Why do we drift?

I often wonder why it is that I can be so inconsistent in my spiritual life.  Why do I wander?  Why do I walk away?  I don't want to, and yet I do. And I hate the fact that I do.  I hate that I'm inconsistent, that I'm up-and-down and that I struggle the way I do.  But yet I wander and I drift... and I imagine that you do to (if you are in fact human!).

So, I guess the question is, "Why?"  Why do we wander?  What causes spiritual drift in our life with Christ?

Here's a few quick thoughts that come to mind:

• SIN
  Simply put, Sin = having an affair on God.  Am I cheating God by making decisions that are contrary to His desire for my life with Him?  If I love Jesus, I will make every effort do what he says to do, in everything.  Period.
  

• BUSYNESS
  Busyness is the enemy of intimacy.  Am I so scattered that I feel like I can't create space to connect with God?  Are you? 
  

• LAZINESS & INDIFFERENCE
  Like every relationship, you have to actually want to be with Jesus.  Do I really want Jesus? Like, really, more than anything?? A strong love for Christ does not happen by accident.
  

• LACK OF TRUST
  Do I really believe that Jesus can be trusted with my entire life?  My family, my finances, my relationships, my emotions, my thoughts, my career??  Everything? Or am I gripping onto it refusing to let go? You can't love Jesus without trusting him, completely, with everything.
  

• EARNING MENTALITY
  Sometimes I feel that God owes me.  Like, if I do my devotions and pray everyday, then he owes it to me to be close to me and to be active in my life in tangible ways. How prideful is that?!  That's not grace - that's earning.  We spend time with God because we want to be with him and to learn to love him more completely, not to feel better about ourselves or to manipulate God into doing stuff for us.
  

• LACK OF LOVE
  We love because He first loved us.  I am learning that I cannot love God out of my own resolve & decision...  I can only love God out of response to his incredible love for me.  When I drift, this reality - that God is absolutely crazy about me - is often the first to fade into the background.  But when I'm connected with plugged in with God, when I'm passionate and loving Jesus the best I know how, it's because I am tuned into his incredible love for me.  And I'm just responding to that reality, because I can't help it.
  

There's many more.  What causes "spiritual drift" in your life?

What's So Amazing About Grace?

I heard this story this morning and was reminded of God's incredible love & grace towards us.  I thought I'd share it with you.  It's from Philip Yancey's book, "What's So Amazing About Grace".  Enjoy...

A young girl grows up on a cherry orchard just above Traverse City, Michigan. Her parents, a bit old-fashioned, tend to overreact to her nose ring, the music she listens to, and the length of her skirts. They ground her a few times, and she seethes inside. “I hate you!” she screams at her father when he knocks on the door of her room after an argument, and that night she acts on a plan she has mentally rehearsed scores of times. She runs away.

She has visited Detroit only once before, on a bus trip with her church youth group to watch the Tigers play. Because newspapers in Traverse City report in lurid detail about the gangs, the drugs, and the violence in downtown Detroit, she concludes that Detroit is probably the last place her parents will look for her. California, maybe, or Florida, but not Detroit.

Her second day there she meets a man who drives the biggest car she’s ever seen. He offers her a ride, buys her lunch, arranges a place for her to stay. He gives her some pills some pills that make her better than she’s ever felt before. She was right all along, she decides: her parents were keeping her from all the fun.

The good life continues for a month, two months, a year. The man with the big car - she calls him “Boss” - teaches her a few things that men like. Since she’s underage, men pay premium for her. She lives in a penthouse, and orders room service whenever she wants. Occasionally she thinks about the folks back home, but their lives seem so boring and provincial that she can hardly believe she grew up there.

She has a brief scare when she sees her picture printed on the back of a milk carton with the headline “Have you seen this child?” But by now she has blond hair, and with all the makeup and body-piercing jewelry she wear, nobody would mistake her for a child. Besides, most of her friends are runaways, and nobody squeals in Detroit.

After a year the first signs of illness appear, it amazes her how fast the boss turns mean. “These days, we can’t mess around,” he growls, and before she knows it she’s out on the street without a penny to her name. She still turns a couple of tricks a night, but they don’t pay much, and all the money goes to support her habit. When winter blows in she finds herself sleeping on metal grates outside the big department stores. “Sleeping” is the wrong word-a teenage girl at night in downtown Detroit can never relax her guard. Dark bands circle her eyes. Her cough worsens.

One night as she lies awake listening for footsteps, all of a sudden everything about her life looks different. She no longer feels like a woman of the world. She feels like a little girl, lost in a cold and frightening city. She begins to whimper. Her pockets are empty and she’s hungry. She needs a fix. She pulls her legs tight underneath her and shivers under the newspapers she’s piled atop her cloak. Something jolts a synapse of memory and a single memory and a single image fills her mind: of May in Traverse City, when a million cherry trees bloom at once, with her golden retriever dashing through the rows and rows of blossomy trees in chase of a tennis ball.

