My Struggle With The Sovereignty of God (2006)

Maybe when you were growing up, you played with a game called a Labyrinth.  It had a steel ball

that you had to navigate through a maze by means of two dials on the sides of the game.  Sometimes I feel like I'm the steel ball and I don't know where I'm going in life or what I'm doing here.  When I get really frustrated or 'lost' in a sense at a dead-end, I find I often start to blame God.  'Why do other people seem to have it so easy, God....  Why do I feel like I'm stuck in this set of circumstances and I can't get out.. serving you sure makes my life a lot more difficult'  etc.

God speaks to people with attitudes like this in a couple of books in the bible.  Its interesting too, because both texts begin with the same example from Genesis - 'Jacob I loved, Esau I hated.'  Romans starts like this in chapter 9, and it goes on to say in the living translation..  'And God said this before the children were even born, before they had done anything either good or bad.  This proves that God was doing what he had decided from the beginning; it was not because of what the children did but because of what God wanted and chose.'

Whoa.  Is that fair?  Sounds almost like pre-destination to me.

Listen to the writer continue in Romans... 'Was God being unfair?  Of course not.  For God has said to Moses, "If I want to be kind to someone, I will.  And I will take pity on anyone I want to."  And so God's blessings are not given just because someone decides to have them or works hard to get them.  They are given because God takes pity on those He wants to.'

Wow.  So then it seems like I could say that its not fair for God to blame me for the bad things I've done.  Haven't I just done what He made me do?

'No don't say that!' the writer in Romans says (chapter 9 verse 20).  'What are you to criticize God?  Should the thing made say to the one who made it, "Why have you made me like this?"  When a man mades a jar out of clay, doesn't he have a right to use the same lump of clay to make one jar beautiful, to be used for holding flowers, and another to throw garbage into?'

Ouch.  I pondered this a bit more, taking this train of thought...  'Well its easy for God to write in the bible like that.  With the exception of a prophet or two in the old testament, most of the characters in the Bible had happy endings to their stories.  They turned out to be heroes, or God blessed them in some way or another.  So really, the Bible is about people who God had pity on and decided to turn into beautiful flower vases.'

Then God reminded me of a book I had read some time ago by Gene Edwards called 'The Prisoner in

the Third Cell'.  The main character is John the Baptist.  He was definitely chosen by God, but his life was no walk in the park.  He grew up in the desert, and knowing that he was called by God he stayed in the desert, restricting his diet to nothing I would eat.  Then he began his ministry, preaching and baptizing, knowing that he was preparing the way for 'the bridegroom'.  Once Jesus came on the scene, it wasn't too long before John was thrown in prison.  And there he gets one of his disciples to ask Jesus a telling question.  'Are you really the Messiah?  Or shall we keep looking for him." Jesus doesn't try answer John personally.  He says, in not so many words - look at what I'm doing - and finishes his answer with 'Blessed is the one who does not lose faith in me.'  A few days later, John was beheaded.

The Sovereignty of God.  We certainly don't sing about it much in church.  Its not really a message that gives me the warm fuzzies.

Malachi was the other book in the bible that talks about God's sovereignty, also starting with Jacob and Esau.  Chapter 3 ends with some poignant thoughts that seem to echo the thoughts I hear sometimes in my head.  'It is foolish to worship God and obey him.  What good does it do to obey his laws, and to sorrow and mourn for our sins?  For  now on, as far as we're concerned, "Blessed are the arrogant."  For those who do evil shall proper, and those who dare God to punish them shall get off scot-free.'

Of course, the book doesn't end that way.  But sometimes it seems like some days of our lives do end like that.  And you know what?  Be Encouraged!  Even if you do have days that end with thoughts going through your head similar to the audience that Malachi was writing to, at the end of it all, 'The Sun of Righteousness will rise with healing in his wings.'  I also take encouragement from a verse Romans 'It God's kindness that leads us to repentance'.  It gives me a reason as to why people who don't currently acknowledge God seem to have it so good.  And finally, keep the faith.  Don't let your current trials push you away from God.  Remember the seed that fell on the good soil, and then let the worries and cares and trials of this life (the weeds) choke it.  Romans chapter 9 ends with a reminder that the Jews 'stumbled over the great stumbling stone.'  And what was that?  'They were trying to be saved by keeping the law and being good instead of by depending on faith ... Those who believe in Jesus will never be disappointed'.

The Omniscience Paradox (Journal Entry Dec 2018)

Bear with me - I'm going to write down all my questions BEFORE I google and try and find the answer, as I think my current lack of an answer helps me write the questions better.

I've been struggling with my faith a bit lately - asking more difficult questions.  At least they are more difficult for me.  I only have one year of bible college and I've never taken a hard-core theology or philosophy course in my life, so keep that in mind and humour me.  Here's an example of one of the 'questions' I struggle with.  I call it the 'Omniscience Paradox.'  I'll need to frame it with a bit of a story to help you understand where I'm coming from....

