Significance

This week I have to make some decisions.  I am faced with an array of opportunities, relationships, and events, and I can't do all of them.  I'm not even sure that I am supposed to do any of them.  Silence and simplicity are a clear part of my calling, but resist these parts as I strive for significance.  On some level I have bought into the lie that the more I do the more significant I am.

The very fact that I am still striving, seeking, searching for significance shows that I have missed it.  The desire itself betrays me.  It shows me that I am still measuring myself against something.  I am still looking for something or someone to tell me I am significant.  The real problem is not just that I am looking in the wrong direction, it is that I am looking at all.

God has already declared that I am significant.  According to God I am His Child, a member of a holy nation, a royal priesthood.  I am an heir with Christ, seated in the heavenly realms.  I am one of the foolish and despised things of the world, that He has declared to be something significant.  I am one of the things that was not, but is now because He spoke it into being.  The same God who spoke and their was light has spoken words of blessing and affirmation over me.

The same God who created the universe by declaring it into existence, has declared that I am His child.  He made me, and is remaking me.  He is the center of all things.  He is the One from which all things derive their meaning and existence.  Things are at their heart whatever He declares them to be.  Man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart.  If He says that I am significant, then I am.  It is a fact.  A fact that I loose sight of all to easily.  I know I have lost sight of it when I am living my life trying to become something less than I already am.

Silence

Last night I watched a movie with my wife, "A River Runs Through It".  Afterwards, she was tired and went to bed while I sat on the couch reflecting on the themes of the movie.  After a while, she called down and asked me what I was doing.  I responded, "Nothing.  Just sitting here."  It struck me as a little odd.  I wasn't really doing "nothing".  I was reflecting.  I was thinking.

Another piece to the story is that after the movie was over, and before my wife called down, I turned off the DVD player and the TV popped back to regular programming.  A movie was on that I didn't recognize.  Even though I was enjoying the silence and wanted to continue to reflect I was immediately drawn in.  My curiosity was piqued.  It was a few minutes before I realized that I was losing the thoughts, the reflections, and the rest, that I had been entering into just moments before.  It was a real struggle to choose silence with interesting noise so readily available. 

I am so addicted to noise and activity!  I feel strange sitting still.  I know that it is in stillness and silence that I get in tune with my soul and with my God.  So, why do I feel almost guilty when I am doing nothing?  I am nearly always doing something, many times attempting to do multiple things simultaneously.  Busy-ness is familiar and comfortable.  If I find myself between tasks I feel somewhat uneasy and I start to immediately search for the next thing to do; the next activity to engage in, the next media to consume, the next problem to solve.  The problem is that noise is constantly available and even intrudes on our lives unbidden.  The hard part is to choose silence.  Silence seems unnatural.  It is hard to find or create silence, but it is necessary. It is worth pursuing.

Learn to Discern

I desperately want to know God.  I want to know Him personally and to interact with Him.  It isn't that I don't know God's Name.  I know His Name and I know Him personally, but I want to know Him more.  I have talked with Him and on a few occasions I have heard His reply to my question or my cry.  It's not that He is fully unknown.

I want to know Him like I want to know my wife.  I want to know the way she is thinking.  I want to understand her emotions.  I want to know what makes her smile and what makes her mad; but it's not just the information I want, it's the connection.  I want to know her and I want to be known by her.  I want to belong to her and for her to belong to me.  Of course all of this is already true on one level, but I want more.

I read His Word.  I pray and I worship in song.  I feel His presence, but not with the kind of regularity that I want, that I believe is possible.  I want to hear His voice and to be able to tell the difference between His voice and the other voices echoing in my head.  I want to be able to know when it is Him speaking and when it is just me, my parents, or my culture.  I want to learn to rightly discern His voice.

This is not just idle curiosity.  As a Christian I believe that Christ is my Saviour as well as my model for life and ministry.  I want to live like Christ.  Jesus always only did what He saw His Father doing.  I can't do that right now, because more often than not I have no idea what God is doing.  I am sure that He is at work, but only rarely can I trace His fingerprints on a situation until after the fact.  So, I need to train my senses, my mind, and my heart to be alert to Him and His movements.  I believe that discernment is both a gift and a skill, or rather a gift that God gives to all His children that can be increased with practice.  I want to learn to discern.

It's all about me

It is funny how easy it is for me to slip into a narcissistic perspective.  I all too easily become consumed with myself and lose my grasp on reality.  The more I focus on my fears and failures, or even my victories and virtues, the more warped my perspective becomes.

