Life Of A Christian

As I read about the Christian church around the world it becomes apparent that it’s impact varies depending on where you are. I first observe the church in Europe that unfortunately appears to be all but dead. In contrast, I hear about the churches in Africa and Asia, specifically China and how they are vibrant and growing and of course the church in the United States, where I live, that appears to be somewhere in between and I wonder why these churches are where they are. I think about the New Testament church and it’s actions that are described in Acts and I ponder why were the miracles that happened there happening so easily and so greatly. I put that alongside the persecuted church around the world and how similarly miracles abound and how the growth in the church is uncontrollable despite massive persecution and resistance. Juxtapose that with how despite centuries of history in Europe there appears to be barely a pulse of faith and in the United States while there is still is some vibrancy I can more easily get a picture of and understand more personally what John was talking about when he talked about the church that was neither hot nor cold. We all know how God felt about that.

The question at hand to me is why. What is the factor that leads to God truly living through his people and things happening that leave no doubt that the one true and living God of the universe not only exists, but that he is preeminent. Some would argue that it is faith and or love and or knowledge of the word. I don’t dispute that these are factors, but I have thought about this for a while and I have also felt for a while that there was something else that I was missing in trying to figure out the answer to this question. In my quest for an answer I go again to John and his description of the church that lost its first love and I think about how it relates to me personally. There are moments when I forget what is important and I waste time where it does not need to be spent and I crave to get back to where I have peace and joy and I want what it is that gets me there. I also think about those growing and vibrant churches and what they have that causes the growth and vibrancy.

What I have come up with is need. The answer is how much do we need God. The church grows, individuals grow, the church impacts the world and individuals impact the world when they deeply realize how much they need God. I think back on my personal salvation experience and that moment that I so crudely cried out to God for help in desperation and He answered me and it was so obvious to others around me and myself that God showed up. I think about the church in China and other places where the fact is that those people put there lives on the line every day they worship God and they face persecution for even thinking about talking about their faith. They need God in a tangible way. I think that sometimes we lose that need for God to show up every day and then he doesn’t because he will not impose His will on us if we do not want it. I think that we so often sit back and complain about where God is when he is exactly where we have put Him. In His own little box that we have created. Jesus talked about moving mountains, but I don’t think that sometimes we think mountains can move. I am not sure we even see a reason why mountains should move. That mountain looks just fine where it is to me and well why bother. We do not need that mountain to move.

God on the other hand has a different perspective. He is wondering why we do not need Him to improve our marriages, why we do not need Him to help us figure out our teenage kids, why we do not need Him to help with that cranky boss or neighbor. Jesus said seek ye first the kingdom and all other things will be added. I see it this way. We have one job. Seek Him, want Him, need Him and He promises to take care of everything else. That’s a sweet deal, but do we need God. I see a direct correlation in what we need and what happens in our walk. I do not think that it is an accident that where God’s people are desperate for Him that miracles are occurring and that where people are more interested in preserving what they have that we squelch the movement of the Holy Spirit. Lamentations tells us that His mercies are new every morning but I think that sometimes we are too happy with old mercies.

It’s funny, the last time that I posted anything was on the subject of God’s will and here I am again 5 months later posting on the same subject. Our God is such a God of order and He never waivers. Some people don’t like that because they believe that He needs to be considerate of what they are going through and the life situation that they are in. I know that sometimes I am one of those people, but I am so glad that He isn’t. Imagine a God that altered what He did according to the current trend or culture. I think that many people are worshipping that God today and then they wonder why they don’t have any peace or joy in their life. God calls us to be obedient and to serve Him and the gift we get from that allegiance is fellowship with Him and that leads to peace and joy. I know that it’s a journey and that I mess up far more often than I want to admit, but when I am truly striving to be with Him and fellowship with Him and I want to do what He wants me to do that I have peace and joy and while I still dream of worldly things I won’t do anything that will sacrifice that closeness with Him. Not having peace or joy hurts. Look around. I don’t know what you see, but I see a world that is so fixated on themselves that it’s all crumbling around us and many cannot see it.