My daughter is spending this Christmas break with her fiance in Cincinnati, OH.  She had a bit of a cold before she left, so we were a bit concerned as we had to get up at 5am for her first flight and she'd be 'on the road' for about 12 hours.  Originally she was going to stay with friends, but a couple of days ago they discovered that the room she was going to stay in was infested with bedbugs, so that wasn't an option.  Christmas holidays being what they are (family time, etc.) her Mom and I felt most comfortable renting her a self contained Airbnb apartment for her time there.  This put us out a fair bit of cash, but as any parent knows, you can't put a price on things like your daughter's safety and well-being.

Imagine then our disappointment when after travelling for 12 hours, our daughter gets to the

apartment to discover the landlord has just shampooed the floor and furniture that morning (less than 12 hours before, and the carpet and furniture are still damp and there's heavy condensation on the windows.  Sure, its nice that they cleaned everything so thoroughly, but since she has a cold, we're concerned about her well-being.

As a parent, I'm tempted to send a message to the landlord and say something like: "What were you guys thinking?!  She comes to this after 12 hours of travelling and what? Is she supposed to rent a room for the first night or two while everything dries out?  If she catches pneumonia, this won't be the last you'll hear of me!"  My ultimate problem in this scenario?  I'm not in control and I don't know what is going to happen.  The future is unknown to me.  My daughter's well-being is at stake.  I'm up at 3am writing this because I was concerned thinking about her and realized I need to trust God in this situation.  I have to exercising faith and hope that everything is in His hands, praying that His kingdom will come and His will will be done in and through this situation.

Here's where the 'omniscience paradox' comes in.

As Christians we believe that God is omniscient (all-knowing), and omnipotent (all-powerful). I guess my question, in a nutshell is this:  Is ALL of God omniscient and omnipotent, or does He withhold a part of Himself from being omniscient and omnipotent?  Here's where that question comes from....

If I was God and omniscient and omnipotent and my daughter was in this situation, I wouldn't be worried or concerned for a couple of reasons:  I'd know exactly what the future holds, and frankly it wouldn't be an issue because if there was a problem I'd just fix it because I'm all powerful.

The 'omniscience paradox' in my mind - Does God really know what 'faith' and 'hope' are if He's omniscient?  If He's omniscient and omnipotent, why does he need faith or hope?  Everything is already known and available to Him.  To me, that's a paradox.  One cannot be omniscient AND know (experientially) what faith or hope is at the same time.... can they?

* * * * *

Before I google and see what other people have to say about this (as I'm sure someone else has thought about it before), I have a couple of thoughts on an answer....

1. Originally I considered that perhaps Jesus was the 'part of God' where God allows Himself to be not fully omniscient or omnipotent, so that he could say he's 'acquainted with our griefs and sorrows.'  I can't quite grasp how He can fully understand how we feel when He already knows the outcome to everything.  The Bible says a couple of interesting things that seem to point in different directions here:  Col. 2:10 "For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in bodily form", and then what Jesus said himself in Matt. 24:36, Jesus talking, said "But that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels, nor the Son, but only the Father."  So... perhaps Jesus is the part of the Trinity that isn't fully omniscient?  
2. I wonder if one of the reasons God wanted to create us (as humans) was so He could experience faith and hope.  Because He's given us free will, He has to 'hope' that we'll all return to Him in the end, and have faith in us believers that we'll do His work until then....?

Having said all of that, ultimately the theology and philosophy are secondary to me.  In my mind, experience trumps both of those.  My daughter had an experience yesterday while travelling that makes it all worthwhile....

She was very nervous about travelling because she gets bad vertigo and on the last trip to Cincinnati there was a fair bit of turbulence.  She was a bit 'undone' the night before the flight - concerned about flying, the connection (it wasn't a direct flight), not feeling 100%, etc.  So we all prayed together about the trip.  As it turned out, she really enjoyed the trip, talking with people, and there was no turbulence.  On the second flight she got a whole row of seats to herself and other than feeling tired, she felt quite well once the trip was complete.  We all saw this as God's answer to prayer.

Denial & Forgiveness - From Peter's Point of View

Our small group has been working through Francis Chan's book 'Crazy Love'.  As my wife and I were preparing for Chapter 4 - The Profile of the Lukewarm, we were discouraged.  It's a pretty convicting chapter, with lots of attention on verses like Luke 12:16-21, Amos 6:1, and Matthew 7:21.  Francis does warn the readers that it was the hardest chapter of the book for him to write.  I was rather frustrated with Francis after reading it, thinking: "How hard is it to put together a bunch of verses and take a hardline approach?"  Some advice here - Please don't read Chapter 4 and put the book down.  Francis does back up what he's saying in other chapters - there's 'real-living' behind where he's coming from.  Additionally, we were reminded of the context of the book - how these life choices and decisions need to come from a place of abandoned love for God and not from fear or guilt.

I was still concerned how small group would go...

We ended up having a great discussion.  I actually felt like God spoke to me (a bit of an 'ah-ha' moment) towards the end of the group.  One scripture I couldn't seem to let go of was Matthew 10:32-33 "Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven.  But whoever disowns me (denies me) before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven." 

