R3: radical, revolutionary, different

Just because you’re a Christian doesn’t mean it’s not hard to watch the economy fall apart.  It doesn’t mean there isn’t any stress involved with facing hard times.  What it does mean is that we need to remember to trust God.  He knows what we need, and frankly it’s not really another video game or a new car - what we really need is a stronger relationship with him. 

I don’t always find that comforting as I enter into a crisis.  But that doesn’t make it any less true.

Lord - I pray for all the people who are being affected by this financial crisis.  The people who are losing their homes, their jobs, and their financial security.  Encourage them.  Help them to lean into you, so that they can overcome any obstacle.  And for the rest of us, help us to remain generous, to stay bold, and to act in love.  Amen.

Life has a way of overwhelming us.  It’s easy to get distracted, to lose focus, and to simply make poor choices.  For the next few days we’re taking a look at phrases that help us keep our bearings so we make the right choices, not the easy choices.      

No matter who you are or what you do, you will face stress, trouble, and pain.  It’s just a fact of life.  Some of us face more than our share.  In the midst of all this stress and pain we have to find ways to deal with that reality.  Often we turn to God, expecting him to act like Santa Claus and simply give us a bunch of goodies.  The truth is, God doesn’t always solve our problems for us.  So if we’re waiting for God to bring us out of poverty, or bring back a lost love, or in my case the return of Voltron to TV, we may never be satisfied. 

But just because God doesn’t always miraculously solve our problems, doesn’t mean we are allowed to sit around doing nothing.  Or worse, feel sorry for ourselves.  God wants us to be active.  He wants us to be engaged in the present.  He knows that if we wait for our lives to be perfect before we act, we’ll probably never do anything.  

But how do we act when things feel so overwhelming?

Over the last few years I’ve probably heard Chris Tomlin sing ”Holy is the Lord” 100 times.  But it wasn’t until recently that one line in that song really struck me.  He says, ”the Joy of the Lord is our strength.”  I began asking myself, what if my strength really comes from knowing God is happy with my life?  What if the way to overcome the pain and challenges of life is to embrace God’s joy?  What if his joy is more powerful than any other thing I can do?

I’ve always wondered how some Christians can bear unimaginable suffering but still hold onto their faith.  I think it’s because they understand this - that no amount of suffering, no amount of treasure, no amount of praise, is worth giving up God’s joy in our lives. 

There’s nothing in my life that ranks as particularly traumatic.  I’m not facing death or torture.  Although getting ready for another season of reality TV sure feels like that.  But God does ask me to do things I’m not comfortable with.  He asks me to engage in people’s lives when I’d rather watch TV.  He asks me to trust him, when I’d rather trust my bank account.  As I look at these decisions, they scare me.  That’s usually when I feel the panic raising up.  So I remind myself, “the joy of the Lord is my strength.”  And that’s enough to help me stay focused.

Perhaps this is best summed up by Bill Hybels in The Volunteer Revolution, “I’ve never known joy outside of pursuing God’s calling on my life.  Whenever I’ve wandered even five degrees off that course, I’ve lost the sense of God’s smile that I can’t live without.”

I’m beginning to see just how true this is.

Whenever I look at someone I assume they don’t feel the same kind of pressures I do.  That somehow they are immune from the stress I feel, or the fear that paralyzes me when I don’t know what to do.  This is especially true when I’m watching someone famous, important, or brilliant. 

It’s easy to forget that we’re all susceptible to stress. 

Which is why the following video seems so surprising.  How can the Georgian President be nervously chewing his tie?  Isn’t he famous?  Don’t world leaders just naturally know what to do?  But clearly he’s terrified.  Just like you or I would be if in similar circumstances.

Life is filled with the unexpected, as I’m sure the Georgian President understands all too well.  And the more we are willing to follow God, the more unexpected life becomes.  You see, God has a way of calling us to do things that seem so overwhelming, and yet as we step into that moment we seem to be perfectly created just for those tasks. 

That’s kind of a common theme around R3.  Despite that, I always seem to come back to the same questions.  Where do we find the strength to keep on going?  How do you keep on fighting when everyone else around you has given up?  How is it that some Christians seem to crack, while others endure brutal hardships?

The only answer I can come up with is ”God.”  Nothing else can hold up its end of the bargain.  Everything - money, love, Fido the family dog - will let us down at one point or another.  Only God remains steadfast.  Only God is always there for us.  The trick is in remembering that when it feels that the world is caving in around us.

Have you ever stopped to think about the amazing things people have created?  Just look at the skyscrapers we build, the planes we fly, and even the computers we use.  It’s simply amazing.  We can easily draw the conclusion that what God needs is more of our success.  More of our brilliance.  And more of our strengths.  (e.g., Deuteronomy 9)

Yet that’s not really what God uses to change the world.  Instead, he uses our weaknesses to show the world his strengths.

weakness is our strength

God - it’s easy for me to get wrapped up in my own ideas of brilliance, of what I think I need to do, and what I need to provide.  But you don’t need any of that, because you specialize in taking the weak to humble the strong.  Help me to see that it’s in my weakness and humility that you do the most radical things.  Help me to never lose sight of this, so that I am never afraid to take a risk for you. 