I started out writing today with the intent of talking about God’s will and my personal journey and then when I opened the blog for the first time in months to do that and saw the last time that I was here and I became sidetracked. That’s what the first paragraph is about. It was definitely relevant, but not at all planned, at least by me. What I wanted to write about was where I have been. One night, about a year and a half ago, God woke me up because He wanted to talk to me. This happens sometimes when He needs to tell me something or I am working on a project and He has insight. That night, He clearly put on my heart that he wanted me to start a blog. I had been thinking for years that I wanted to write, but honestly I had not any idea how to make that happen. My thoughts had always been that I wanted to write a book. Rarely does a week go by that I don’t get an idea and think “that’s a great idea for a book”. Of course, as I said, I still have not any idea how to make that happen. Well, I woke up the next day and I went out on the internet and researched starting a blog and within a day I had it all set up. It all seemed so easy and I had that feeling that God was blessing this and I was in His will and all was going to be great. I posted a few articles, but as often happens I lost some steam.

The issue in my mind was that I was a busy person. I still am. I was and still am working 3 jobs and feeling that if I could just work one full time job and do well for myself I would be happy. I struggle with this issue. I love my primary job. I feel that I am exactly where God wants me to be and doing exactly what God wants me to do. I feel that I am serving him and doing His ministry. The problem is in my mind that I don’t make enough money. So, I work other jobs to “make ends meet”. That’s a funny phrase, isn’t it. I am not young and I worry about the future. Retirement or something worse. I have peace and joy and I know that they are the primary goals and God says that He has it all figured out and then here I am worried. I won’t dare do a thing without it being His will because I can handle my life right now, but not without Him and peace and joy. Oh, did I mention that I am tired and there doesn’t seem to be enough time in the day. So, I wrote a few articles and I expected that somehow this was going to be my new life, but then I realized that it was more work that I did not have time for and I reasoned with myself that someday God would lead me in this direction, but not now, not yet.

So, as you can see, I write once in a while when God puts it on my heart and I feel like it’s such a waste that I am not doing more. I know that our God is a God of order and that idea resonates with me because I like things the way that I like them and I want everything to be neat and tidy and to make sense all the time and I am uncomfortable with not knowing the entire picture. But, unfortunately for me, I don’t know everything and it’s all not neat and tidy, at least to me. So, I am writing today. I don’t know when I will again. I have become more comfortable with this idea and that I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. What I do know is that He is already there and that He loves me. I like to say that it is great to be used by Him and that is always the only thing that I want, but my humanness, the old man, is still in there. God’s will is that we crucify that guy a little more every day.

God’s will is an interesting subject because I think we all have a view of what it is. I know that I do even though it seems to ever be evolving. It’s something that I think is important to have a good grasp on if you are a Christian because it is supposed to be what we are all about as Christians. The problem, and I’m finding this more and more, is that in brief moments of clarity I realize I have no idea what God is really doing. I want to and I strive to know what the Bible says and what it means and I get comfort in getting closer to God, but the truth is God’s will is scary. When you get down to the nitty gritty it is absurdly frightening which leads me to wonder whether we really don’t want to know. We say we want to know, but when it comes down to it do we veil what God wants because we just can’t handle it?

Now, there are different contexts of God’s will. I think that we all can handle the more global views of God’s will much better than the personal views. It is scary to think about where the world is going in the near future and the reality of it’s decline that the Bible predicts, but we have a great hope and depending on your view we may or may not have to endure great hardship. I believe that we don’t endure the worst of it, but it is coming. It’s easier to think about, in my mind, because it’s out there somewhere. It’s not that personal and how does it impact my daily life anyway? I think it does impact my life, but I have too much other stuff to worry about to concentrate on events that may not even happen in my lifetime.