"God, why did I leave?" She says to herself, and pain stabs at her heart. My dog back home eats better than I do now. She’s sobbing and she knows in a flash that more than anything else in the world she wants to go home.

Three straight phone calls, three straight connections with the answering machine. She hangs up without leaving a message the first two times, but the third time she says, “Dad, Mom, it’s me. I was wondering about maybe coming home. I’m catching a bus up your way, and it’ll get there about midnight tomorrow. If your not there, well, I guess I’ll just stay on the bus until it hits Canada.”

It takes about seven hours for a bus to make all the stops between Detroit and Traverse City, and during that time, she realizes the flaws in her plan. What if her parents are out of town and miss the message? Shouldn’t she have waited another day or so until she could talk to them? And even if they are home, they probably wrote her off as dead long ago. She should have given them sometime to overcome the shock.

Her thoughts bounce back and forth between those worries and the speech she is preparing for her father. “Dad, I’m sorry. I know I was wrong. It’s not your fault; it’s all mine. Dad can you forgive me?” she says the words over and over. Her throat tightening even as she rehearses them. She hasn’t apologized to anyone in years.

The bus has been driving with lights on since Bay City. Tiny snowflakes hit the pavement rubbed worn thousands of tires and the asphalt steams. She’s forgotten how dark it gets at night out here. A deer darts across the road and the bus swerves. Every so often, a billboard sign posting the mileage to Traverse City. Oh, God.

When the bus finally rolls into the station, its air breaks hissing in protest, the driver announces in a crackly voice over the microphone, “fifteen minutes, folks. That’s all we have here.” Fifteen minutes to decide her life. She checks herself in a compact mirror, smooths her hair, and licks the lipstick off her teeth. She looks at the tobacco stains on her fingertips, and wonders if her parents will notice. If they’re there.

She walks into the terminal not knowing what to expect. Not one of the thousand scenes that have played out in her mind prepare her for what she sees. There, in the concrete-wall-and- plastic-chairs bus terminal in Traverse City, Michigan, stands a group of forty brothers and sisters and great-aunts and uncles and cousins and a grandmother to boot. They’re all wearing goofy party hats and blowing noise-makers, and taped across the entire wall of the terminal is a computer-generated banner reads “Welcome home!”

Out of the crowd of well-wishers breaks her Dad. She stares out through the tears quivering in her eyes like hot mercury and begins the memorized speech, “Dad, I’m sorry. I know …” He interrupts her. “Hush, child. We’ve got no time for that. No time for apologies. You’ll be late for the party. A banquet’s waiting for you at Home.”

I'll tell you what I feel about the Prosperity Gospel...

I was reminded of this John Piper video today.  What do you think? 

Does more Bible Knowledge equal Spiritual Maturity?

It's kind of a weird question, if you think about it.  It's like asking - If a person understood all the strategies, rules and ins-and-outs of the game of hockey, would they be a great hockey player?  I wish it were that simple, cause I'd be pretty good!  Now don't get me wrong, understanding the game is an important thing, but there's a lot more that goes into being a 'great hockey player' than head knowledge.  And I think it's true when it comes to a life of faith as well.

Here's what I mean... It's possible to have 'the best' theology and understanding of the Bible in the world, and be nothing like Christ.  It's possible to memorize Scripture, randomly quote the Bible in conversations, even win 'theological debates' -  and act nothing like Christ.  It's possible to listen to sermon after sermon, attend church Sunday morning after Sunday morning, and inside remain unchanged.  It's even possible to have squeaky clean morals and 'rarely sin', but be incredibly spiritually immature.  Just look at the Pharisees.   This is part of what infuriated Jesus and caused him to call them a 'brood of vipers' and other fun things.  You can have all the Bible knowledge in the world and remain completely alienated from the heart of God.

So, what do you think?  What does spiritual maturity actually look like?

A Way Out

I remember hearing someone say once that, "The Bible says that God won't let anything happen to me that I can't handle... and since I couldn't handle having a baby with a disability, I don't think God will ever let that happen to me." ... that's pretty messed up thinking. I mean, seriously, things happen to people all the time that they probably thought that they couldn't handle. That's just the reality of life!

I thought of this conversation because last night, at group, we talked a bit about the Bible verse that this person was referring to, 1 Corinthians 10:13, "And God is faithful.  He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand.  When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure."

First, it's interesting how we often take Bible verses like these and twist them into meaning something that it really doesn't mean. i.e. "God won't let anything happen to me that I can't handle." Umm...not even close!  This verse is actually addressing our struggle with sin - 'temptations' - not difficult life circumstances.  And, whatever the struggle is that we are facing - God is allowing us to face it because he knows that we can handle it.  "You can stand" as the verse says.

Second, and this is some of what we talked about last night - God always provides us a way out in our struggles. Not that our struggles will just disappear if we pray harder & harder, but that God will show us a way out so that we don't have to give into our struggles any longer.  And often, the way out that God provides for us is found in.......wait for it......EACH OTHER!  Real community. Open and honest friendships. People who care about us and want to see God's best for us.  Unfortunately, too many of us struggle alone - in isolation - hoping that God will just some how heal us and take away our struggles. Too many Christians think that faith is only an individual/personal thing.  Meanwhile God is waiting for us to take the initiative and to reach out to the community of people that he has placed around us and to say that four lettered word that we all hate to say.... "H-E-L-P!"