I don’t need to be perfect, because that’s not what you ask me to be.  You simply ask me to be faithful, and trusting.

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Life can feel so hard.

Some days the weight of it seems to be crushing. It’s in those moments where all the advice you’ve ever received just doesn’t seem like enough. Things like “trust God” or “God loves you” feel so empty, so meaningless.

Of course it’s not.

Those things are entirely true. But simply saying that doesn’t really solve anything. We need to have some way to put it all into practice. It’s almost as if we need to experience it before we can live it.

Have you ever met someone who just seemed to “shine” with an intense glow, as if there was something special radiating from them? While it’s unlikely they just ate a lamp, what is happening is their faith makes them look different. These are the people who are living out their trust in God. They know that God loves them, no matter what the situation.

Sometimes I think we expect things to come too easily. That believing in God is a magic pill that makes our life easy. When we see these “glowing” people we think their lives must be fine. That they aren’t experiencing problems, because if they had our problems, they wouldn’t be so intensely different.

But nothing is that easy. They have problems just like you and I. But they know something important: faith takes work.

Paul tells us that we should “Train [ourselves] in godliness, for, while physical training is of some value, godliness is valuable in every way, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.” (1 Timothy 4:7-8)

Living out a life of faith doesn’t happen by accident. And it doesn’t happen over night. It takes (literally) practice. We have to make choices that bring us closer to God. And the more we do this, the more “radiant” we become.

If this seems like an impossible task just remember…even Jesus “grew in wisdom.” (Luke 2: 52)

Why can’t God just answer my prayers?

I wonder that all the time. 

I mean he is all powerful.  How hard can it be to snap his fingers and just make something happen?  I don’t see what the issue is.

And that, I think, is the answer.  No matter how much we know, there are simply some things that we can never know.  For instance, we can never know what would happen if we went to a different college, married a different person, or slept through our alarm.  Well that last one might get you fired.  But in general we will never know the road not taken.  

The interesting thing is, God does know.  He’s fully aware of what would happen if things went differently.  When God promised Israel their own land, I’m sure some of them thought, “well why can’t we have it all at once.”  To me that doesn’t seem like an unreasonable question.  God did, after all, promise it to them.  

Yet there were things that Israel couldn’t know.  There were things they probably never even thought of.  Fortunately God had, “But I will not drive them out in a single year, because the land would become desolate and the wild animals too numerous for you. Little by little I will drive them out before you, until you have increased enough to take possession of the land.” (Exodus 23: 29-30)

God knew their lives would be harder, not easier if he simply gave them everything they wanted.  I wonder what I am impatient for, and God is saying “Be patient, trust me, you aren’t ready for this yet.  But you will be.”

What would you do for your freedom?  This is exactly the question that Israel was facing.  Of course the answer was simple: follow God’s commandments.  It doesn’t seem like that much really.  God even gave Israel a straightforward ‘to do’ list. Their sole responsibility would be to follow a couple of rules about how they were to prepare the meal (Passover). (Exodus 12: 1-11)  If they did that they would live and escape Egypt.

As we know, they escaped.

You’d think that after seeing everything they saw, they would be forever grateful to the one who set them free.  But you’d be wrong.  By the second month they were already unhappy (Exodus 16:1-3).  As they say, the honeymoon didn’t last long.

We spend so much of our time wondering where God is.  But maybe that’s not really the issue.  Maybe we should wonder why we aren’t willing to do the things necessary to set ourselves free.  Maybe we should ask, “why am I not allowing God to set me free?”

Sometimes I get so worked up about the right theology I forget about being real and honest with God. I forget about having a relationship with him. It’s in these moments where I spend all my time looking for the right words, instead of just talking to God.

So why do I do this?

I don’t think it’s because I’m trying to impress someone. The times I feel the most pressure to be “theologically correct” are usually when I’m praying. No one can hear those thoughts. But I worry that God may be upset, or more accurately, disappointed.

I worry that God may be ignoring me because I don’t know the magic words to get his attention. Sadly this is so far from who God is. God isn’t looking for magic words; he’s looking for a relationship.

Fundamentally faith is about putting things into action, not about what you know. Having sound theology is important - the more you know about someone, the stronger that relationship. But if you’re waiting until you have perfect theology, or you get your thoughts exactly right before turning to God, you’re hoping in something that will never happen.

Sometimes we just have to trust that God knows what we mean. And believe that he wants to be a part of our lives. We have to give up the idea of having control over God’s actions, and trust that we can just talk to him.

Focus.