I was thinking about Peter...   Jesus had called him from a life of fishing to being a disciple.  For three years, Peter had listened to Jesus say truths like this, and watched Jesus do miracles.  Three years is a good chunk of one's life, and Peter thought he was committed.  He believed he had given everything up.  He told Jesus he would 'never fall away' in Matt. 26:33.  Jesus replied saying that Peter would in fact fall away that very night AND disown Jesus three times!  Peter again disagreed.

Then, less than 12 hours later it actually happened.  How must Peter have felt, considering Matt. 10:32-33 above?   Matthew says 'he wept bitterly.'  I know if it was me, I certainly would have spent a lot of time over the next hours and days replaying the whole scenario - realizing that I didn't really know myself.  How could I say one thing so strongly and then relatively quickly turn around and do another?  I'd also wonder what would happen if I ever saw Jesus again... how would I feel, what would I do, but ultimately what would He say and do?

Its the next part of the story that really got me thinking....

In John 21, Jesus had risen from the dead and he had appeared to the disciples, the disciples ended up fishing...  all night, with nothing to show for it.  Jesus shows up and tells them to cast their nets over to the other side of the boat.  When they do, the nets are so full they can't pull them in and they realize it's Jesus on the shore.  What's interesting at this point is what Peter does.  Without hesitation, he leaves his buddies struggling with the nets of fish and swims ashore to see Jesus.

I almost sure that is NOT what I would have done.  I probably would have stayed with the guys, finished the work, and then, once on shore, taken Jesus aside and talked with Him sheepishly.

Peter didn't do that, which tells me he knew something about Jesus that I'm missing....  Something I'm not understanding from my reading of the Bible.

Peter pretty much lived with Jesus for 3 years.  He heard Jesus say all kinds of radical things about uncompromised commitment.  And yet when he blew it (and he blew it, big-time), he didn't cower or put on false humility and stay distant - he went straight to Jesus without ANY hesitation.  For this kind of reaction, Peter must have been convinced of several things:

• Jesus knew and understood who Peter was... and as a result,
• Jesus would accept him with open arms and forgive him
• In all the things that Jesus said, there was an undercurrent and/or foundation of love (that we miss in just reading about the situation).  

John 1:14 says, 'The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.... full of grace and truth."  Its easy to focus on the 'truth' when you read the gospels.  There's definitely some hard-hitting truth there.  I personally sometimes miss the grace.  Jesus was full of truth AND grace at the same time.  I think Peter knew that, and that's why he was so keen to talk to Jesus again.  What a moment that must have been.  

Meditating on this story since small group this week has been encouraging for me.  I hope this is encouraging for you, too.

The India Trip - Learning to Trust God - Part 3

For more context about my India trip and why it was such a big lesson in learning to trust for me, read these posts first:
The India Trip - Learning to Trust God - Part 1
The India Trip - Learning to Trust God - Part 2

Returning from Pakistan by plane, the three of us continued on our odyssey.  After landing in Delhi, the next 5 weeks saw us travel by train and spend time encouraging missionaries and churches in Agra, Kanpur, Bhopal, Hyderabad, and Pune.  We took all manner of transportation to get to train stations in each city, but didn't miss a single train.  (Again, see the related posts above for why not missing a train was important to me)

I'm traveling to the Kanpur train station in a rickshaw.

All during this time, religious tension had been building between then Hindus and the Muslims and had actually broken out into riots in some cities.  The day we left Pune for Mumbai this tension erupted into a full scale riot at the Mumbai train station.  We were oblivious to this, totally enjoying the beautiful train trip until our train stopped in the middle of nowhere 100 kilometres outside of the city.  We finally got word that the engineer was refusing to take the train into the station, fearing for the passengers' safety.  All of us waited in the train for what seemed like several hours until a decision was finally made to take the train back to Pune.

Joanne and David doing laundry in Pune

Arriving back in Pune, we discovered that the American and Canadian consulates had issued travel advisories recommended that their citizens leave India as soon as possible because of the civil/religious unrest.  After some phoning we managed to reschedule our flights back to Texas to the next day, cutting our trip 4 days short.  This meant we had to fly into the Mumbai airport from Pune.   This flight turned out to be super pleasant, as short as it was.  We were given refreshments and warm face cloths for our faces - it was like a spa!  I sat next to Joanne, and David made friends with the young Indian fellow he sat next to.

We arrived in Mumbai early in the evening, and discovered that the city was under curfew.  We couldn't catch a taxi or rickshaw from the domestic airport to the international airport - a rather large problem for us as our flight to London was leaving in a couple of hours later from the international airport that night.  The young fellow that David had chatted with on the flight to Pune noticed our concern and asked if he could help.  We explained the situation and he offered to give us a ride in his car.  We gladly accepted... and then surprise!  God showed us just how in control He was of the whole situation.  It turned out that this fellow was the son of a famous Indian movie director.  His car was a chauffeur driven stretch Mercedes limousine!  Of all the ways to wrap up my lesson of trust and travel with God in India.  I didn't know until recently that Mercedes means mercy, reward, and/or favour.  We put our packs in the trunk and gingerly hopped in the back of that roomy limo, marvelling at God's provision and protection over us.  On the way to the international airport, we drove passed full armoured troop carriers, but no one stopped us.  Our flight from Mumbai left on time with us on board.  We arrived safely home in Dallas 26 hours later.

