Author Archives: Brandon Adams

Having Abundance Takes…Contentment?

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abundanceAt some point, we have all probably quoted this verse to encourage ourselves:

I am able to do all things through Him who strengthens me. (Phil. 4:13)

We might have mis-quoted it, too. The context of this passage is not declaring the ability to do anything you want to do, but the ability to handle what God wants you to do:

…for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know both how to have a little, and I know how to have a lot. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being content — whether well fed or hungry, whether in abundance or in need. (4:11b-12)

The context reveals that contentment, not abundance, is the goal for the Christian (and is honestly the more impressive trait anyway).

So if you ever launched out on some project without consulting God, then wondered why it faceplanted even though you read this verse, that might be your explanation: the verse doesn’t suggest you can do just anything. It’s about glorifying God, both his power in you and his purposes for you (desirable or otherwise).

But you know what gets me about this verse?

The idea that you would have to be content in abundance.

Because the verse implies that Paul needed contentment in both abundance and need.

Like, why on earth would Paul need contentment in abundance? I ask myself. You’d think that’s where you wouldn’t need contentment. Just sit back and enjoy the good life, for as long as it lasts.

But Paul experiences otherwise, and it seems to suggests two things.

One has to do with that pesky “as long as it lasts” tag: the good life is not entrenched. Fortunes come and go, sometimes triggered by the most trivial and frustrating events. Jesus had some bad news for the guy in Luke 12 who upgraded his barns and decided to eat, drink, and be merry. All things in this life are transitory.

And that leads to the second truth: abundance does not bring contentment. Anyone who thinks it does, has probably never had abundance. Or has taken it for granted.

When I worked on the reservation years ago, many of my students had their eyes fixed unwaveringly on attaining abundance. Get more money, they reasoned, and life would be better. They weren’t entirely wrong. Poverty was a real problem and causing genuine pain in their lives. I could sympathize; there had been a time when I, too, was living paycheck to paycheck.

But having come from off the reservation where the median income was higher, I could tell my students that being better off wasn’t making anyone particularly happy. It just made you want more. Get a nice middle-class home and your middle-class conversations shift to how awesome those big homes up on the hill must be. Attain that level and the conversations turn to the architecturally fancy mansions up on the mountain. Each step you take up the socioeconomic ladder, you build a lifestyle that sucks up everything you have. And on and on it goes. Someone’s always got a bigger boat.

Paul could have been talking about either one of these things when he referenced having to be content, of all things, in all things. You either want more, or you end up tightening your grip on what you have, out of worry.

I want neither existence. Chasings after the wind, both of them. I want peace today, and God. More of him. Paul got that, and he spends his epistles swearing up and down that it’s the best thing ever.

If wealth increases, pay no attention to it. (Psalm 62:10b)

Today, if you’re having trouble being grateful for what you have, I heard a question once that rocked my world: “What would you lose if God were to remove everything from your life tomorrow that you hadn’t given thanks for today?”

A Beef with God

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I listened this last weekend to a podcast from a respected Christian author. He’s often told of how God has a way of getting his by disrupting his fishing trips. (I suspect this would get the attention of many a man.) The fishing was terrible until finally the man, having learned to look for God in the small things, asked, “God, what are you saying? What is this about?” He felt God’s reply was, Your hatred of me.

I suspect many of us have a beef with God over something. Lingering disappointment. Heartrending tragedy. The state of the world.

There are answers for all this, theologically. But it doesn’t always reach our hearts, our emotional fault lines.

I would know this. I’ve taken unexpected blows, like my family’s collapse, that God neither stopped nor undid. And every once in a while, some resentment towards God reveals itself in my soul, like a Rottweiler peeking out from a garbage pile. (I saw that on a pizza run this last week and it seemed to work here as a metaphor.)

On that pizza run, I prayed something like this.

Lord, forgive me for my bitterness towards you. I have no right to be angry with you. Not after the cross. Not after the empty tomb. Please give me strength to put aside my resentment towards you. Help me forgive you. 

I know that the idea of “forgiving God” sounds theologically scandalous, since God is incapable of wrong. But if you think about it, you can stand in need to forgive someone whether they committed wrong or not. You can be bitter towards a hiring manager who turned you down years ago for a badly needed position simply because you weren’t the most qualified. You can hold a grudge towards another driver who slid on impossible ice and hit your car. Bitterness is a funny thing; it doesn’t actually require moral wrong. It just requires someone…or Someone…who had an agenda different from yours.

So I prayed for strength to release my simmering resentment of his agenda in my life. And I prayed for new revelations of his love.

They came.

Like the spray of a waterfall after a thirty-mile desert hike, they came. In the same quirky, personal ways God shows his love to me, they came. Once the resentment was out of the way, they came.

I have no delusions that the garbage-clearing is over. It will likely be a layered, ongoing event.

But on the days when your beef with God arises, clear it out. Release him from your resentment. You will know his love again in fresh ways.

Back from a Blogging Sabbatical

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Hey, everyone. Good to see you.

I haven’t blogged many new post for the last two months, and I think I’ve already made one other post apologizing for this, so I’d better get back to it in earnest.

But it was good to take a break from it. Every once in a while, you find that something you once enjoyed has become an expectation and it sucks the life out of it. Blogging is hard work. You not only need to post, you need to visit others’ blogs, like their stuff, comment on it, not because it’s an obligation or to get visibility, but because they’re working hard too and they deserve some kudos. 2.5 years of that is due for 2 months break. Right, guys? …guys?

