Mudshot Eyes

Do you ever have trouble asking for help?  I assume that it probably has something to do with my strong sense of independence, but that’s always been a struggle for me.  Independence is great when you are talking about freedom from an oppressive regime that taxed us out the wazoo 200 years ago, but when it comes to how I live my life as a Christ-follower, it’s value is limited.

Krista and I were talking to a close friend last night who shared that he also has a difficult time asking others to help him.  As we narrowed down the reasons, it came to pride and the desire not to let others see our weaknesses or our needs.

The problem with that perspective is that our sense of need is the defining characteristic in a Christian’s life.  No one becomes a follower of Christ without first recognizing that they need Him.  And once someone starts the journey with Christ, the degree to which they are aware of their need is the degree to which they will follow Him.

A “pull-up-your-bootstraps-and-do-it-yourself” approach only leads to emptiness and a longing for personal recognition (which can never be enough).

When we realize the limits of the resources within ourselves and the vastness of the resources that God offers us through relationship with Him, the pressure is suddenly off as we no longer have to defend ourselves and our abilities.  Instead, we come clean about how needy we are and discover that God has invited us to come to Him with our asking, seeking, and knocking.*

Jesus illustrates God’s joy in giving good things to his sons and daughters in Matthew 7:11:

“If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!”

Perhaps this Independence Day could also be a day to recognize the value of a life lived in dependence on an enormously capable and loving God.

*Matthew 7:7

(Thanks to Reddish for the “in dependence” idea.)

I remember birthdays as a kid, and how it always felt so good to add one year to the scorecard that was my age. The bigger the number got, the closer I thought I’d be to the day when someone important told me that I was OK. I was just waiting for someone to say, “You are grown up now, and you are going to make it on your own––you’ve got what it takes.”

I continued that pattern through college and graduate school. I was still trying to figure out if there was any built-in purpose to my life, but I acted like I had it all together, like I had all the answers. While I waited for some final word on my worth, I treated relationships with the carelessness of a teenager, and did very little growing up in my twenties.

When my 30th birthday came, I was still just like that little kid, marking a number on his scorecard. Secretly, I marked this one down darker than the others. I just knew that 30 would be the one. This was the year that people would treat me like a grown up and finally start telling me those magic words: “Congratulations on turning 30. You’ve finally got what it takes now.”

It never happened. I was older, but in many ways still foolish, immature, and unable to see it. My birthday had absolutely nothing to do with my true maturity.

At some point I had to acknowledge to myself and to God that I was waiting on other people to provide only what He could. My shallow way of measuring my worth had left me confused and insecure, so I began to face how weak my crutch was.

I’ve quit using a scorecard to count birthdays and I have become increasingly convinced that God doesn’t give a damn how old we are. His desire for us is to “go on to maturity,” as the book of Hebrews puts it. The Message version is especially colorful:

Milk is for beginners, inexperienced in God’s ways; solid food is for the mature, who have some practice in telling right from wrong.

So come on, let’s leave the preschool fingerpainting exercises on Christ and get on with the grand work of art. Grow up in Christ. The basic foundational truths are in place: turning your back on “salvation by self-help” and turning in trust toward God;

(Hebrews 5:13-6:1)

Since my number of calendar years doesn’t reflect my spiritual maturity, I’ve decided that my age is a meaningless abstraction for me, having no bearing on my present course. I still have a lot of growing up to do, including more scorecards that need to be burned.

(By the way, I turn 37 years old today, but who’s counting?)

Our pastor preached a message on the first 12 verses of 2 Thessalonians this morning, but I couldn’t get past verse 3.

We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly…

The phrase that keeps jumping out at me is that their faith was “growing abundantly.” Beyond being a nice, Bible-worthy phrase, what did this tell us about these people?

It may mean that they were counting on God for more and more. There was a growing understanding that God was active and responsive to their needs. They were also increasingly aware that God would infuse their lives with purpose and that he would be the author and initiator of all kinds of good when they participate with his purposes.

I’m thinking through whether or not my faith has had this kind of steady increase lately. If God leads us to take a huge step in a different direction than we are currently headed, would I be ready? Fortunately, God typically asks us to count on him for one step at a time. So a journey of faith consists of many smaller faith-acts along the way.

