Production and Patience

I find myself torn between two poles.  On the one hand I feel strongly that we are engaged in a battle and that we must be zealous and active in the fight.  On the other hand, I know that God is sovereign and is in control of all things. I was thinking and praying about this as I walked on the beach the morning.  I was feeling SO burdened by some specific situations.  I was moved by the immediacy of the problems and was interceding.  I was begging God to bare His arm and win the victory.  I was on the verge of despair that He could do anything, or would do anything, when I noticed the action of the waves.  The tide was going out, so the waves were not crashing, but instead gently rolling up and down between the rocks and over the sand.  I noticed that the rocks were well worn; some had taken on impossible shapes beneath the steady motion of the waves.  I saw the sand being pushed up and down the beach by the surf.  I saw small pebbles rolling around beneath the water, on their way to becoming sand themselves. It was then I was reminded of the inexorable coming of the Kingdom of God.

God is moving and His Kingdom is coming, but all in His own mysterious time and paradoxical ways.  I feel such an urgency an impatience for God to move!  I want His Kingdom to come and His will to be done NOW!  I don't think this is all bad, but I see that our sense of urgency and activity often leads us to make subtle choices that lead us away from dependence on God.  It seems that what we want is results, people saved, children fed, schools built, churches planted, families transformed, or cultures redeemed.  Being heirs to the industrial and information revolutions, we then set out to design and build systems that will efficiently and effectively produce the results that we need, that we believe God wants to see happen.

Unfortunately, our reliance on these systems and our efforts to perfect them often causes us to lose our way.  Ultimately our goal is not the production of particular results, good though they may be, but rather, as Jesus taught, God's Kingdom to come and His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.   The reign of God is massive!  It is much bigger and more complex than we can imagine.  We understand very little about the universe we live in, and even less about the God who created it all.  His Kingdom is mysterious and even paradoxical.  It has so many aspects, contains so many interactions, and has so many simultaneously moving parts!  It is organic and dynamic, it cannot be placed under a microscope and dissected to unlock the secrets.  When we attempt to do this, we reduce the movement of the Spirit to the distillation and application of principles.  We lose the life of the Spirit, but we gain the illusion of control and efficiency.

Oh, but we are an impatient people!  The movement of God sometimes takes much longer than we would expect.  The waves are an ineffecient way to shape stones and to make sand.  So, we devise machines.  We research, discover, and apply the laws of physics and harness what powers we can to accomplish our goals.  We are efficient and effective as we improve upon God's methods.  We never equal His grace and beauty, but no matter because we can do it faster.  Unfortunately, there is more to what God is doing with the waves than just making sand, more than we can possibly understand.

When we skip the process to achieve the end we end up missing both.  We can produce sand and gravel from stones, but that is only a small part of what God is doing; one small part of His grand design.  The marvelous interactions of all that is happening on the beach are part of an intricate dance that we can pick apart but never duplicate.  Behind it all is the hidden hand of God.  He calls us to enter in with Him and to take an active role, but also not to overestimate our own prowess or importance.  We are each like one wave on the beach.  We matter, we have a role, but it is all so much bigger than us.  So, we must take our part in the line of waves accomplishing the will of God by measures and asking Him to give us both the patience and the endurance to keep going.

Praying and cycling

I am starting to realize just how little I know about prayer.  It's not that I haven't read about prayer, or study the topic in the scriptures.  I admit that I have a lot left to learn cognitively about prayer, and even more left to understand.  But my need for knowledge goes beyond the cognitive.  What I am realizing is that I am only now beginning my journey in the area of prayer.

I feel like a man who years ago became interested in cycling.  I read books about the history of cycling.  I go to bike shops and talk to cyclists.  I read about the lives and experiences of great cyclists.  I even attend the odd cycling event from time to time.  But until very recently I never really got on to a bike, or at least never rode much.  I occasionally rode my bike down the street or around town, but never really trained, never devoted myself to it.  So, despite years of learning I am still a novice.

The real knowledge comes in the doing.  Years ago I had a mentor tell me that you learn about praying by praying.  I nodded sagely and asked him if he could recommend a book about that.  Recently I have redoubled my efforts at serious prayer.  I find that it is tremendously hard work.  It really is true that the learning is in the doing.  I devote myself to prayer and am left tired and drained, not unlike a novice bicycler who has not built up his stamina.  I am amazed at how exhausted I am after a time of intercession.  I feel like I have been carrying real physical burdens, a deep bone tiredness.  It is hard to push myself to continue to pray when I feel like I have "hit the wall".I have to remind myself that I have much to learn.  I want to keep learning and to find what is beyond the wall. 

This is war

I stand on a battlefield.  Around me I see my friends, my brothers, my comrades-in-arms.  We stand together against a foe that we can't quite see.  An enemy that seems to materialize where we least expect him and then fade back into the darkness, lurking always lurking, looking for a weakness, probing for an opportunity to strike.

I see the wounded bodies of my comrades.  Bloodied and broken in the fight they pile up around me.  As I move among them, some wounds seem self-inflicted but others bear the cruel markings of the enemy.  Vicious attacks that tore them from their places in the firing line.  Unprovoked, unjust, and unrelenting assaults against those who would dare to stand against the encroaching evil and even to throw it back.  To bring light into the darkness, to bring hope to the hopeless, to set the prisoners free.

This is a rescue mission.  We have joined up to free the captives.  But the captives have been captive so long that they can no longer imagine real freedom.  Instead, they often willingly, even gladly, join in resisting "the invaders" who would set them free.  They view their liberators as the enemy while their true enemy eggs them on from within and smiles at their tortuous acts of self-destruction.  All the while creeping among our ranks to find a weakness in one of more of us to exploit.

My role is primarily to encourage the troops.  I move among them whispering words of hope and exhortation.  I administer first aid to those who have been wounded and sometimes aid in getting them more help.  I counsel with the leaders, and seek counsel from the Leader.  Sometimes I take an active role in the battle calling in air support or slogging through the trenches, but most days I find myself among the wounded.  I offer them compassion and pray for healing.  I understand their plight because I have been wounded to.

I hate our enemy.  I love our Lord.  I often puzzle as to why He doesn't simply end this war once and for all.  It seems sometimes that the darkness is gaining ground, but I trust our Commander.  I know that He has things well in hand through all appearances to the contrary.  I have seen Him turn the tide in battle before.  I have seen prisoners set free against all odds.  I have been on successful rescue missions.  I remember being rescued myself.

And so, I stand on the battlefield still.