Category Archives: Walking with God

Is Your “God’s Love” Tank Critically Low?

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meterI pray that the right people see this.

I’m thinking tonight of the main characters in stories that would tear your heart out. Ordinary Christians, drained by disappointment and hardship. They no longer feel any love or peace from God. He seems all but absent. Just when hope seems to be rising, life kicks them again. They’ve been faithful for years, slogging through Scripture and the spiritual disciplines, staying a “good Christian”. They could recite the Biblical reasons behind suffering until the cows come home, but it’s no longer lifting their hearts so much as a whit. And then the cows kick them.

Seeing a brother or sister struggle in this way is one of the things that truly knocks down the door of my apathy and sets me ablaze. I get angry at Satan. I get – well, I would say “fearful” if I didn’t know fear was a sin, so I don’t do that – but certainly deeply concerned for the person. They stick on my heart. I don’t want them to be separated from God. I want so badly for them to know, to rediscover the love of God.

But…it isn’t easy.

My own experience says that, and surprisingly, Scripture says that. It grants that cultivating a relationship with the Unseen is counter-intuitive and hard. Especially once you step back and see all the obstacles arrayed against it, the spiritual opposition, the inertia from our unsaved days, the shiny lies about where we should be looking for our joy.

Start with this: do not accept the way things are. There is no Scriptural basis for the idea that God’s love and joy should be limited, blocked, or withheld from us. Indeed, other than salvation, an ironclad peace and joy in any circumstance is the greatest treasure of the kingdom, the very thing Christ died to give us! The Bible does not speak of this stuff in terms a scarce trickle, but of plenty, abundance, overflowing. He meant you to have it “to the full” (John 10:10).

So, you ask…why is it not flowing?

Ultimately, it must be God doing the answering. I do not know your particular situation, which could be varied as the stars are many, and I don’t have a lot of power in myself anyway. But I can offer my own story, and some Scriptural thoughts God has taught me.

1. You can’t do it alone.

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Why You Shouldn’t Set Goals for 2017

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goals“Goal-setting”.

It’s one of those catch-phrases that make up the world’s motivational matrix. The idea is that setting clear, calculated, realistic goals for the future makes them easier to achieve. For example, setting a specific target for your bank account in 2017 is much likelier to succeed than a simple “I’ll make more money this year”, because you have a concrete figure against which to adjust your expenditures.

Sometimes we call this a “New Year’s resolution”, but I’m over that. Calling something a resolution almost dooms it to fail; resolutions are the butt of all our New Years’ jokes. Calling it goal-setting lifts it clear of all that.

So why am I still uncomfortable with it? With the rah-rah determination of goal-setting?

Maybe it’s just the subtle undercurrent of humanism. “You can do it! Imagine yourself succeeding and it will be so!” At the risk of overthinking, the philosophy of goal-setting feels like something you’d get from a corporate solutions seminar or a self-help book, too closely connected to all that power-of-positivity, we-can-change-the-world stuff. We know what Christ thinks of that. Life isn’t about success; our lives are not in our own hands.

Or maybe it’s just that I’m a contrarian, reacting to new ideas by looking for the holes in them. I don’t know. Am I being harsh on goal-setting? A wise man and a true steward of God’s things goes forth with a plan as well as a prayer. Conscious goal-setting could be simple wisdom.

 

See, I’ve got great ideas for 2017. Finish the Christian book I’m writing. Pay off my last debt (within reach this year!). Memorize Romans, or maybe James. Few people would criticize me for those goals. It seems ridiculous that God would. They sound nicely spiritual.

…in my judgment.

But maybe that’s the problem.

Am I stopping to ask God what my goals should be?

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A Survival Tip for Holiday Social Media

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weights12-point bucks. Festive kitchens or decorations. Caribbean vacations. Professional photos of big rocks on fingers and newly engaged couples making out in front of a barn somewhere.

Yep. Holiday social media is here.

Sometimes it seems like it’s got something to push everyone’s envy buttons. Somehow, even seeing a Pinterest-worthy Christmas lights extravaganze that outdoes yours can feel like a putdown. Not for me, but for some it can, and hey, I’m not gonna judge. We all have our quirks.

It’s not hard to understand why some dread this month.

But this season doesn’t have to be a train of helpless coveting delivered right to your phone. There is a huge opportunity here for us Christians, to let this month actually strengthen us.

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He Won’t Forget Your Obedience

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roadYou’re confronted with a choice.

The wrong choice is obvious, but it looks better in the short term; you can see the reward.

The right choice is also obvious, but you don’t see any gain to it. All you can see down that road is losing out for the sake of being good. Being honest on your timecard when nobody would know either way; breaking up with that person who’s apathetic towards God; clamping down on that beer habit when it feels like the only thing keeping you going.

I’ve written along these lines before, but…how the church would change if we remembered that God promises rewards for obedience?

