirs to make that is clearly a different situation.  It is the job of a follower of Jesus to be truthful about sin and it is important for people to not be robbed of opportunities to make their own choices and grow through them. Now I do not only want to go half way and simply avoiding those things that are not profitable. I also desire to replace that with speaking truth in areas that God has given me the opportunity to speak into, seek to encourage others, and mend wounds that I know of that have been caused by my biting.

What is tremendously sad to me is that I am fully aware that I am not just one odd duck, it is almost like at times the church can produce these type of ugly ducklings of which I have been guilty.  The real scary part is what happens when we look at what is being lost as result of our petty, arrogant, and many times ignorant words and deeds in regard to biting and wounding each other.  What if Christians took all the time they spend complaining about, arguing about, judging, and consequently hurting (devouring) each other and instead focused it on what is true and right? Let me be clear, I know maybe the majority of this type of biting comes through a situation where good intentions have gone off course in some way.  Many times it is a result of someone believing that they can live in this type of grey area in ministering to others or decision-making, but what they do not realize is there is no grey and their good intentions have been pushing forward darkness.  Other times it is based on assumptions of what others are doing or saying and our assumptions about their intentions. Other times it is a result of wanting to see better occur and allowing our pride to get in the way so that we think we have the right to tell others what decisions they should make although we were never entrusted with the responsibility to make those decisions (and most the time don’t know half of the details involved either).  Other times it is purely stylistic, personality driven, or expecting others to have learned from experiences that they have yet to have.

So what if we were to stop biting at each other for those types of things and save accountability for sin issues?  Would we instead focus our attention on telling those who are not following Jesus about sin, grace, repentance, and the gift of God? Would we focus our attention on encouraging all that is good and true in each other instead of finding faults? Would we focus our energies in serving our communities? Would we fix our eyes on all the lies that our destroying our communities and extend grace and direct others toward truth? Would we instead see those whom, although good intentioned, are embracing the lie of the grey and not able to see they are in fact battling for the dark and help them redirect their good intentions to battle for the light? Would we instead better allow people to see Jesus because we are united in what matters because we have stopped bickering about all the things that do not?

Maybe these are just the confusing ramblings of a guy growing up a bit, but just maybe God desires you to walk more in the spirit and less in the flesh just as I know He desires for me.  One thing I do know from this passage, it is not from God when we bite or beat up each other for things that are not clearly opposed to God’s desire. We would each be doing better before we let our thoughts, words, or actions be taken captive by our flesh to ask, “Is this really a Spirit matter? Is this clearly opposed to scripture in some way? Are my thoughts, words, or actions truly going to be devouring (tearing apart) or lifting up and encouraging?”. We are all journeying through this crazy adventure of life, let’s keep our focus and attention on what really matters and not get distracted and tripped up on all that does not.  Trust me from my own real life experiences; choosing God’s way always turns out better.  Choosing to show you are right, better, fix it, etc. is just not worth it in the end.

Receive The Gift of Joy

Becoming Relational Bridge Builders

Coming Clean

Getting Help by Choosing Hope

In sharing this I am fully aware that I may offend some, but as I continue to pray about it this topic is so important and needs truth to be spoken.  It is so important because we see suffering (physical, emotional, economic, relational, etc.) all around us.  Although it is one of God’s promises in scripture we are always surprised by it because we hold out a hopeless hope that it will not actually happen to us.  Yet, the thing we fight against is one of things that is promised to make us more Christlike if we would only embrace it.  Sorry for the tangent, back to the point.