The context that is more important is God’s personal will for my life. Often, I will get asked by someone “What do I do? What does God want me to do?” Sometimes that answer is easier to discern. The issue at hand is a clear cut Biblical mandate and even though what is a Biblical mandate is often open to interpretation at least it is easier to discuss. Where it gets tricky are questions like “What does God want me to do?” and it’s personal. My answer always is “I can’t tell you that because what is right for me may not be right for you.” I can help someone figure it out, but it has to be God’s will for THEIR life. Personally, I feel that I am exactly where God wants me to be in my life which is a good thing for me because I get peace and joy, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t sometimes question if I am where I am supposed to be or maybe question whether God is leading the right way.

The real issue at hand here is do I really want to know what is God’s will? With knowledge comes responsibility and with responsibility comes accountability and with accountability comes commitment and is that what I really want? I know it is what we are called to and I think it is why we allegedly don’t often know God’s will for our lives. I don’t think that we want to know. I want to think that I am a good Christian and that God is going to say “Well done” when I see him face to face, but will He or am I just fooling myself thinking that I’m doing God’s will when in fact I am not. As I said earlier, I think that I am exactly where God wants me to be and I have peace and joy, but maybe there is more and I am not getting all of God’s blessing because I haven’t totally given myself to God’s will.

Jesus said that His yoke was easy and maybe I am complicating things, but as far as my relationship with God goes I want more. It also seems that God always wants more from us so I guess it appears that we both want the same thing. So, what’s the problem. Unfortunately, in examination of the situation, we come to the realization that God is perfect in all His ways which leaves the issue with us. Am I responsible, accountable and committed and or what am I responsible, accountable and committed to? I think that we all have to seek to want to truly know Him more to get in tune with His will for our life and then we have to want to surrender to doing what He wants us to do.

I have a dear friend who was struggling with a life situation and it makes me think about what God does and how he works. I know this person was thinking about what God was doing in her life because she had expressed her pain to me and she is such a good friend that it made me hurt also. I think that I related to her struggle a little bit as, unfortunately, all of us probably can. In my life, I usually trace any issues that I have back to how my walk with the Lord is going. When I am close to God I can handle what life and this world throw my way and when I am not it seems that circumstances get more of the attention than they should. The thing that bothered me about my friend’s situation is that this person is such a truly Godly person and along with her husband genuinely follow the Lord in a way that I envy in an inspiring way. Many times, I hear about a situation or someone expresses their pain to me and states something along that line of “I don’t understand God” or “I don’t know why this is happening to me” and I think that I can trace what is going on back and their is a legitimate anticedent to what is happening. In this case, I struggled to find one and as this person stated to me their disappointment as they legitimately professed that they had done everyhing that God has wanted them to do and truly followed Him with all their heart and then to have what apppears to be a clear incongruence with what should be happening, I didn’t get it.

As I prayed for my friend, God put on my heart the story of Job. What always sticks out to me about this saga is that God clearly states that Job was the best He had to offer and all this bad stuff happened to him. This scares me because where does that leave me. And, in the end, the only explanation that God gives for what happened to Job was that He was God and He could. The major message of Job is that God is sovereign and I get that. I also get the distinction that God’s sovereignty is perfect and He is just and everything that He does is for the greater good, but it doesn’t mean I have to like it.

While Job was following God with all his heart, he was not perfect and when we enter into a relationship with the living God and the closer we get to Him the one thing that we communicate to Him is that we want His input. And then we grow and we get even closer and the miracle of sanctification moves forward. Then He can use us as He did with Job. What did God use Job for? I am not sure, but that is the message of the book. God is in control and knows exactly what he is doing and we don’t always know the reason for  what is happening.

To me, there are two major things I take from this discussion. One, to get to the place where we can become a Job we have to be totally sold out for God and He has to have permission from us to use us as He pleases. Again, looking at Job’s story I can only be scared, right? Maybe a little, but what’s the alternative? I have tried that already and no thank you. Give me peace and give me joy and that’s what God promises if we follow Him. Job understood this. Despite his circumstances Job came to the conclusion that he would not curse God and die. The second thing that I get is that I trust Him. It all worked out for Job and he was blessed more after than he was before. That’s what God does. My friend learned this and so have I, again.