faith

Faith in the Waiting

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I’m revisiting season 3 of The Chosen in anticipation of the new season premiere in February. I just finished the episode where Jesus has a talk with Little James about how God has chosen not to heal him but is sending him out to preach and to heal.

Jesus says that the testimony of Little James’ faith in the midst of his suffering is a greater witness than if he had been healed. God is trusting Little James to be faithful for a little while until the full and final healing comes in eternity.

How many of us are waiting? How many of us have desired that God should make us healed and whole but have yet to see it? How many have prayed for the healing of others and not seen the answer they prayed for and desired so earnestly?

If God granted us everything we ever wanted, our faith would seem like a natural response. It’s only when we hear the words not yet to our petitions, when we don’t get what we ask for, that trust shows itself as supernatural.

The prayers of the saints throughout history has always been along the lines of “Lord, I trust You, no matter what. Use me however You see fit wherever You see fit for as long as You see fit. Have Your way in me, no matter the cost.”

That is the prayer that God honors. That’s the prayer of lives who leave a legacy of faith behind for us to follow.

So you and I can rest in the promises of God even in the waiting and know that whatever God withholds is only because He has something much better in mind that we are not yet ready to receive. Best of all, what we find is that more than anything God could give us apart from Himself is God giving us Himself completely.

The Books I’m Reading

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Normally, I’m not a multi-tasker when it comes to reading books. I’m strictly a one book at a time kind of dude. But lately, I’ve been reading three at the same time.

Two of them are books that easily break down into daily readings. The Winter Fire book is really an Advent devotional based off the writings of G. K. Chesterton, and Every Moment Holy III: The Work of the People is a series of liturgies that can each be read as devotionals.

The Boxen book is one that I’ve been reading off and on as time allows. I have a feeling that if the weather delivers all the cold and snow I’ve been hearing about, I may have a bit more time in the next few days to catch up on my reading.

But that’s where I am. I’m also in a Bible reading plan with all the Brentwood Baptist regional campuses, so that’s something new as well. I mean I’ve read through the Bible before, but never as part of a large group.

I recommend each and every one of these books if you’re looking for new reads. The Bible I’m using is a Day by Day Chronological Bible that breaks down into easy daily reads with some helpful commentary from Dr. George Guthrie.

Now it’s time to catch up on some of my reading.

A Faith Like Betty Elliott’s

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‘Lord, I give up my own plans and purposes, all my own desires, hopes and ambitions, and I accept Thy will for my life. I give up myself, my life, my all, utterly to Thee, to be Thine forever. I hand over to Thy keeping all of my friendships; all the people whom I love are to take second place in my heart. Fill me now and seal me with Thy Spirit. Work out Thy whole will in my life at any cost, for to me to live is Christ. Amen” (Betty Scott Stam).

I want the kind of faith that Betty Elliott had. And before I go on, I do realize that she was a flawed, sometimes insecure, follower of Christ. I also realize that the only one we’re truly called to be like is Jesus, but I think it’s helpful to have worthy examples to inspire us.

After listening to most of the biography Becoming Elisabeth Elliott, I see a faith that definitely is inspiring to me. This woman of God waited for marriage for a long time. She had wait while Jim wrestled with whether God was calling him to marriage in addition to a call to the mission field. After that, their marriage lasted all of two years before he was martyred.

Then she was willing to go to the very people who had murdered her husband and take them the gospel. It’s only through the power of the gospel of Christ that she was even able to forgive them, much less reach out to them in love. It’s that same amazing grace that later saw a majority of that tribe come to know Jesus as Lord and Savior.

That’s the kind of faith I want. Not so much the dramatic, in your face part, but the quiet and steady confidence in a God whose ways I may not always understand. I want the faith that can say at any moment, whatever the circumstances, “Thy will be done, even if it means that my will be undone.”

Her legacy lives on in the books she wrote, particularly Through Gates of Splendor and its account of Jim Elliott and four other missionaries’ attempts to reach the Huaorani people of Ecuador, an unreached people group, with the gospel and how it cost them their very lives.

I love this prayer of hers from when she was 21:

“My life is on Thy Alter, Lord – for Thee to consume. Set the fire, Father! Bind me with cords of love to the Alter. Hold me there. Let me remember the Cross.”

Resting, Not Rusting

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“To wait upon God is not to sit with folded hands and do nothing, but to wait as men who wait for the harvest. The farmer does not wait idly but with intense activity; he keeps industriously ‘at it’ until the harvest. To wait upon God is the perfection of activity. We are told to ‘rest in the Lord,’ not to rust” (Oswald Chambers, The Place of Help).