So what I notice is that when we experience suffering people come out of the wood work with all kinds of crazy things with little to no scriptural support.  We have gone through with friends and experienced with first hand as Mindy continues to battle chronic pain as a result to complications from childbirth.  It was amazing the number of people who seem to think that they can boss God around and command him to do this and that by twisting scriptures in an attempt to “claim them” for us.  Now where would Mindy and I be if we fell into this idea (which did impact us briefly and caused true pain)?  Mindy still has extreme chronic pain and most likely will until she meets Jesus face-to-face in heaven.  If I twist scripture around to think that I had the right to boss God around, claiming his word to hold him to a test, and make him do what I want and He doesn’t do it what does that mean?  It destroys ones trust in God which is what falling into emotionally based doctrine does.  To truly understand God is to know He is in control and does not have to do anything for me, I am not entitled to healing, wealth, prosperity, a good job, favor with people, etc.  Please do not mistake this, pray for your friends but pray with humility and love, in fact, beg God, but understand he will do what he chooses to do.  While you are at it, pray for the healing and blessing that will come not through the specifics that you pray but through the suffering that is promised to each of us.  I believe Mindy can already and will at the end of her days look back and see how her horrible chronic pain was a true blessing.

There are so many crazy things that people begin to include that are really only emotionally based coping mechanisms.  You have heard them, singing healing over someone sick (I still cannot understand this from a practical or scriptural perspective), thinking magic thinks like a certain type of oil (although elders should anoint the sick with oil and pray for healing), claiming repentance for another person (what, how does that work), and looking for miracles not found in scripture like eating a certain diet or taking certain vitamins.

Some of these might have a benefit and most of them are just like Satan’s initial deceptions, partial truths that sound good.  Like eating healthier is always better but it is not a miracle cure for sickness and death, or embracing accountability with a close friend and pursuing if sin might be leading to suffering.  The reality is this is all based in sin.  The result of sin is suffering, pain, separation, and death.  We live in a fallen world where sin has infected everything and our bodies are subjected to the curse and sickness and death occur.  Sin has impacted the world to where work is hard and produces lots of suffering and pain with little return.  These are found in the beginning with the curse.  The problem is instead of responding biblically to these with hope because of Jesus we pursue emotional fixes to help us with our fear.  These emotional fixes keep us enslaved to our fear and pull us alway from the true hope we find in Jesus.

Again, in sharing this I know I become a target to those of you who are relying on these emotionally based responses to carry you through, but let me share with you true hope.  I am not very old, I have only experienced 31 years of life on this earth and only about half of those have I been a follower of Jesus.  However, during my short time I have personally been a part of miraculous healing of people I prayed for, experienced the miracles of people forgiving those whom have abused them, first hand experienced God miraculous provision when their seemed to no hope in sight.  I have seen a lot, I have seen God do the supernaturally in truly unexplained ways (including with me) and I have seen him do the supernatural though other people, the miracle of modern medicine, etc.  Throughout all of this, what I continually come back to is that there is a great and mighty God.  His name is Jesus and he continues to this day to do the miraculous and supernatural.  He loves greater and more than all the greatest scholars and poets could ever deduce.  He extends his grace and makes it available to all despite the fact that his own suffering was a result of our flat out rebellion to his authority and character.

My friends, suffering is a reality we will each face, so is sickness, pain, death, separation, and evil.  Instead of fixing your eyes of emotionally based religious experiences and expressions let us fix our eyes on the one who has conquered it all.  Let us fix our eyes on Jesus and find hope in him despite what circumstances He allows to unfold.  Let us recognize him as in control and thank him for the moment that we have.  Let us push away our ideas of entitlement to better, easier, wealthier, funner, happier, and be thankful for his consistent presence with us through all of reality.  Let us quit setting up ourselves, our families, and our friends to lose hope and trust because of our emotionally based religious responses.  Instead, let us look to the savior and to his truth and find him.  Let us come to know what it means for him to be the comforter instead of the experiences we create and call his.  Let us suffer well, let us suffer together that the world might see the one who carries us through it all and find true hope themselves.  Let us put aside charismatic theology and let us hold to scripture.  Let us put off our fantasies and instead live in God’s reality with him, maybe, we might in doing so find the fantasy we were looking for all along.