In that case, could it be that God sometimes keeps the final destination unclear so that our faith can grow with each step?

Sounds like something God would do.

I began training last week for another half-marathon (last year’s full marathon was special, but I’m going to keep it sane this year). As I laid out my training schedule, I’m trying to carve 20 minutes off of my best time. This will require a level of discipline that I’ve not achieved in my running experience.

I have experienced both extremes of discipline: the lack of it, and the overkill.

If I lack discipline in a particular area, it is usually because I have lost sight of what originally drove me to set a goal. Or worse yet, I may have never actually set my direction in one way or another, trying something out because someone else talked me into it. This usually results in having no routine, no purposeful planning, and no results.

When I am stuck at that point, my only recourse is to revisit the reasons and motives for my aspirations: Is this my dream? Or someone else’s? Do I own this goal? Should I own it? Is it worth what I’m giving?

If I am experiencing a struggle with laziness, or a lack of discipline, I ask these kinds of questions. I can only be passionate about a goal if I have taken ownership of it.

Once I take my pursuit personally, I may work so hard at it that I fall to the other extreme: turning a good ambition into a life-draining obsession.

Again, a prayerful search through the motives and desires of my heart usually will restore balance: Have I tied up my value and worth as a person somehow with this goal? Am I pouring an unbalanced amount of focus into this goal because I’m avoiding some other issues that need my direct attention?

Setting a goal to run a half-marathon is a good thing, as long as it is a part of an higher calling to care for my body as God’s temple. Doing it only because someone else wants me to, or because I can’t feel good about who I am without it, will leave me lacking the motivation and the meaning for my ambition.

In the same sense, a goal to read through the Bible in a year or practice daily prayer is a fine thing, as long as I don’t elevate that goal over its purpose: to know God. Setting goals of any kind is a good thing, if they are tied God’s purposes for my life.

In marathon training and in the journey with Christ, my pursuit must be an expression of what is inside. Otherwise I run aimlessly, disqualifying myself from the reward of the finish (1 Corinthians 9:26).

Here’s to the pursuit…

You may have been to one before: a men’s retreat. They exist only for one purpose and that is to make sure we never attend another one.

That’s what I thought, anyway. My church recently claimed that theirs was a men’s retreat for men who didn’t like men’s retreats. They had my number. I’ve never actually been to a men’s retreat, but my experience had me convinced that these were for high-end extroverts and the cheer-led crowd. I have been to a couple of Promise Maker rallies, where we are encouraged to commit to something besides football, beer, and sex. These rallies are usually highly motivational, full of chants and cheers, and peppered with big name speakers. Personally, I appreciated about 20% of the two Promise Keeper events I attended. I figured a men’s retreat would be about the same.

I have to admit that I was wrong on this one. It didn’t carry the kind of life-changing impact that a visit with the apostle Paul might produce, but from the start it was unassuming and humble. The message I got from the beginning was that we were there to hear from God and his Word by taking time to listen on our own, with the group and in worship. I was glad for the intentional times of retreat-within-the-retreat which allowed me to turn off the noise and listen. This is one aspect of our church which I am grateful for. When we show up for Sunday mornings, a retreat, or any other gathering, I know that we won’t be bombarded with noise, heavy church marketing, or flashy presentations.

Christian events are often planned with non-stop activity, with no time and space for quiet and solitude. I spent four days this past week at the Catalyst Conference in Atlanta, GA. Catalyst is one of the leading training and motivational events for leaders in their 20s and 30s.

The event was full of top notch speakers, powerful videos, and lighthearted fun. I realize that an event of this size would probably not attract as many participants with this approach, but I still wonder what it would look like to send 10,000 leaders into an extended time of quiet for reflection and prayer. This may or may not be a good idea for an event of this size, but I can’t help but think that we emphasize noise over quiet in many of our gatherings.

Why can’t the church take five minutes in a service for some intentional quiet? Are we competing for the short attention spans of people who are conditioned to a noise-saturated culture? Are we afraid that people won’t have anything to pray about and think about if we are not talking or singing into the microphones?

Consider how a Sunday morning would feel if we took five minutes out of seventy to simply be still, without any music or talking. It would probably feel awkward at first, but that kind of environment would eventually give our ears and our souls the space we need for listening to One worth hearing.