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Sinking Boats and Community

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 “When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and lower your nets for a catch.” Simon answered “Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing! But at your word I will lower the nets.” When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets started to tear. So they motioned to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they were about to sink” (Luke 5:4-7, NET).

I believe God spoke to me this morning during the sermon. What He said wasn’t part of the sermon, but it was in the text that my pastor was reading. It had to do with the disciples in the boat as they obeyed Jesus’ command to cast out their nets.

I believe that this text shows the importance of community. Without the other boat nearby, Peter’s boat surely would have capsized. If he didn’t have the support of fellow disciples, there’s no way he could have brought in that catch of fish.

That’s how it is with modern disciples. Often, it’s not our failures that sink us but rather our successes. I think that is worthy of a repeat: it’s not when we fail that can cause us to go under as much as it is when we succeed without a proper foundation or framework underneath us.

We need community. We need people who will tell us the truth and not always what we want to hear. We need people who can help us put both failure and success into their proper perspectives. So many times, a believer alone can take his or her eyes off of Jesus when there’s an unexpected failure or success. We can focus on the event rather than on God. We need people around us reminding us to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, not what’s right or what’s wrong.

Lord, help us to lean on each other in community so that we won’t give up when we fail or get puffed up when we succeed. Keep us in the humility that doesn’t make us think more or less of ourselves but rather helps us think of ourselves less and the people around us more. Amen.

Follow Where He Places Us

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“God engineers our circumstances as He did those of His Son; all we have to do is to follow where He places us. The majority of us are busy trying to place ourselves” (Oswald Chambers, The Love of God).

I love the scene in The Chosen Season 4 where Gaius is having a conversation with Matthew. In response to Gaius asking Matthew about all the different things he needs to be concerned about, Matthew basically says that he has only one thing to do today — follow Jesus. The rest will take care of itself.

That sounds a lot like Matthew 6:33. If we seek God’s Kingdom first, the rest will take care of itself. I think the western mind thinks of a Kingdom as a territory or a castle or something physical, but to the Jewish mind, they would see it not as a place but as the action of ruling. By God’s Kingdom, we are seeking the active reign of God in our lives and in the world around us.

In my own life, I sometimes try to place myself where I think it will do me the most good. God is saying to focus on seeking Him, and He will place me where He wants me to go. 10 times out of 10, that place is way better than the place I would have picked. Actually, make that 100 out of 100. You get the point. There is never a scenario where I choose better than God. None.

There’s a lot less stress in following Jesus rather than trying to figure it all out. Anxiety comes from trying to put out a million mental fires with everything going on in your life. You can run yourself ragged almost literally trying to work out every possible outcome to every situation you’re in. It’s exhausting.

But following God means resting in what God has promised to His people. Not resting as in taking a nap (and I do like me some naps), but rest as a sort of calm that know that even in the midst of the ranging storm we have a Lord who walks on water.

My goal today is to follow Jesus. Period. My goal is to seek first God’s Kingdom. Period. The rest will take care of itself. The end.

Another Night of Worship

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Kairos is always good. But every now and then, it gets taken up a notch to an epic level known as a Night of Worship. Usually, that means more worship songs. Hence the name.

Tonight’s theme was the love of God from 1 John 4:10. The question was this: “Do you see yourself the way God sees you?”

Often, it’s easy to look in the mirror and see failure, broken promises, and unfulfilled potential. It’s easy to focus on the might-have-beens and on what you lack instead of what you have and who you are.

It becomes infinitely easier to love yourself once you begin to grasp how deep the Father’s love for you truly is. How deep and wide and high and long. How unfathomable. Once you realize you did nothing to earn it and can do nothing to lose it.

It’s easy to worship when the emotions are running high and the crowd is hyped, but what about when you’re stuck in that morning traffic or slogging through emails at work? Or pouring that all-important first cup of coffee while it’s still dark outside?

Music and singing are a part of worship, but not all of it. Not even close. Worship is how you make much of Jesus in everything you do wherever you are whenever you are. Even taking out the trash or scrubbing toilets can be an act of worship when done in gratitude.

Still, the music part is nice.