I'm playing the guitar, singing Sunday school songs
for kids in Vidisha (close to Bhopal)

God's message to me:  Matthew 6:30-30 "If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met."

Click here for more true stories of God working in my life

The India Trip - Learning to Trust God - Part 2

In my last post about my trip to India I mentioned the fact that often God works in us as much as He works through us on short-term missions trips.  I also referred to how, from an early age, I'd get anxious about getting to places on time.

It was an early morning in  mid-October when our plane landed in New Delhi.  We caught a taxi to a guest house in Jangpura where we would stay for the first week.  We were warned not to eat food from street vendors - this was rather hard to do and it wasn't long before we ignored that advice and just ate naturally.  Within 24 hours, our tummies were feeling out of sorts.  We prayed about this and that was the last of our gastronomic troubles for rest of the trip.  And boy, is that Indian food tasty!

The Red Fort in Delhi

Our second week found us staying on an outdoor conference grounds in Delhi, close to Humayun's Tomb.  We were tasked with looking after the kids of missionaries while they were attending a conference for the week.  The dormitories we were housed in were made out of bricks and looked like large igloos.  The door frames on these structures were rather low - I had to duck to walk through them.  One day, someone asked me to run an errand that required I duck into one of these dorms.  In my enthusiasm, I ran and forgot to duck.  That doorframe wasn't moving, and I hit it hard.  It knocked me flat on my back and gave me a large gash above my hairline.  This was a concern, given the general state of cleanliness everywhere.  A nurse in attendance at the conference told me not to go to the hospital, and instead she cleaned the wound herself and tied my hair overtop of it to keep it closed.  We prayed that it wouldn't get infected... and it didn't.  I wore a hat for the next 3 weeks.

After the conference, we were due to leave New Delhi for Lahore, Pakistan.  We caught a rickshaw to the train station and pretty much immediately got stuck in traffic.  Lots of horns and small, loud, poorly carbureted motorcycle engines.  As we inched along I could feel the old anxiety rise inside of me, afraid we're going to miss our train.  It felt like we were stuck in traffic for an hour, and my fear of missing the train gnawed at me the whole time.  Finally getting through that, we arrived at the station with - as it turned out - time to spare to catch our train.  I breathed a sigh of relief.  God was encouraging me that He was in control.  Would I continue to trust Him?

It was an overnight trip to Amritsar on the train (Amritsar was as far as you can go towards Pakistan by train back then), and we had a lot of friendly attention - people curious about us and wanting to share their supper with us.  We tried everything and it was yummy.  When we laid down to sleep that night in our open berth, I was keen to ensure that our packs wouldn't get stolen so I slept 'with one eye open.'  Somewhere around 3am, a figure walked into our room and reached for my pack which was hanging on the wall.  In a quick motion I grabbed their outstretched arm.  They didn't seem too startled and reached behind my pack with their other arm and turned the light on.  The light revealed this person was a soldier with a gun - it turns out a group of them were checking the entire train in a security sweep.  I went back to bed and tried to sleep.

Joanne and I on the roof of the bus in Amritsar,
heading to the Pakistani border

At 6am the next morning we arrived in Amritsar.  We caught a bus which was full, so we rode on the roof to the demilitarized zone between India and Pakistan.  The border crossing itself didn't open until later in the morning, so we waited.

Once the border opened we walked across.  As we entered Pakistan, the two border officials we dealt with were pleasant enough, and very interested in David's pen as we signed the visa documentation.  They were so interested, in fact, that they asked if they could keep it.  David smiled and declined, taking the pen back.  They weren't very busy so we chatted with them a bit, and they gave us some advice on the best way to get to Lahore.  We followed their advice and caught an absolutely packed Toyota van 32 kilometres into the city.

Checking into our hotel in Lahore, we discovered we didn't have our passports and return plane tickets. They had been forgotten in a bag somewhere at the border!  We desperately hoped and prayed that the bag would be there - we didn't know where else it would be.  These were the days before cell phones, so we immediately caught a van back to the border and discovered that the two border officials that were interested in David's pen had saved our bag for us.  We gratefully accepted the bag, and David sensitively turned down another request for his pen.  God was continuing to watch over us, and protect us from ourselves.

We stayed a night in Lahore, and then several nights with some Australian missionaries in Islamabad. Our last stop in Pakistan was in Peshawar - a city notoriously known as a smuggling route between Pakistan and Afghanistan.  We were, in fact, staying with an American family that worked with a federal US Drug Enforcement department there.  We were rather naive to the political and religious climate when we arrived in Peshawar.  Our hosts were late picking us up from the bus stop.  The locals there, seeing we were traveling with a guitar, asked us to play.  I pulled the guitar out and played some songs from church.  They seemed to enjoy this.  However, when our hosts arrived and saw what we were doing, they quickly ushered us into their car and drove us to their house.  In the next 2 decades, I became acutely aware of what kind of place Peshawar was, seeing it on the news quite a bit during the Afghan war with the Taliban.  God was certainly protecting us the few days we were there.