I should say this right away: the greatest reward of obedience is God himself. Tim Keller recently said it well: “Don’t obey God to get stuff. Obey God to get God.” More of his peace, his power, his unfettered presence. That is the best reward of all. And the fact that a small part of us groans and rolls our eyes in impatience at that statement just shows how little of God’s love we have truly tasted. If only we had experienced more of God, we would not hesitate to seek him above all else. We’d be hooked.

I’m so totally stealing my pastor’s encouragement from our morning “fella-ship” at Chick-Fil-A last week that it’s not even funny, but it was a great point: God remembers our obedience. For a long time.

People think the book of Numbers is part of that “boring” (but important) collection of genealogies and bodily-fluids-regulations in the New Testament. It’s not. Numbers is packed with potent, sobering stories of how Israel treated God after their dramatic exodus from Egypt following centuries of enslavement. (Spoiler alert: not well.)

You’d think that the newly liberated Israelites would be thrilled to arrive at the border of the promised land. I imagine they waited with anticipation while Moses sent twelve scouts, one from each tribe, to get the lay of the land and report back.

Instead of rah-rah, ten scouts threw a wet blanket.

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Act in Faith, or Stand Still?

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turtleYesterday, our youth group discussed faith in action.

The Scripture was from James 2. We discussed how true faith is not created by action, but will create action. If you want a job, you don’t just sit around and pray; you get proactive, take a shower, send out applications and resumes, network. If you want to help the needy, you don’t just sit around and pray; you get creative, volunteer, brainstorm, sacrifice. There’s a part that’s God’s to do, and there’s a part that’s ours; God’s will is a collusion of the two.

I was also careful (after having given a poor impression at first, like I seemingly did above) to tell my teens that prayer in itself is action. We sometimes say of a situation that “All we can do now is pray.” All we can do? That is the greatest possible action! The fact that we resort to prayer after exhausting all our own resources tells us how backwards our view of the world is. Prayer does stuff. If you’re sick, you don’t just lie on the couch and post miserable Facebook memes; you get intercession, call some believers to lay hands on you and pray for your healing, as if you believed James 5:14-15 is actually true(!). Like heat from a flame, real faith will be given away by the action it generates.

But this morning, I got to thinking.

There are times when faith means no action.

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“Everything Beautiful in Its Time” – and Only Then

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winterI’ll never forget that May snowstorm a few years ago.

It was only a couple inches, but with the snow sopping wet and everything in full bloom, the trees didn’t have the strength to withstand even that much. It looked like a hurricane had blown through. Branches littering the streets, trees sagging into yards and onto power lines…my mother, out for a walk, had a branch come crashing to the ground only feet away from her.

Things aren’t beautiful outside their time.

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

Or try the other side. Ever hoped guiltily for a winter that would dart unexpectedly out the door in February and leave us with an early spring? I have. A good friend once said that spring “feels hopeful.” Certainly more so than winter. I don’t enjoy the brownness of the earth in winter, the gray skies, the inability to smell anything. Some people feel more alive in the crispness of winter air, but not me. Winter is a season of dead. The long, dark nights offer depression, like I’m living on Mars. Give me one month of winter to snowboard and make Christmas look right, and then we can be done. Coming up at eleven: What my car thinks of winter – uncensored! (Why do I live in Montana again?)

And sometimes, spring indeed comes early. A sneaky glee springs within me in those years.

But it’s not beautiful outside its time.

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Reflections On a Year of Blogging

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One year ago today, I launched brandonjadams.com.

Unexpectedly, it launched me. My sanctification.

At first, the blog was a disaster. I just chuckle at some of my old posts (a lot of them have been polished since then). Scattered, dense, overthought, narrative jukes that could send even the tightest reader spinning off a cliff. I discovered very quickly that classic blogging tip: come back to a finished article two days later, read it over again with frsh eyes, and you’ll be in a position to make it twice as good.

Of course, the moment I realized that, the commitment angle raised its head. Suddenly it was hard to keep up, hard to maintain the enthusiasm. I’d get a great idea in my head while I drove around delivering pizzas, and of course the moment I found a keyboard it would sink back into the cerebellum, reluctant to be pulled back out. I’d coax it and plead with it and retrieve it piece by piece like a frozen piece of string cheese, but it would never be as epic as first conceived. How discouraging. Most of the winter and spring saw me underperform in the number of posts I wrote.

Then there was the small matter of being relevant, being relatable, being something that  a reader could walk away with and apply in their daily lives. And coming up with a decent title – enough to reveal the subject, not enough to give away the entire blog – which is half the battle of any post. And self-promotion, firm yet tasteful. And good site design. And guest posts. And SEO. And…

…I’m boring you.

Okay. Here’s the most interesting part.

Satan.

The man loves to lie.

Who do you think you are, Brandon? You aren’t smart enough, experienced enough, authoritative enough, to do this. You haven’t been to Bible school. This is incredibly pretentious of you. Leave the teaching to your pastors. After all, God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. Just quit.

All the time. Week after week.

But the week after that, it might be:

You’re timid. Cowardly. Withholding your best ideas. Your audience has gotten bored with you and they’re just too polite to tell you. But you can’t get too bold because then other people might leave. Just quit.