That is not a word I often use to describe myself. By my nature I’m easily distracted. Not because I can’t pay attention when I want to – but because so many things fascinate me it’s hard to concentrate on just one thing.

As a kid I never had a hard time thinking of something I wanted to be when I grew up. There were so many exciting possibilities. Would I be an astronaut? How about a comic book artist? A writer? The next Indiana Jones?

As an adult it’s still hard for me to focus on just one goal. There are still so many things I want to do with my life that sometimes I feel paralyzed - not by fear, but by excitement. I am excited about all the amazing possibilities that lay before me.

In Wide Awake, Erwin McManus suggests that the most difficult decisions in life aren’t between good and evil - but between two equally good choices.

I think this is true.

After all, how do we make a decision between becoming an astronaut and a doctor? Or a football star instead of a baseball player? Or the most important question of all: hot dogs or hamburgers?

Life is filled with endlessly good choices competing for our attention. That’s why it’s fundamentally important to know what we won’t negotiate. We need to know what things we won’t surrender no matter what the situation. And dare I say, no matter the cost?

This applies just as much to our faith as it does to our lives.

It’s hard to know how to interpret rock bands (good), or long hair (meh), or the prosperity gospel (bad) if you don’t know what your nonnegotiables are. If we don’t know what defines God, then we get upset over something as simple as the music you play in church.

When everything has equal importance you can’t separate preferences from necessities. And so we attack people who have a different set of preferences – even when they agree with us on the necessities.

Of course there’s something deeper here too. We can’t live “wide awake” if we don’t know our core convictions. We can’t live out our dreams if we don’t know when to say “no” and when to say “yes.”

Ravi Zacharias tells a story about Henry Martyn. 

Martyn was not an attractive man.  (Or at least that’s what history records.)  Because of his embarrassment by the way he looked, he preferred to stay away from people.  He lived his life on the edges of relationships.  That is, until a young woman was able to see beyond his appearance,  and fell in love with him. 

Naturally he fell in love with her.

His other love was God.  So sitting in church one day, Martyn heard about India and the desperate need to bring God to the people of that country.  Suddenly Martyn knew what his dream was.  He knew that to live wide awake, he had to move to India. 

And so he went to the woman he loved and asked her to join him. 

She refused. 

Devestated Martyn began to question his calling to Africa.  Was this really the dream God had for him?  Was he even hearing it correctly?  How could he choose between India and the woman he loved?

As he wrestled with his choice he realized it wasn’t a choice between a woman and India – but between this special woman and God.

Henry Martyn knew what was nonnegotiable in his life.  He knew that nothing was more important than God.  As hard as it must have been, he left England and moved to India.  And died there at the age of 31. 

Martyn risked everything, and sacrificed so much, because he knew the things he couldn’t compromise.  His decision cost him the woman he loved, produced tremendous physical suffering, and in the end took his life.  But because he knew his priorities, he lived his life with both focus and purpose.  He lived wide awake.

So what are your nonnegotiables?  What will you never compromise?

It’s hard to trust God.  Partly because we don’t believe that the promises he makes us are going to happen.  “God’s a busy guy, he’s probably just distracted” we tell ourselves.

And so we do it our way.

We take matters into our own hands instead of waiting for what God has promised.  At least this is what happened to a guy named Abraham.  The Bible tells us Abraham and his wife couldn’t have children.  In fact they were actually too old to have children by the time God got around to making his promises. (Genesis 12:4)

I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t seem like a promising start to me.

On top of that, it took 25 years for God to fulfill his promise.  But Abraham didn’t know it was going to take that long.  So after waiting about 10 years he got impatient.  (10 years is more than generous, right?)  And decided it would be a good idea to sleep with his servant.  A perfectly acceptable thing to do in that time.  But it wasn’t what God wanted him to do.

We want to do things our way, because at least we can see what we’re doing.  We figure where there’s movement there’s progress.  But that’s not really the case is it?  Sometimes all that movement means we’re just stuck on the treadmill and can’t get off.

So often forcing the issue with God makes things worse.  I’m sure Abraham thought it was a good idea to sleep with his servant.  This way at least he had some kind of heir.  Heck, his wife was the one who suggested it.  But this just isn’t the way we were designed to live.

And so there were consequences.

Interestingly the first person to be affected by this decision was his wife - who became jealous.  The second to be affected were the child and mother.  The third: Israel itself, because Ishmael and his sons “lived in hostility toward all their brothers.”  (Genesis 25:18)For those of you scoring at home, that’s pretty much the hat trick for bad decisions. 

Why is it that we try to force God’s hand?  We convince ourselves that we know better.  And we plow on ahead, even when, deep down, we know better. 

Sometimes we just have to take him at his word, and wait.

Which brings us back to the beginning: it’s hard to trust God.  Not just because we don’t trust God; because even when we trust him, waiting is so difficult for us.  Fortunately for us, God always follows through in his promises, just like he did for Abraham.