A road with elaborately decorated rickshaws
in Islamabad, Pakistan (on the way to Peshawar)

Click here for more true stories of God working in my life
The India Trip - Learning to Trust God - Part 1
The India Trip - Learning to Trust God - Part 3

The India Trip - Learning to Trust God - Part 1

If you've ever done short-term missions work, you'll likely have heard it said (or been told) that God does as much work in you as He does through you.

David, Joanne, and I at the gate about to leave DFW airport
for the first leg of our trip to Gatwick, England.

I certainly felt that way on my trip to India & Pakistan.

Throughout that time God was showing me that I could trust Him - that He'd take care of me as I travelled, that we'd get to places we needed to on time, and that we'd be safe and healthy.  Why was this important to me?  Well...

When I was about 6, my parents had arranged for us to go to see Mr. Dressup 'live'.  This was a big deal to me because he was the Canadian version of 'Mr. Rogers' and I had watched him on TV for most of my life - all 6 years of it.  Somehow it turned out that we got to the venue late.  There was a huge lineup, blocks long, and we weren't going to make it to the show.  I was terribly disappointed.  Following that incident, I always wanted to be early to any kind of show or important engagement we went to, and I would get nervous and uptight if it looked like we were going to be late.  

Myself, Joanne, & David after our first?
round of inoculations before leaving

India & Pakistan aren't great places to go for someone with this kind of 'hang-up'.  But God was on my side.  

I was travelling with two friends that I knew from the ministry I volunteered at in Texas.  Our plan was to travel for 9 weeks and visit 8 cities across India and Pakistan, helping YWAM bases and other missionaries while we were there.  We hadn't even left the States before challenges to my peace of mind started to arise....

We all required Indian visas in our passports before we left.  This meant we had to send our passports to the Indian Consulate in San Fransisco.  Our visa approvals got delayed and three days before we were due to fly out we still had not received our passports back from the consulate.  There wasn't really much we could do about the situation except pray, and so pray we did.  And the day before we were scheduled to leave, our passports arrived complete with visas.  You wanna talk about elation!  We were all so relieved.  It would have been terrible to lose the money on changing our flights and have to reschedule a bunch of things.  God had come through!

Click here for more true stories of God working in my life
The India Trip - Learning to Trust God - Part 2
The India Trip - Learning to Trust God - Part 3

Balance in my Life

I just finished reading Crazy Love by Francis Chan a couple of days ago.  My wife and I are going to be leading a small group based on the book, so this was a reading exercise in 'advance preparation' for that.  I hadn't previously read the book and it honestly went a

Crazy Love by Francis Chan

different direction that I thought it was going to go.  Its going to be an interesting small group this fall!  :-)

I had no problems with the first couple of chapters.

However, starting with chapter 4 'Profile of the Lukewarm' and moving onto chapters 5 & 6 'Serving Leftovers to a Holy God', and 'Your Best Life.... Later', I started to get unsettled.  Francis was saying great things - stuff I actually think about quite often - and I began to wonder about him, and about myself, and doubt my salvation...   Well, not quite, but almost.  It shook me up enough that I did a quick study on the whole 'Once saved, always saved' issue.  I had no idea that was such a contentious issue for some people.  See a great discussion on it I found here

Fortunately, I pushed through and finished the book because Francis provided the balance that I needed to hear in his last couple chapters.  I get easily motivated to do things like 'sell the house, quit my job, and move to India and build an orphanage' after reading chapters 4, 5, and 6.  Chapter 10 brought me back to 'centre', and I loved this paragraph:

"Most of us use 'I'm waiting for God to reveal His calling on my life' as a means of avoiding action.  Did you hear God calling you to sit in front of the tv yesterday?...  the point isn't that watching tv is wrong, but that we are quick to rationalize our entertainment priorities but slow to commit to serving God."

Considering all of this, how do I work out my salvation and my calling to serve God with 'fear and trembling', and yet cultivate a relationship with Him that motivates me to serve Him?