I love that image. Waiting on the Lord is like a farmer waiting for his crops to be ready for harvest. He has to prepare the soil to receive the rain so that the seeds will germinate and grow. There is no amount of idly sitting by with folded hands hoping for a good harvest.

While we may not know the outcome of what we’re waiting for, we at least know something that God has placed on our hearts. We know one step of obedience to take. We also know that it’s not until we stop taking about obedience and finally obey that God reveals the next step and illuminates the next part of our path.

May we be faithful to wait well and not idly. May we learn to rest in the Lord, not to rust.

Church Is Hard

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I’d say Church is hard because we’re all broken and flawed people, scarred and marred by the ravages of sin. Church is filled with imperfect people. Yes, Church is filled with hypocrites because as much as we want, our lives never exactly line up with our words.

Let these words sink in and remember that while Church is hard, is where God has never failed to meet us:

“CHURCH IS HARD.

Church is hard for the person walking through the doors, afraid of judgement.

Church is hard for the pastor’s family, under the microscope of an entire body.

Church is hard for the prodigal soul returning home, broken and battered by the world.

Church is hard for the girl who looks like she has it all together, but doesn’t.

Church is hard for the couple who fought the entire ride to service.

Church is hard for the single mom, surrounded by couples holding hands, and seemingly perfect families.

Church is hard for the widow and widower with no invitation to lunch after service.

Church is hard for the deacon with an estranged child.

Church is hard for the person singing worship songs, overwhelmed by the weight of the lyrics.

Church is hard for the man insecure in his role as a leader.

Church is hard for the wife who longs to be led by a righteous man.

Church is hard for the nursery volunteer who desperately longs for a baby to love.

Church is hard for the single woman and single man, praying God brings them a mate.

Church is hard for the teenage girl, wearing a scarlet letter, ashamed of her mistakes.

Church is hard for the sinners.

Church is hard for me.

It’s hard because on the outside it all looks shiny and perfect. Sunday best in behavior and dress.

However, underneath those layers, you find a body of imperfect people, carnal souls, selfish motives.

But, here is the beauty of church—

Church isn’t a building, mentality, or expectation.

Church is a body.

Church is a group of sinners, saved by grace, living in fellowship as saints.

Church is a body of believers bound as brothers and sisters by an eternal love.

Church is a holy ground where sinners stand as equals before the Throne of Grace.

Church is a refuge for broken hearts and a training ground for mighty warriors.

Church is a converging of confrontation and invitation. Where sin is confronted and hearts are invited to seek restoration.

Church is a lesson in faith and trust.

Church is a bearer of burdens and a giver of hope.

Church is a family. A family coming together, setting aside differences, forgetting past mistakes, rejoicing in the smallest of victories.

Church, the body, and the circle of sinners-turned-saints, is where He resides, and if we ask, He is faithful to come.

So even on the hard days at church—

The days when I am at odds with a friend, when I’ve fought with my husband because we’re late once again. When I’ve walked in bearing burdens heavier than my heart can handle, yet masking the pain with a smile on my face. When I’ve worn a scarlet letter, under the microscope. When I’ve longed for a baby to hold, or fought tears as the lyrics were sung. When I’ve walked back in, afraid and broken, after walking away.

I’ll remember, He has never failed to meet me there” (Pat Smith).

Boxen

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I started a new book recently. I’ve actually owned this book for a while, but for some reason or another have never gotten around to it. It was perpetually on my to-read-next list.

This is a collection of what C. S. Lewis, who preferred to be called Jack, wrote with his brother Warnie when they were kids growing up in Belfast in Northern Ireland. It wasn’t something they ever meant to be published but it was stories they wrote for each other to take their minds off of the outside world and losing their mother at an early age.

It feels a bit like the Beatrix Potter books (which they read as kids) where the animals wear clothes and talk and behave in human ways. If you’ve read the Narnia books, you can see where the seeds that led to those books came from.

These stories have typical childish spelling and grammar, but also they seem a bit advanced for children who were both under the age of 10. You can tell both these boys were intelligent and well-educated. I feel like these characters could have easily existed in the world that Kenneth Grahame created for The Wind in the Willows (which is a story that he also never originally meant to be published but wrote for his young son).

I’ve included a link to Amazon if you’re interested (although I think you could probably find it cheaper in a secondhand bookstore or through other book websites):

An Advent Prayer from Henri Nouwen

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I realize that we are past Advent. If you follow the ancient ways, then you are aware that this is the third day of Christmas, so it still counts. Also, this time of the kingdom of God being now and not yet feels like an extended Advent season as we wait for Christ’s return:

“O Lord,

How hard it is to accept your way. You come to me as a small, powerless child born away from home. You live for me as a stranger in your own land. You die for me as a criminal outside the walls of the city, rejected by your own people, misunderstood by your friends, and feeling abandoned by your God.

