How Do You Want Your Singleness Remembered?

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victoryLong-term singleness can be heartbreaking.

For all the church’s teaching on how singleness is a valid season and state of being (and it is), they seem to miss the point sometimes. Or a lot, depending on who you ask.

Some of us don’t do well on our own. We just don’t. The idea of vacations by ourselves seems utterly pointless; every year sees more friends marry off and leave you with less in common; and no matter how much good stuff we hear about self-improvement, no one person will ever be good at everything. Or even remotely competent, as my attempt at steak last week could testify. Such success is rare in my apartment.

For those who never grew up in strong homes in the first place, the search for love, for a witness to our lives, takes on a far greater urgency. Their “love tank” is empty. As the grandchildren of the sixties continue growing, you will see more of that.

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Don’t Let Satan Win Twice

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desertI love the entire Scripture, but I’ve always been especially partial to the book of Hebrews. It’s partially because I long for a close, approachable relationship with the Father, and it’s (in part) the book of Hebrews that taught me to seek that, taught me that God himself seeks it.

Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way opened for us through the curtain of His body, and since we have a high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold resolutely to the hope we confess, for He who promised is faithful. (Hebrews 10:19-23)

Let us draw near.

And if you know God wants something, it’s a good bet that Satan opposes it.

This Scripture makes a connection between our nearness to God, the assurance of faith, and the state of our conscience. That means that what we do after we sin is probably a crucial matter. We need to know how to handle the aftereffects of our sin. Because we will sin.

Too often, our instinct is to hide, as Adam and Eve did. We imagine God saying, “Get out of my sight. I don’t want to see you right now.” It’s certainly good to bear some humility towards God, and too often we let it drive us from God. We have this ingrained belief that we should hide from a God greater and holier than us,

That’s letting the devil win twice.

He tempts us to sin, then seeks to use that sin as a wedge between us and God any way he can. A diabolical one-two punch, the second half of which we don’t often even register.

Contrast it with David’s approach to repentance:

God, create a clean heart for me
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not banish me from Your presence
or take Your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore the joy of Your salvation to me,
and give me a willing spirit. (Psalm 51:10-12)

David seeks more of God in this time, not less. This is the guy who just will not shut up throughout Psalms about the greatness of God’s presence. Instead of slinking away from God’s presence and trying again on Thursday, he actively repents and seeks God’s intervention in his heart.

Don’t sin. But when you do, turn to God in that very moment. Repent and ask him to change your heart. Draw near.

Near. To the God whose mountain could not even be touched, whose very face made Isaiah fear for his life, who routs armies before him and changes the heart of kings.

That God wants me near.

I think I will accept his offer.

 

Spurgeon on Secret Sins and Practical Atheism

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I’m back with original work, but every once in a while you stumble across a post from someone else that makes you just want to retract into your own belly button with conviction. This is one such post.

3 Tips for When You’re Misunderstood

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Ipointt’s frustrating having your motives misunderstood.

Sometimes people will innocently misunderstand. Other times they’ll deliberately twist your motives because they dislike you. It’s a part of life; we all will face it sooner or later.

Sometimes – and I’ve seen this in the lives of friends recently – it is your excellence that will get people distorting your motives. Though they don’t realize it, they’re irritated because they see you working hard to do your best, and it makes them insecure.

Or it might be that you made a mistake, and people will try to decode why without having all the information (i.e. without asking you).

If that’s your situation today, you could be friends with David.

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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 Heals the Outcast

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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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