• Trust God to show me the right way.. and validate it by keeping an eye on the fruit in my life...  Are my choices bearing good fruit (love, joy, peace, patience, etc.)?  
• Remember the things He's doing in and through my life here and now and stop comparing myself with others!  
• Balancing my 'calling' with my 'responsibilities'.  I felt for years that I was not using my music ability to its full potential.  Family responsibilities got in the way.  When I brought the problem and my frustration to God, after a while He directed me to use my music in ways I hadn't thought of before (outside of a church in a hospital & and school) that were super meaningful to myself as well as to people on the receiving end, and I didn't have to shirk family responsibilities.
• Remember that God has perfect balance - while He's motivating us with the messages to the seven churches in the book of Revelation, He's ALSO drawing us to Himself with encouragement like Ephesians 1:4: "Long before He laid down the earth's foundations, God had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of His Love."
• Remember the balance between Doing & Being (I wrote about that recently here)
• Remember that Jesus came to the earth "...full of grace and truth."  John 1:14.  Pastor Rick said this to me some time ago and I've never forgotten it.  Balance in grace and truth.  Not just balance, but FULL of both at the same time!  How does that look?  What was Jesus like for John to have written that? 
  The fact that Jesus and others in the Bible (John in Revelation) used fear as a tactic in their messages to motivating people to change has bothered me for some time.  But when I consider that through the context of John 1:14, it changes.  Jesus was full of grace as well.  God speaks and He allows us to hear what we need to hear, if our hearts are humble and open.  

Doing or Being?

I had the title and some notes for this post written down, but when I went to actually write it, something else came out.  You can read about it here.  It is kinda related to this post, but they are quite different, so I'm going to try and write 'Doing or Being' now, here.

Both posts started out with pretty much the same opening paragraph....

I usually take a bit of a break from volunteering over the summer because I'm pretty busy over the course of the school year.  However this summer, our church was needing some help with music (people going on vacation, etc.) and I felt God telling me to help since we had no major vacation plans.  Bible verses like 'Don't be weary in well doing...' Gal. 6:9, 'Cast your bread upon the waters...' Eccl 11:1, and the idea of 'scattering seed' Matt. 23 kept bouncing around in my head.   I agreed to help, and ended up being busy almost all summer - either playing or leading.  I don't take these commitments lightly - there's practice and preparation involved before each week.  For the most part, I enjoy doing it.  After everything is over on Sunday afternoon, I'm wiped.  I think I'm getting older.

...and here the posts diverged....

Considering my 'tiredness' further, there's more to it than my advancing age as I'm not that old.  Two years ago I started working at a 'Start-Up' (new IT company).  They paid quite a bit less than I was used to getting remunerated as an IT contractor, so to supplement my income I used the majority of my vacation time to teach courses at SAIT.  As a result, I haven't had a significant vacation/break in a while, and I think I'm feeling it.

Photo by Evan Kirby on Unsplash

I've also discovered that I am more susceptible to getting depressed when I'm tired.  When Friday has rolled around lately, I'm not much good for anything except an argument... and that's no good.  And then towards the evenings on days when I'm quite tired my thoughts tend to head in a negative direction that cause me to pause when I reflect on them later.  Thoughts like....

"God, look at the things I've done for You!  Remember how I gave all of my life in the prime of my life for You?  And there's a potential that all my 'good works' will burn up in Your refiner's fire?  What am I doing this for, then?  How do I know I'm not wasting myself for nothing...."

Doing or Being?  This is definitely a challenge I've wrestled with for a long time.  The Bible has scriptures like the ones above that encourage us to 'DO.'  They seem to connotate several things:

1. You're actually doing something in each case.  Works - 'Well doing'....   'throwing bread'....  and 'casting seeds.'  
2. Time is involved - something easily forgotten in this context.  Time you could have been spending with family, or on vacation, or educating yourself further with your job, or just resting.
3. Hope is involved.  The sower isn't guaranteed that every seed will grow into a harvest.  Casting your bread on the waters doesn't guarantee a fish or a duck supper.  
4. Even more than hope, faith must involved.  I tend to get caught up in the task itself, comparing my work with others, and forget to apply faith.  As soon as faith leaves the picture, I get into that tizzy of thoughts above because throwing resources away doesn't make any rational sense.

The Bible says that 'without faith it is impossible to please God', and 'whatever is not of faith is sin.'  Chapters 3 & 4 of the book of Hebrews also talks about how faith helps us find rest in God.  I think part of the balance between Doing & Being (resting) is found in faith.  Listen to this from Hebrew 4:1-3:

"For as long, then, as the promise of resting in Him pulls us on to God's goal for us, we need to be careful that we're not disqualified.  We received the same promises as those people in the wilderness, but the promises didn't do them a bit of good because they did didn't received them with faith.  If we believe, though, we'll experience that state of resting.  But not if we don't have faith..."

The question for me then becomes: How to grow and maintain faith so when I actually 'do' things, my attitudes and thoughts don't go down the drain?

I can think of several ways:

1. Remembering that its not religion, but relationship.  Its not about doing things to get ahead or get in 'right standing' with God.  There's nothing I can DO to help that - He's done it all.  When I understand His heart for me and for the people around me, and I do things for Him from that position and context, He can work in me and through me - faith automatically becomes infused in what I do.
2. Reading the Bible and meditating on it.  The Bible says "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God" Romans 10:17.  I need to watch what I feed my mind with.  Its like eating and the old adage - you are what you eat.  In this case though, its what I choose to feed my mind and my spirit with.  Proverbs 15:14 says "A wise person is hungry for knowledge, while a fool feeds on trash."
3. Remembering what God has done for me.  When I remember that God has done things for me in the past - how He's moved in my life - I believe it keeps my faith alive and growing.  This was an important exercise for the people in the bible.  I'm trying to do that here.
4. I have to trust God.  Hebrews 12:2 says He's the 'author and perfecter of our faith.'  Its not the amount of faith I have that matters, its Who my faith is in and what He can do.  That's a comforting thought.

