Another fine mess...

How did I get into this mess?!  I have chosen a profession that requires me to engage wholeheartedly in striving to accomplish something that is ultimately beyond my ability to do.  I have chosen to spend my life reaching for goals that are impossible.  I am a minister.

My job is work for His Kingdom to come and His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.  My tasks are people.  My vocation is to seek the transformation of souls.  No one can accomplish this except God Himself.  So, every day I pray and I work, I talk and I preach, I write and create, I strategize and struggle for revival and renewal.  I can write a sermon or organize a meeting, but that is nothing.  The real purpose for the sermon or the meeting are beyond me.  There's the rub.  I cannot revive a single soul.  It is not up to me to change a life.  I can feed a man, house a child, love a woman, but I cannot touch their hearts.  Only God can do that.  What kind of fool am I to struggle and agonize to accomplish something I know is impossible.

I wrestled with this as I stood on the cliffs near my home yesterday.  As the wind howled, the ocean roared, and the clouds skidded across the sky I was simultaneously filled with faith and frustration.  I know that God is Almighty.  He can do anything that He wills.  He can change lives.  He can transform churches.  He can save nations.  He can fall upon a person, a church, a town, a city, a nation, and make Himself known.  He has done it before.  So, I stood there on the cliff telling Him about what is wrong with me and the world and begging Him to pour out His Spirit.  I looked at the sky filled with dark clouds and I wondered why He wouldn't break through.  Why doesn't He do what only He can do and burn through the clouds of darkness that engulf our world!?

Then I saw something I have never seen before.  I noticed another thing happening in the sky.  I saw another layer of clouds beyond the dark storm clouds above me.  The storm was rushing toward me and over me, but all the while there were bright white wispy clouds moving the opposite direction above and beyond the darkness.  In that moment I wondered.  I remembered.  God too is always moving, always working.  His work is often shrouded and is more subtle than the darkness.  It can go without notice and get lost in the noisy evil of our world.  It doesn't make the news, but it is there.  It is ever flowing, ever moving, inexorably proceeding forward.

So, I choose to attempt the impossible.  I preach and I pray knowing that if God doesn't "show up" then it is all in vain.  I launch myself into the abyss of failure and shame knowing that if He doesn't catch me I am lost, a fool indeed.  I have no hope in life or death apart from Jesus Christ.  I expect to swing out into eternity on that.

God is with us

I have been reading Genesis lately, trying to keep up with my son.  We decided to read the New Testament this year, and when we got through Revelation, my son just flipped back to the beginning and started in on Genesis.  So, I decided to read along with him, but that boy is a voracious reader and it's been a challenge to keep up with him.  Today, I covered a bunch of ground in the middle of Genesis to catch up with him as He's almost done with Joseph's story.  (By the way, I have to wonder what a 7 year old boy does with the story of Dinah and Shechem, or Lot and his daughters!?)

I love reading larger sections of scripture at once.  Don't get me wrong, I enjoy focusing in on a word or a verse as well, but there is something about taking in the whole scope of a story or a series of stories that illuminates the broader themes.  I was struck by the phrase "God was with him" and how many times in occurs.  It is a theme in each of the patriarchs lives and is also clearly a theme with Joseph.  God was with them.  This is usually either preceeded or followed by a list of the blessings they received, the wealth they accumulated, or the sons that were born.  Clearly God being with them is a tremendous source of blessing.  So much so that even their neighbors and erstwhile enemies could recognize it as the hand of God and sought treaties with them.

As I read the story of Joseph in particular I found myself pondering the blessing of God being with Joseph.  It is clear that He was with Joseph, but that God being with him did not prevent him from being abused and almost killed by his brothers, being sold into slavery, being accosted and falsely accused by his bosses wife, being imprisoned, or being forgotten by those he helped.  God was with him and was blessing him in the midst of these difficulties and injustices.  God's presence did not prevent them or allow Joseph to circumvent them. 