The fact is that the story of my life is a small part of a much grander story.  God is writing an epic story filled with love and hate, faithfulness and betrayal, a great adventure.  I have a part in the story, as we all do, but when I start thinking that it's all about me, I have lost the plot.  I make too much of myself.  I make to much of my gifts, my reputation, my sin, my insignificance, and my importance.  None of these things are the central truths of reality.  God alone stands at the center.  He is the hero of the story, not me.  He has written me into the story and I am valuable because He made me and loves me, but that doesn't make the story about me.

As I wrote my last post, I was wallowing in self-pity.  I was focusing only on myself and my experience.  Then, a surprising thing happened.  Someone reminded me that what I need to do is to make much of God, to focus on Him.  I cannot worry about the critics or the price that I might pay for obedience.  I must only draw near to God, and  do what He would have me do.  I wonder if great things are only possible when undertaken with self-forgetfulness?  Great battles are not won without sacrifice and there will be scars to bear.  If I trust that God really is working everything out for my good as well as the good of the Kingdom, then I can walk whatever path He lays before me.

I am so quick to forget!  I need to be reminded of the gospel.  I need to be reminded that it is all about God.  I need to be reminded that while I am a unique and valued child of the King, I am only one of many valued children.  He has a role for me to play, a part for me to fulfill, work for me to do.  I must do my part for the Kingdom to advance and for the King to get the glory that is due to His Name.  He'll take care of the rest, and as I lose myself in Him and the work He has for me to do, I become who I was created to be.

Fear and Writing

I am afraid.  I am afraid to write honestly about my experience of God.  I am afraid to share my doubts and misgivings as well as my certainties.  I am afraid to share about my sinful past, and my besetting sins that are with me even now.  I am afraid that if I really write, really share who I am, if I commit it to the page, then I will be judged, ridiculed and mocked. 

I don’t think that my fears are unfounded as it doesn’t take too much poking around on the internet to find a raft of websites that mock and defame any number of ministers and ministries.  It is not that I am afraid of being wrong.  I know that I’m wrong a lot of the time and that even some things that I once was confident about, I now shudder to think that I espoused.  I am sure that I am wrong and I am open to correction.  I don’t want to be wrong, I don’t like it, but it seems I can’t help it.  I think the only way to become less wrong is to be honest about who you are and what you think, so that others can speak into your life.  I want to be able to search for truth without being shouted at too much, and without being mocked.  I don’t mind confessing my ignorance if I can receive knowledge in return rather than disdain. 

So, I hesitate.  I procrastinate.  I believe that God has asked me to write, but I will do anything other than that.  I will do research.  I will adjust the layout of my blog.  I will update and reboot my computer.  I will do just about anything other than lay myself bare before the reading world. 

The irony of all this is that virtually no one is reading what I write anyway.

Stealing His Glory

One of the things that I appreciate about scripture is the way that it records the real lives of people who have followed God, warts and all. There is no putting a nice spin on sleeping with your daughter in law, or giving your wife to another man to avoid a potential threat to your own safety. The stories of the men and women in scripture are not written to glorify them, but rather to point to the nature and character of God.

The stories are meant to glorify God. By recording for posterity not just the victories, but also the struggles and outright failures of these men and women God receives glory and we receive hope. If even a man after God's own heart can commit murder and adultery, then there is hope for a man like me.

I find modern biographies to be more sanitized, and at times even discouraging. By lionizing the leaders of churches and ministries are we not glorifying the man or woman at the expense of the glory of God. I find myself wondering at the saintliness and giftedness of the leaders and wondering if I measure up. I find myself impressed with them and their ministries rather than inspired to step out into ministry myself.

But, if I am honest, I have to acknowledge my own propensity to hide the warts and trumpet "my achievements". In my own heart, I am guilty of trying to steal some of God's glory all too often. I want people to like me. I want people to think that I am gifted and to respect me, to speak well of me. The fact that this comes so naturally to me does not mean that it's not wrong. All kinds of sin comes naturally to me, all too naturally.

I don't mean that we need to share everything with everyone, but when we seek to glorify ourselves even subtly, are we not seeking to keep a bit of the praise that we should be reflecting to the Father for ourselves; sort of skimming off the top before we pass it along. Is it not a form of spiritual embezzlement? I don't want to steal even a portion of His glory. So, I resolve to live with integrity and to share the whole story so that He can get the whole glory.