The Me I Want to Be

I just saw this video this morning and thought I'd share it with you.  It's from John Ortberg's new curriculum/'church wide experience', "The Me I Want to Be: Becoming God's Best Version of You".  Solid stuff!  Check it out, it's worth the 14 minutes and 38 seconds of your day...

LifeKeys

This past weekend at Southridge I facilitated a workshop called "LifeKeys" - a program that helps people discover the unique ways that God has wired them and wants to use them.  It was a ton of fun!

A couple quick thoughts as I reflect back on the weekend: 

1. People love learning about themselves...

And we should!  Not in a weird 'being-obsessed-with-yourself-and-never-actually-getting-off-your-butt-and-doing-anything' kind of way, but in a God-honouring/church unifying kind if way. Understanding who God has created us to be honours God's individual design for each of us and helps us play our role as part of 'the body' more effectively.  So... never feel bad for wanting to learn more about yourself!

2. I'd love to have everyone in the church do this workshop!

Not because "LifeKeys" is necessarily the most amazing self-discovery tool in the world (although it's pretty freakin good - I think anyway), but because of the clarity and the motivation that God breathes into us as we examine who He has created us to be.  I can't help but wonder how many people, at Southridge & beyond, aren't plugged into service because they don't know where they fit?  Or, how many people are plugged into service roles that they probably shouldn't be plugged into because it's potentially a bad fit (or at least not 'the best fit')?  And I'm just talking about volunteer roles at the church (although that may be part of it).  I'm talking about our lifestyle. I'm talking about the kind of life God wants for us.  I think we'd all have much more to contribute to our families, to our friends, to our neigbourhoods and to our workplaces if we clearly understood who God has created us to be...

So, if Southridge is your home and you'd like to do LifeKeys with us (how can you say no after all that??! ;) we will be offering it again over the first weekend of June.  Friday June 4 (7PM-9:30PM) to Saturday June 5 (9AM-4:30PM).  I'd love to have you join us!

Indispensable

We are all indispensable.  That's right, I just said that - INDISPENSABLE.  There's this belief out there that "God doesn't need me" and that "I'm replaceable" and that "no one is 'indispensable'".  Every heard anyone (yourself?!) say something like this before?

While the humble heart attitude behind this is great, the idea that "no one is 'indispensable'" is simply not true.  The truth, as I see it, is that the church isn't being the church unless everyone is playing their part.  That means that no one is replaceable.  No one is dispensable.  YOU have a unique contribution to make.  YOU were designed by God to play a significant, unique part in God's redemptive plan for our world.  YOU were chosen, before God even created the planet, to do good works for Him... And if you don't do it, no one else will do it for you.  There is only one you!

So...what are you waiting for??!

(For a different/way-better-than-mine perspective on this, check out Seth Godin's great book "Linchpins")

Uniqueness

"Train up a child in the way he should go [and in keeping with his individual gift or bent], and when he is old he will not depart from it." Proverbs 22:6 (AMP)

The "Amplified Bible" puts a bit of a different spin on this oft-quoted Bible verse, doesn't it?!  It speaks pretty clearly to one of the most important jobs that we have as parents - helping our children to understand the unique ways that God has wired & gifted them, and then fostering that uniqueness within them.

In a world where it's often all about taking and consuming, even in church-world (I know, it's shocking to think...) - I want my boys to grow up knowing that they have something very special and unique to give. That God, in his amazing love, has brought them into the world to be world-changers.

So how can we foster this God-designed uniqueness in our kids?

Off-Site!

Developing leaders into the kind of people who are absolutely crazy about Jesus and have a Matthew 9 stomach-wrenching love and compassion for people... this is some of the hardest & most exciting work in church ministry (I think, anyway!).  On Wednesday, we (the Groups Team at Southridge) are taking the day off-site to wrestle through this stuff (along with a few other things, of course!) and to take a good hard look at how we do this at the church within our within small group ministry.  If you think of us on Wed, could you pray for us?  For wisdom and creativity? And could you pray with us for God to send more 'workers'?

"When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.  Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field" Matthew 9:36-38

The Idolatry of Ideas...

"Until the love of God that knows no boundary, limit, or breaking point is internalized through personal decision; until the furious longing of God seizes the imagination; until the heart is conjoined with the mind through sheer grace - nothing happens.  The idolatry of ideas has left me puffed up, narrow minded, and intolerant of any ideas that do not coincide with mine."

"Anyone who claims to know all the answers doesn't really know very much.  But the person who loves has full knowledge" 1 Cor 8:2-3

A Question

I dare you to ask yourself this question. And then ask yourself again tomorrow and then again the next day...

"Am I responding to the love of Jesus living within me concretely and consistently in my love for others?"

(Thanks to Brennan Manning, "The Furious Longing of God")