Worship This Summer (2018)

I usually take a bit of a break from volunteering over the summer because I'm pretty busy over the course of the school year.  However this summer, our church was needing some help with music (people going on vacation, etc.) and I felt God telling me to help since we had no major vacation plans.  Bible verses like 'Don't be weary in well doing...' Gal. 6:9, 'Cast your bread upon the waters...' Eccl 11:1, and the idea of 'scattering seed' Matt. 23 kept bouncing around in my head.   I agreed to help, and ended up being busy almost all summer - either playing or leading.  I don't take these commitments lightly - there's practice and preparation involved before each week.  For the most part, I enjoy doing it.  After everything is over on Sunday afternoon, I'm wiped.  I think I'm getting older.

The band's schedule was ironed out as the summer progressed, so I didn't actually know what my full engagement level and responsibilities would be over the course of the summer until the second week of August.  As summer began, I had been asked to lead the band earlier in July, which I agreed to.  I ended up getting a nasty cold at the beginning of July that hung on all through the month and wore me down a bit.  I could sing, but I tired easily.  After leading on July 15th, I wrote in my journal '...and while the band did well, I didn't think or feel like worship was anything special.  No one said anything about it.  So I let it go and was fine with never leading worship again at church.'

Several thoughts here:

1. We have a lot of good worship leaders at church.  I was a little surprised to be asked to lead, but I always try and do my best.  Writing that journal entry, I was more resigned to the fact that I'm getting older, maybe a bit out of date, and there is a new generation that is more motivated.  I was OK with letting go dreams and desires of being involved in church in the capacity of a worship leader - that is more what that written comment was about.
2. I read an interesting post on the 'Worship Leaders Collective' Facebook group this morning that went like this:
         Random church-goer: "I didn't really like worship today"
         Response:  "That's fine.  We weren't worshipping you"
   That's not meant to be a dig at any one individual or a group.  For me its a good reminder not to look at the outside response.
3. Its a bit disturbing how easily I throw out absolute thoughts and/or words like 'never'.  A similar word that my wife often catches me with is 'always'.  I think/speak in exaggerations like this to make a point, but I think sometimes they cross a line.  I need to be careful with what I say and think!

Ironically, a couple days after writing that journal entry, I was rather surprised when I got asked to help lead again - two more Sundays in August.  I agreed again.  With both of these I wasn't entirely sure what kind of band I'd be playing with as schedules were getting juggled, which added a bit to the burden.  In situations where things happen that are outside of my control, I've come to a point where I just commit everything to God and leave it in His hands.  I do my part and let Him take care of the rest.  If the mid-week rehearsal is cancelled because the sound guy is on holidays, I try to come more prepared on Sunday.  Even then, I later wrote in my journal after one of the services:  "I don't know if I've ever felt more inadequate before leading a worship service."  That's a good place to be though, given what Paul said in 2 Cor. 12:10.  "That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, ... in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." 

Its been amazing to me how God comes through when I let go and learn to trust Him.  I'm realizing that my perspective of 'how things went' is not something I should focus on.  God has His own way of using lyrics and words to impact His people... He places ideas and thoughts into people's minds based on their experiences - things I'd have no idea about - that end up having a greater influence and influence than I could ask or even hope to accomplish.

Its funny.  This post was supposed to be about 'Doing or Being' but I got totally side-tracked writing about something else.  Guess I had to get it off my chest.

Prayer Weeks

Our church is in for a dramatic change!  We're amalgamating with another church and getting a building.  Our first Sunday together is Sept 9th.  In preparation for that we've been having joint prayer meetings every night for the past two weeks.  I haven't been able to go every night, but I've gone to a number of these meetings and they've been good.  We've had a different focus every evening, (the harvest, social injustice, who God is, etc.) with a time of worship and personal reflection/preparation to start.

I felt like God spoke a couple of things to me during these prayer times.

1. A scripture that was used in one of the meetings was 2 Chronicles 7:14 'If my people,

   