As I prepare to celebrate your birth, I am trying to feel loved, accepted, and at home in this world, and I am trying to overcome the feelings of alienation and separation that continue to assail me. But I wonder now if my deep sense of homelessness does not bring me closer to you than my occasional feelings of belonging. Where do I truly celebrate your birth: in a cozy home or in an unfamiliar house, among welcoming friends or among unknown strangers, with feelings of well-being or with feelings of loneliness?

I do not have to run away from those experiences that are closest to yours. Just as you do not belong to this world, so I do not belong to this world. Every time I feel this way I have an occasion to be grateful and to embrace you better and taste more fully your joy and peace.

Come, Lord Jesus, and be with me where I feel poorest. I trust that this is the place where you will find your manger and bring your light. Come, Lord Jesus, come.

Amen” (Henri Nouwen).

Who Is Jesus?

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Recently, I read a post that bothered me. It basically stated that Jesus was a bleeding heart liberal socialist whose sole purpose was to stand for everything that conservatives hate. To me, that’s just as wrong as reinventing Jesus as a middle-class white Republican who is all about capitalism and the American dream.

The problem with both is that they make Jesus too small. Way too small. To reduce Jesus to something that fits comfortably into your social and political worldview is to recreate Jesus into your own image the way God created us in His. It’s to pare the claws of the lion of Judah and make Him tame, as Dorothy Sayers put it.

But Jesus is far beyond and above our politics. He’s far beyond and above our likes and dislikes and our opinions. He’s fully part of the Godhead trinity just as He is 100% God and 100% man. You can’t take in the totality of His words and believe what He said without recognizing Him as no less than God incarnate in human flesh.

Jesus Himself stated that to get Him wrong is to get the Father wrong. Did you get that? To get Jesus wrong is to get God wrong. To get God wrong is to get life and eternity wrong.

Those in the Bible who met Jesus and understood who He was fell on their faces and worshipped Him as God. They left everything behind and followed Him, willing to take up their crosses and suffer the way He suffered. They were all willing to lay down their lives for Jesus rather than deny Him (even Peter who got it wrong the first time was willing to die for the sake of his Savior).

This is the Jesus of the Christmas story. Not a Democrat or a Republican, liberal or conservative, socialist or capitalist. This Jesus is the very God who made the heavens and the earth and who is Lord of lords and King of kings. This is the one who came to save us from our sins. This is Jesus.

Fix Your Eyes

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“Fix your eyes on the rising Morning Star. Don’t be disappointed at anything or over elate, either. Live every day as if the Son of Man were at your door, and gear your thinking to the fleeting moment. Just how can it be redeemed? Walk as if the next step would carry you across the threshold of Heaven. Pray. That saint who advances on his knees never retreats.”

Those were words quoted by Jim Elliott to his 15-year old sister Jane. These words still ring true in this day and age, long after Jim was martyred for his faith by the people he was trying to reach for Christ.

These words seem like a real Christianity as opposed to the emasculated form of niceness that passes for faith these days. If you read the words of the saints of old, you realize just how far the bar has fallen for the American churches.

But ultimately it’s not about us now versus us then. It has always been about fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Morning Star and the Author and Finisher of our faith. That’s always been the true litmus test of faith — following Jesus and obeying His words, no matter what.

May that be true of those of us who claim the name of Christians.

The Incarnation Is Everything

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“… without the incarnation, Christianity isn’t even a very good story, and most sadly, it means nothing. ‘Be nice to one another’ is not a message that can give my life meaning, assure me of love beyond brokenness, and break open the dark doors of death with the key of hope. The incarnation is an essential part of Jesus-shaped spirituality” (Michael Spencer).

These days, lots of people seem hell-bent on reinventing Christianity to be more socially acceptable. In the process, you end up losing everything that makes Christianity transformative and life-changing. Instead of being counter-cultural, this new version of faith ends up looking and sounding exactly like the culture it’s trying to influence. It ends up almost polar opposite to what Christianity and the Church looked like in the New Testament, particularly in the book of Acts.

Christianity is Christ. Christ is 100% man and 100% God. As a writer of old once said, Jesus is God spelling Himself out in a language humanity could understand. But when you take away the divinity and the incarnation, what you end up with is someone who meant well and tried very hard, not the Savior of the world.

This Advent season is all about how since we couldn’t get to God through religion or rules or right living, God came to us. God came near in the form of an infant born to a virgin teenager and a peasant carpenter. Jesus is the only one who lived the righteous live God requires that we couldn’t live and died the death that we deserved, taking the punishment our sins have earned upon Himself.

May the incarnation be the true reason for the season this Advent and Christmas season. The incarnation isn’t expendable. It’s essential. It’s everything.