Preparation for the Journey

The journey of seeing one’s faith deepen comes in many different ways. For most of us it seems to take an inciting incident that snatches us from our comfort, redirects our lives and gives us need to trust God as never before. Health turns bad and there doesn’t seem to be answers, a marriage hits an incredibly rocky spot, mid-life arrives with a sense of failure, a move to a new location brings isolation, loss of jobs ignites fear, children struggle and you seem hopeless to help, the senior years cause anxiety to set in, a lifetime of accumulating things suddenly no longer satisfy, and on and on it goes. Whatever the incident, the need for renewed faith arises.

Our faith journey took on new proportions when I resigned from a fifteen year ministry position with no clarity about the future. Diana and I sensed God leading us to trust Him not only for missions support but for daily living expenses as well. While we would share God’s direction of our lives, we would not ask for finances. Instead, we would pray and trust God for the outcome. It wasn’t an impulsive decision, but one we had thought about for months. It wasn’t without real life examples but one my grandparents had modeled. Nor was it an expectation for others but was our personal leading.

Over time we gained some helpful insights about living in faith. One of those is that the Lord is a gentle shepherd and compassionately prepares us for what lies ahead. Moses had a wilderness and so did Paul. Elisha had Elijah. David had intimate times in the fields before he was on the run from Saul. The Israelites had the miracles of Egypt and at the Red Sea. Each was a preparation to serve as a reminder of what God was capable of doing.

Before we settled on Mexico we considered a mission that provides pastors for small community churches throughout the US and Canada. Diana and I went to Kansas City for a week of candidate orientation while the kids stayed in West Virginia to have a hey day with Mamaw Harer. Our days were squeezed full of activities from morning to night, but we did manage to connect in friendship with a couple from Washington and another from Alaska. On Friday evening we were asked the all important question, “Has God called you to work with us?” Our answer was “No.” We drove back across country at loose ends.

A few weeks later on a warm spring day just before my job at the church ended, our friends from Alaska called. We had kept in touch, and it was good to hear his voice. “We sold our house in Alaska, and got more for it than we expected. Our family would like to give you $1000 for whatever needs you might have.” Dumbfounded I somehow managed to get out a “thank you.” God was assuring our hearts that He is absolutely trustworthy and was preparing us for the journey that lay ahead.

Pathways to Closeness

I think I have well documented over the past few years that I am given to worry. The other day I found some clarity on a thought that had been fuzzily forming in my mind. “Don't fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God's wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It's wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.” (The Message)

As I sat in my rocker looking out over the snow-crisp yard with the sun streaming through the venetian blinds, another thought emerged out of the fuzziness. The place of my greatest need can be the very place where God constantly meets me – a pathway into dependence and intimate growth.

My mind began to race. I had encountered this idea before. Oh yes, from a recent reading of Simply Jesus, “Temptation is one of the places where we can experience a fresh closeness with our Lord. And given the frequency of temptations in our lives, it becomes an opportunity to meet Him on a regular basis!”

Then one from Grace Notes as the author shares thoughts from a friend struggling with alcoholism, “It’s a funny thing…What I hate most about myself, my alcoholism, was the one thing God used to bring me back to him. Because of it, I know I can’t survive without God. I have to depend on him to make it through each and every day.”

Only God! Only God can take what is meant to wither our souls and instead lead us into wholeness. Only God can take what is meant to destroy and turn it into dependence and intimate growth. Only He can take our nagging susceptibilities and lead us into pathways of fresh closeness.

Supreme Value

Recently at a Book Warehouse in Pigeon Forge, I wandered to the basement to browse the bargain section. Shelves and shelves and shelves of bargain books. There I stumbled across one of Joseph Stowell’s books entitled Simply Jesus. Here’s a portion I found particularly challenging.

“Think for a minute about the things you’ve treasured in your life…I’m reminded of a friend of ours who was an avid decorator. She had all the knack and instinct to make a room come alive. Then, in the midst of one of her decorating sprees, the doctor told her she had cancer. To that point her decorating project had her in its grip. She woke up with it every morning and fell asleep rearranging the details. Her day was consumed with fabric swatches and catalogs strewn around the house.