   The trees in our backyard on a cloudy day

   who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and I will forgive their sin and heal their land.'  The phrase that stuck out to me that evening was 'seek my face.'  If I remember right, the Israelites in the Old Testament believed that if they saw God's face, they'd die....  so why would they want to seek His face?  Or why did He ask them to seek His face?  I thought it was an interesting irony, so when I got home I looked it up.  It turns out, 'seeking God's face' is more literally translated 'seeking God's presence.' 
       Being present in this moment for God.
   Last night I was struggling with just that.  Distracting thoughts kept coming.  When someone isn't physically present with you, its a faith exercise to 'stay present' with them.  One easy way I've found to manage this is to offer those distracting thoughts to God - just turn them into prayers.  I'm not sure why I didn't completely take advantage of it last night.  
2. It was windy yesterday and I was looking out our back window at the trees blowing in the wind.  It was also sunny out (the picture above was from a day later when it was cloudy) so the shadows of the leaves were dynamic on the ground to say the least.  The wind was so boisterous the phrase that came into my mind is 'the trees are dancing.'  And then I noticed all the different types of trees and how they moved in the wind.  The willow trees were moving vibrantly - whole branches were bending up and down.  Our neighbour's younger trees were leaning away from the wind in sweeping dips.  Our spruce tree, on the other hand, was wiggling stiffly, not making big sweeping motions.
   It struck me how, if the trees were people dancing, God would love and accept each of them and their dancing just the way He made them.  He wouldn't expect the spruce tree to move like the willows - they are made totally different.  I think its similar with us when I consider prayer and worship.  We're all made differently and we've experienced life differently.  We're going to pray and worship God in different ways.  I believe He accepts that.  I need to as well.  I shouldn't compare myself to others and think 'perhaps that's the way I should be praying'.  I also shouldn't compare myself to others and think 'Whew, at least I sang better than them.'  Little children don't compare - they don't give what they are doing a second thought.  They are just 'present in that moment.'  

God, help me to be present in this moment, for you.

The Summer After College

Right after high school I went to bible college for a year, majoring in music.  While I was still in school that spring, I had two experiences that had a lasting impact on my life.  I've written blog posts about them here (to give you some context):

• My First Real Journal Entry
• The Day God Changed My Life Through Worship

Wrapping up the spring semester, I wasn't sure what I was going to do for the next year.  Returning to college didn't feel like an option.  I was leaning towards doing something more practical and hands on with my life.  No matter what I decided to do I was going to need some more money to do it, so I went home and got a job tree-planting for the summer.

Tree Planting

Tree-planting is hard work.  We got paid by the tree, and to make a reasonable wage at the time, one needed to plant 700+ trees a day in high-elevation, hilly, brush.  One could get rather tired towards the end of the day.  I started working with the planting crew around the middle of May that year, and it was a cold, wet spring.  I remember one day we came off the mountain and all of us had the beginning symptoms of hyperthermia - we were all talking non-sense off and on.  

As spring turned into summer, it got hot which meant we didn't have to dress so warm but we got quite sweaty and had to carry water with us while we planted.  In my journal at that time, I called tree-planting 'the ultimate test of human goodwill in work.'  I saw the limits of my patience tested with my friends - this surprised me somewhat.  I also started to learn more about myself.

Up to the middle of July, I spent most of my time doing 3 things that summer:

1. Tree-planting
2. Spending time with friends (mountain biking, exploring the community, hanging out, etc.)
3. Pondering my future, wondering what I was going to do in the next year, and how to reconcile my life to some of those changes from the spring in the links above.

I really didn't know what the next step was.  I didn't want to go back to post-secondary education.  I was interested in travelling, but unsure how to plan a trip and limited with finances.  I was taking steps towards being a camp counsellor for a couple of weeks in August.  And then....

Infection

I contracted a skin infection at the end of July, likely associated with my tree-planting work.  It was a rather nasty one - painful, and it limited my movement.  I couldn't tree-plant anymore because sweat made it sting intensely.  I went to the local doctors multiple times over the next several weeks as it spread and got more intense.  They gave me prescriptions that didn't touch it.  I was desperate, and so I turned to God for help.  I spent all of August and the first week of September seeking God for an answer to my infection.  I was frustrating as I wanted to work, make money, and spend time with my friends.  God had other plans. When I wasn't laid up in bed, I ended up spending time alone in our local church playing the piano and praying.  I didn't know what else to do.  During that time, I found God for myself.  I believe God gave me new music to an old hymn in a 15 minutes burst of creativity - perhaps I'll share it sometime.  I also got an answer about my next step for the future - I'd be going to a disciple training school in Texas.  I needed to get better first, though.

Weeks after this started, the doctor's in our community finally referred me to a dermatologist in a larger city to see if he could help.  When he saw my infection he was a little taken aback ('whoa, that looks nasty'), but he told me not to worry.  He didn't give me a prescription.  Instead, he grabbed a couple of bottles in his office, mixed their contents together with some cream and told me to use that on the affected area.  I gulped and thought 'Oh boy, I hope this works.'  Sure enough, a week later the infection had cleared up.  I was SO relieved and at the same time wondered why it took so long to finally meet that doctor.  God had a plan in all of it though.  His timing is perfect, and He can use doctors, too!

Before leaving for Texas, I was able to play the hymn with the new arrangement for the people in my church.  This was important because my attitude about serving in the church had changed - I was there to minister now instead of being 'compelled' by my parents.  God had become personal to me, helping me with my own troubles. 

Blessed are those who have regard for the weak;

    the Lord delivers them in times of trouble.

The Lord protects and preserves them—

    they are counted among the blessed in the land—

    he does not give them over to the desire of their foes.

The Lord sustains them on their sickbed

    and restores them from their bed of illness.

Psalms 41:1-3