God did not rescue Joseph from the harsh realities of a radically dysfunctional family, work place discrimination, or the miscarriage of justice when falsely imprisoned.  God was with Joseph in the middle of these things.  Oh! How Joseph must have wondered where God was in the middle of his sufferings!?  I can only imagine how he might have felt as others were released from prison while he remained.  The one chosen and blessed by God seemed to be the only one who was not being blessed.  There was simply no way for Joseph to know what God was up to and God never told him.  God was with him the whole time, blessing him, but not releasing Him.

Emmanuel, God is with us.

The Battle

I believe that God has created me to be a warrior.  I feel most engaged, most alive, when I am conquering something.  I love a challenge.  I have often struggled to understand this part of myself, or to tame this part of myself, but I believe that the Lord has created me this way.  I believe that He is pleased with this part of me.  He calls me to follow Him, and then leads me into battle.

The problem is that the battlefields He leads me to these days are internal and spiritual.  He leads me to battle my flesh and Satan, the enemy of our souls.  He leads me to battle in prayer.  But, these battles are not easily won.  They are never really over.  No sooner do I see a victory in one area, then He calls me to march on.  I want to stand astride the battlefield as the conqueror savoring the victory, but instead I find that the fiendish enemy is not vanquished, but rather has retreated to another field of battle.  So, I march on, but I don't find the sense of conquest or closure that I seek.

Yes, there are moments of victory.  There are quiet celebrations as strongholds fall, but these are tempered by the realization that the grim foe remains and the fight is not over.  I see glimmers of light and shimmering victory against the backdrop of the darkness.  I see how far I have come, and yet more clearly how far I have yet to travel.  My struggle for holiness continues.  This is true in the battle for my own sanctification as well as the battles I fight in prayer for others. 

My struggle in prayer is also clouded by my inability to quantify the victories.  I can see lives change, people come to faith, relationships reconciled, churches planted, strongholds fall, but it is hard for me to see these as a result of my prayers.  I sit in a room thousands of miles removed from those who are in the thick of the fight and wonder if what I am doing is of any real value.  They are the ones on the front lines, perhaps I should be out there with them, where the "real" work is done.  Or, perhaps the real work is prayer.

I was puzzling over this today and was drawn to Exodus 17.  Moses tells Joshua to get ready for battle and to go fight the Amalekites, while Moses heads up on a hill to pray.  Joshua goes out to battle and Moses holds up his arms and prays.  Whenever Moses' arms are up, Joshua and the army of Israel are winning, whenever Moses drops his arms they are losing.  So, who really wins the battle for the Lord that day?

I am tempted to say that Moses did, but verse 13 says that "Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword."  The victory was Joshua's.  Moses had a role to play, a key role, a pivotal role, but the victory was Joshua's.  Or was it?  Perhaps the victory was really the Lord's and Joshua and Moses both played their role.  It was the Lord who brought the victory and both Joshua and Moses fought the "real" battle, but fought in different ways, on different planes.

I'm not really sure how it works.  Some tell us that the "real" battle is spiritual, others that the "real" world is the one we perceive with our senses.  I think that both are equally real, both were created by God.  I find battle in the physical world so much easier to engage in and to understand.  It is hard for me to stay motivated to battle in the spiritual realm.  I have so much to learn.  But, this I know: prayer is important.  God invites us to pray.  He urges us to pray.  He teaches us to pray.  He commands us to pray.  He tells us that our prayers can be powerful and effective.  He gives us examples of prayers that make a real difference through the lives of Moses, Elijah, Jesus, Peter, Paul, and so many others.  Clearly prayer is important.  Clearly we have been given divine weapons to demolish strongholds.

So, today, I wade into the battle again.  I little know or understand the significance or effectiveness of my attempts, but I believe He has called me to this.  Perhaps my childish attempts at battle make Him smile and He empowers them to demolish the unseen enemy.  I hope so.