“But on that day she drove home from her doctor’s office, the joy and fixation with that decorating project evaporated like water on a Phoenix sidewalk. Just that quickly, life itself had become precious. So precious that everything else that used to bring her joy was insignificant.

“How often have you heard it?
- A widower lamenting over the misplaced values that robbed him of precious time with his wife.
- A dad who had valued life at the office more than time at home with his young son.
- A working mom who treasured a promotion at work more than watching her baby girl grow up.
- A retiree who spent money carelessly through his working years and had nothing left for retirement.

“Getting our values straight is critically important in life. And it is particularly strategic for the one seeking to experience Jesus.

“If you value what looks good and gives you a buzz, your heart will embrace all that is temporal and seductive. But if you look hard and long at Jesus, if you read all that the label says about His matchless worth, then Christ will have your heart. Every time. All the time.

“Before the cross, all the value is affixed to us – all we are and have. At the cross, He alone is of supreme value.”

Lifelines

Life-line - support that enables people to survive or to continue doing something (often by providing an essential connection).

If you read this blog often you know my ultimate lifeline is Christ. I’m still in the process of learning how deeply His rescue alternated my existence. I was very much a rebel caught up in a revolt. It was selfish…ugly…sad…heinous. What I deserved was punishment or better yet some sort of nightmarish banishment. What I received was unexpected favor, a place in the family. It was an amazing turn of events and one that is difficult to reconcile in my wildest imagination.

These days I also find lifelines by being with others who are fully alive in their inheritance intent on pursuing Christ’s heart. Such people refresh my soul and redirect my thoughts from worldly illusion to God’s reality. Like the friend I meet with weekly who is always sharing a helpful reading, a thought provoking idea, and an applicable story. His life radiates Christ, and I walk away settled and confident.

Our Sunday evening group is a lifeline too. It is a life discussion group that blends scripture, prayer, worship, fellowship and forms a community of like-minded people. Community doesn’t happen just by meeting together but it takes shape in the context of openness, vulnerability, humility, understanding, grace and shared experience. We are being transformed and want to share what God is doing in our lives with each other and others.

Just the other evening someone talked openly of an attitude God was personally correcting in their life. It wasn’t pointed nor was it judgmental. It was convicting. I began to realize that I needed God’s mercy in my life to orchestrate some similar attitude changes.

I am favored that my greatest lifeline is my wife. Together we have learned, grown and changed. Together we are learning, growing and changing. On gray days that seem overwhelmingly gloomy, she reminds me how God sees things and what’s really important in life. She shares the latest insight she has gathered from a recently read book. Often these times together happen in late afternoon around a cup of tea. When business interrupts I feel cheated as if I have been robbed of a golden treasure. Such is the value of lifelines.

2011 Milestone

Okay, so what are some of the big happenings of the past year? Let me think here…traveled to Colorado for closing activities at Timberline, read Subversive Spiritually by Eugene Peterson, celebrated my 50th birthday, became an Employment Services Specialist (this is akin to a friend who began driving an 18 wheeler and introduced himself as a relocation specialist), participated in the Wear a Tea Cozy on Your Head Day, turned part of our yard into a garden, got a piano for the girls, saw the autumn leaves and the snow-capped peaks of the Smokey’s…and was lowered over a wall in a basket (not really).

It’s probably no surprise to you that the one I’m most thoughtful about is that big 5-0 milestone. It occurs to me that this is a strategic time in a man’s life, albeit an uncertain one. It’s like having been on a fantastic expedition with an unbelievably good guide. He leads you into a clearing where you come to a swinging bridge over a foggy ravine leading into an unknown land. There’s some fear, some trepidation but also a rumbling of excitement. You see the possibilities, and you trust the guide.

A milestone birthday (or the beginning of a new year for that matter) is not a time to give up on God-given dreams but a time to rediscover the adventure He has written into the stories of our lives. It’s a time to live by faith and not by sight - not letting a heap of mid-life worries steal away tomorrow. It’s a time to reaffirm that all we really need in our life is simply Jesus, experiencing the One our hearts long for.