Anyway, I’m going back to original posts Mondays and Thursdays starting next week. Tune in and have a great day meanwhile.

He Has a Place for You

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Some of us fear being useless.

I’ve known many people who “need to feel needed”.

I guard myself against the motive as best I can, for I know it’s inappropriate to seek good works and ministries just to fill my own voids. For one thing, it’s not about us. We’re to do things for God’s glory, not our own fulfillment. For another, work is a harsh mistress. It lets you down, fails despite your best efforts, withholds the kudos you may well deserve. If you’re looking for your fulfillment in work, it will let you down.

But sometimes, my need shows through.

So I turn to God’s Word instead.

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do. (Ephesians 2:10)

And I’m reminded that God instilled us with a desire to contribute so that he could fulfill the desire. He has it all covered. We may have to surrender our need, our preference of work placement, and not grasp for it in our own way. But God will supply all our needs, if we look to him first.

 

My and Paul’s Longing for a Harvest

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In a few weeks, my church is sending another team to this adopted second country of mine. Our sister church there has just completed its new sanctuary and fruit is continuing to trickle in. I’m not on this year’s team, but if you have a moment to pray, could you shoot one up for this year’s team?

Brandon Adams's avatarBrandon J. Adams

pragueI was reading through Romans from the beginning while I was in the Czech Republic. The first thing I ran into? An apostle Paul who very much shares my mind on the desire for a harvest.

First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world. God, whom I serve in my spirit in preaching the gospel of his Son, is my witness how constantly I remember you in my prayers at all times; and I pray that now at last by God’s will the way may be opened for me to come to you.

I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong— that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith. I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that I planned many…

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ARE YOU SURPRISED WHEN GOD ANSWERS YOUR PRAYERS?

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I would be.

Peter’s friends were. Despite their “earnest” prayers for him (Acts 12:5), they were “astonished” when told that he was at the door (v. 14-16).

I believe wholeheartedly that God must deny many – probably the majority – of our prayers for our own good. Our hearts are so wayward, and there are few things better to pull them away from worldly things and back to him than to deny their prayers. We don’t need things. We need God.

But I also believe it’s possible to misappropriate this concept and use it as a cover-up for simple unbelief. That’s my testimony. And that is not good, either.

Aldtric Johnson M.A.'s avatarGrowing In Yahuah

mountain-1465027_1920515646898.jpg

I can only speak for myself, but I think we’ve all experienced it. We have prayed to God…we have made a specific supplication…we have interceded for someone else. Then, sometimes immediately, sometimes shortly after and sometimes much later we see God answer that prayer…that supplication…that intercession, just as we asked.

Sometimes it’s exactly as we asked. While others it may not be exactly as we asked but, we can still clearly see it was an answer to our prayer.

Then it happens. That emotion that reveals our true level of faith. I’m not saying an absence of faith, but the true level of our faith. Our emotional response to God answering our prayer.

SURPRISE

Have you ever been surprised when God answers your prayer? Surprised when we already know what He promised…

John 14:13-14 (NKJV)

13 And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father…

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When You Sin Seven Times in a Day

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Hotel Summer Pool Infinity Luxury Sea Sky WaterI came across an article of John Piper’s in which he listed five besetting sins with which he struggles.

I chuckled bitterly. If only my list were that short.

Not that Piper claimed only five besetting sins, but I don’t even know how he could tier them. Mine certainly don’t lend themselves to stratification. They cling. They bite at my heels. They relentlessly pursue, like a dog who will not yield the chase, or the zombie who knows nothing but the taste of living blood.

I’m not rolling over, mind you. On some fronts, I’m winning more skirmishes than I’m losing.

But something in my heart refuses such encouragement. Total eradication is the goal. If I content myself with less, I will accomplish less.

And there are days in which I do indeed accomplish much less. Days that seem dominated, marked, headlined by sin.

Then, this evening, I read these words of Jesus to his disciples:

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It’s Not About You, Christian Graduates

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Brandon Adams's avatarBrandon J. Adams

Graduation is upon you.

What a relief. To be freed from the hallways of the high school you’ve learned to hate and launched upon the world full of possibility. Just to be celebrated is a great feeling. Goodness knows we don’t get enough of that these days. Everyone is flying in from across the country just to attend your party, churches are holding banquets in your honor, and all of it is wonderful. It’s your moment in the sun. Bask.

The graduation speeches are exciting. Live your dreams. Reach for the stars. Realize yourself and your potential. Don’t let anyone tell you who you are or what you can’t do. Perhaps there is some truth there.

But we have a few problems here.

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God Finalizes His Adoptions

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For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father!” The Spirit Himself testifies together with our spirit that we are God’s children, and if children, also heirs—heirs of God and coheirs with Christ—seeing that we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him. (Romans 8:15-17)

Children Silhouette Family Sunset

Last night in youth group, we discussed God’s adoption of his people – how adoption serves as a beautiful metaphor for how God, in his kindness and magnanimity, chose to save men who, because of sin, were not his own. He initiated the pursuit; he made the first move. There was nothing a believer could do to seek God first; he reached out with his offer of salvation, and we responded. Amazing.

But it occurred to me last night that God doesn’t just initiate; he finishes. He closes.

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