And sometimes it’s:

You just suck wastewater as a writer. Not enough metaphors, not enough indirection, not enough grace. You’re as blunt and boring as a hammer. You’ll never be as good as (insert epic Christian author here). And do you even have your exegesis squared away? This is all a lot of pressure. Just quit.

See a pattern?

Funny how Satan contradicts himself. He never sticks to one line. As an old saint at my church put it, “Satan’s weakness is overplaying his hand.” He gives himself away by throwing around illogical thoughts and hoping that we don’t notice, or that we won’t be able to distinguish his voice from our own.

Because that voice could be me. Satan has bludgeoned, harassed, accused, and pestered me enough over the years to where part of me has started sounding like him. This often happens in our younger years. It’s a sinister scheme, designed to deflect us from what God wants us to do.

What’s so sinister is that he isn’t entirely wrong. I could be pretentious. I could be timid. People might leave. And I’ll certainly never be the church’s best writer. This is all true. After all, the most effective lies are the ones with a little truth mixed in.

I do not say all this to fish for praise. Far be such an ungodly motive from me. I renounce it in Jesus’ name and give it no claim to my life. All glory to him.

I’m just saying this out of joy that God, during my blogging journey, is revealing the solution: him. Spend more time with him. Hear from him. Know his language by reading his Scriptures. And when Satan handily provides us with his agenda, turn straight into the wind. Walk against it. Bring the lies of Satan before God’s feet, and ask him what to do with them.

I want to know what he thinks of me. Only there will life be found.

You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. (Jeremiah 29:13)

The Terror of Asking God What He Wants

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pathsYou know what I mean.

You experience some amazing sermon or mountaintop experience and come out all fired up for God’s glory. “God, take ALL of me! Finances, residence, family, occupation, my heart…I’m seeking what you want for my life!”

And then you pause and go, “Wait…what have I just done?” Your breath catches a little, as if you’ve just leaped off the edge of a fifty-foot cliff.

Because you know that’s a prayer God will answer.

And you know he isn’t going to mind your comfort zone when he does. You start looking around nervously, half expecting a team of angels to appear and start packing your stuff.

Some of us never make the leap. We stand perpetually on the edge of the cliff, turning over in our minds the idea of asking God what he wants for our lives, left breathless by how he might answer. He might have you move to Nigeria and do mission work for a year – or a half-century. He might choose not to heal your loved one of that heinous cancer. He might ask you to let go of that guy/girl you can’t stop thinking about. He might ask you to walk away from a dream – or run towards it. He might tell you to forgive, or admit you were wrong, or make other waves in a relationship.

Or he might simply tell you to stay faithful and keep doing what you’re doing – the same exact “what” that you’ve been doing for seemingly decades.

Yep. Asking God what he wants can be a terrifying thing.

But what if it doesn’t have to be that way? What if instead, the terror reveals something about us that should not be?

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On God, Doors, and Enemies: The Story of a Friend’s New House

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AClosed_door_01 while back, a friend of mine was trying to buy a house.

At first things were falling into place. Then, as so often happens with a home purchase, they started stampeding south. Renovation needs were discovered. Her loan officer bolted. Inspection after inspection failed. It became a drawn-out trial, and the burden was greater than living arrangements. She was trying to escape a demoralizing roommate situation; she needed to get out of her apartment for the sake of her heart.

But as the obstacles stacked up, Christian friends and advisers in her life started falling back on a familiar refrain: “These obstacles are probably God trying to stop you. You should let go of the house.”

Deep breath.

Okay. Let’s start at the beginning.

As Christians, we know God does place obstacles in our path to turn us aside from unforeseen dangers and bad decisions. Given our limited visibility in life, we should always keep a weather eye out for these signs.

But it was striking how these Christians in my friend’s life arrived at their assumption – that it must be God doing the blocking – so quickly and naturally. It’s a sign of another assumption, one shared by a lot of believers, especially in the last few generations of the church: the idea that God is the only source of opposition in this world.

It’s not a true assumption.

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Stuck Between Hope and Surrender

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“God, I feel stuck!”

Those were my words to God that morning. I’d been wrestling with him in prayer for the millionth time. My pursuit of God seemed to be taking the form of a collision between two opposing dynamics. Like a surface gale fighting a strong ocean current headed the other way.

“God, I feel stuck!”

There are things we desire in this life. How we handle those things is one of the most profound tests of our faith. Like many, I remember when I first began feeling the weight of permanent disappointment in my mid-twenties. As I watched others’ suffering, the sense became suddenly clear: some stories just never have a happy ending. At least not in this life.

As I turned to Scripture and pushed into God’s opinion on such things, I discovered two opposing forces at work.

I’d see that Jesus spent a lot of time offering his help to our earthly troubles, from demon possession to a wedding party that ran out of wine. But I also learned that if even Jesus did not have his every prayer answered, we certainly won’t. “Many trials” are part of the deal (Acts 14:22).

“God, I feel stuck!”

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