Hurry up and slow down

I have a confession to make: I am terrible at waiting. If patience is a virtue, then well, I ain't got much virtue. Truth be told, this is nothing new. Patience and waiting on events and schedules to happen has always been a sore spot for me.

Almost every Christmas Eve growing up, I was the kid perched at the top of the stairs starting at 3:00 a.m. anxiously counting the minutes until the sun would begin to poke its head on the horizon so that I could finally get a glimpse of the glorious presents that awaited me. I eat the cookie dough before it goes on the baking sheet. I'm sure you do too, but I eat A LOT of it before it can be baked. I was the senior in high school that got on the phone with Wake Forest University to find out if I had been accepted because I simply couldn't wait for that letter any longer. Thankfully, they said yes.

So as I recover from my heart surgery at home, you can imagine this is not the easiest of scenarios for someone like me to play out. My doctors have told me that I cannot drive for four weeks post surgery, I am not allowed to lift anything over ten pounds, and I must rest as much a possible. Now I love sleep as much as the next guy, but I also believe there is a thing as too much rest. Yet these are the doctors orders, from the ones who basically recreated my heart as if it was a ball of clay on a potter's wheel.

My days have been filled with cardiac rehab (treadmill, stretching, and yes, rest), reading lots of books, eating like a destitute goat so that I can put weight back on, spending some amazing time with my family, and coordinating class work with the many substitute teachers that my school has lined up to take over in my absence. All of these things are good and necessary. This isn't my first rodeo – I remember having to do all of these things twenty-four years ago when I had my first heart surgery. But things are different now and this is where my struggle begins.

When I had my first heart surgery in 1996, I was single, in grad school, and was able to recover at home with my parents, who to this day are still saints for putting up with me. This time around I have a wife and kids, a career, and many more obligations that require much more immediate attention. My life is different – better – and to have to sit on the sidelines like that kid who made the team but you know coach has no intention of playing is frustrating.

I know that may seem a little over dramatized, so let me step back a little bit. In the midst of what seems like useless time wasting, I understand why the waiting is so important even though I despise it. The body takes time to heal. Getting back into the game too early can be detrimental to experiencing a fully recovery. And the fact that I am even alive to be able to type this graphically illustrates that I serve a God who has allowed me to stay on this planet for reasons I may not yet even fully realize.

So hurry up and wait is what I will do. After all, I did have pretty major heart surgery. Nobody expects me to take the field right away. And while I wait, I will do my best to enjoy each and every moment that comes my way. Wishing I was here or there and doing this or that only serves to cloud my vision for what's right in front of me. And that is what God wants me to see. Not the things that I want to conjure up for myself but rather the everyday, even mundane, things that He has placed in my path.

Lead in spite of, because God's got your back

As a leader, don't you wish that people liked you and respected your every move? I mean, how easy would it be for you if every decision that you made was greeted with applause and compliance? That would be awesome and spare you a few gray hairs and stomach ulcers! But if that were the case - if everyone that you led was okay with where you were leading them - then you would be called a tour guide or entertainment specialist, not leader.

The very definition of being a leader implies that you have to navigate people over difficult terrain because, if left up to their own, those under your direction would wander aimlessly. And these people that you lead will sometimes push back against your vision and decisions, which makes it all the more challenging to lead them.

Let's face it, being a leader is hard. You are never going to be the most popular person in the room and your every move will be second guessed by a number of people. As a result, it is up to you how you choose to deal with opposition. You can initially choose to react in a manner that matches how you feel inside. Usually, this will be akin to molten lava spewing down a mountain toward an unsuspecting village. While this may feel the best at the time, we all know that this is pretty much always counterproductive an disastrous. Those that bear your wrath will never truly follow you.

A second and more God-honoring and wise - yet incredibly difficult - response is to lead in spite of. This means that in sticking with your vision and your strategy you continue to lead with grace in spite of naysayers. If you want a practical application of what this looks like, then read up on the lives of Moses, King David, Daniel, Paul, oh and Jesus, too. These men faced much opposition in their life and ministry, yet they led in spite of it. And they did so because God had entrusted them with leadership and their vision and dreams were not simply their own. 

King David actually put his thoughts and hurts into words when it came to leading in the midst of those who wished him nothing but disaster:

"You Yourself have recorded my wanderings. Put my tears in Your bottle. Are they not on Your records? Then my enemies will retreat on the day when I call. This I know: God is for me."  (Psalm 56:8-9)

That last phrase should bring great comfort to all of us: God is for us. He knows all the junk that we go through, He is intimately aware of every struggle that we encounter, and He's tuned in to all the mind-numbing opposition that we face. He has "recorded my wanderings" and "put my tears in (His) bottle", which means that there is nothing that we endure alone. He is with us. He is for us.

So when you struggle and strive and to lead in spite of, and it seems like no one else in the room is on the same page, rest in the fact that God is for you. Mom and dad, God is for you when you have to make difficult decisions regarding your children. Business man and woman, God has your back when your co-workers are taking short-cuts while claiming the glory. Student, God has not forgotten you when other kids at school mock you for your faith and for taking your studies seriously.

And if God is for us, who can be against us?

Uphill trusting

When I was in grade school my parents bought me and my brothers some thick plastic skateboards that we all called "banana boards" because that's pretty much what they were shaped like. These boards were indestructible and me and my brothers would ride them down our inclined street over and over again. Sometimes we would stand while riding them but I would usually sit on mine like I was driving a fast car. The feeling of cruising to the bottom was exhilarating, even a bit scary. It was so easy to just pull of my feet and let gravity speed me down that hill.

Of course, once the ride was over I found that it was a bit of a drag having to walk all the way back up the hill to the starting point. While the ride itself was awesome, it didn't last very long. The walk back up the hill felt like an eternity. But I knew that if I wanted to enjoy another ride, I needed to put in the work to make it happen.

Sometimes life feels much more like work than anything else. And let's face it, money is always an issue. You work really hard for what often seems like just a short-term benefit. There is great excitement to get that paycheck, yet when it's gone a few days later because you've had bills to pay and groceries to buy and debts to settle, the thrill is pretty much over. 

What do we do when we face those lean times, when what's coming in just isn't enough to balance out what we know needs to go out? Perhaps you've already been through financial courses and have a budget to keep you on target, yet life inevitably decides to throw a wrench in your plans and you find yourself wondering how you will pay next month's mortgage or car payment or how you will feed and clothe the kids. How will you make it?

You've got options. You can worry and scheme and plan and fret or you can trust God. Sounds like an incredibly Sunday school-ish type of plan, doesn't it. Yet this is exactly the prescription for our financial worries that Jesus Himself has given to us:

"This is why I tell you: Don't worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Isn't life more than clothing?... So don't worry, saying, "What will we eat?" or "What will we drink?" or "What will we wear?"... But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you." (Matthew 6:25, 31, 33)

Jesus tells us, "Don't worry!" Why? Because worry accomplishes absolutely nothing. Instead, seek God with all your heart. Trust Him first, not as a last resort. Yes, work hard and do your best, but come to the understanding that it's not all about you nor is it up to you. Your provision is God's deal and He's pretty stinkin' good at it.

It's so easy to forget this when we are coasting downhill and life is good and the bank account is healthy. Yet we know that life usually tilts in the direction of the uphill walk, the grind that can wear you out and draw you into despair. In the good times and the tough, God is your provider. He isn't hands on only when you need Him. He's all the time. So seek after God - first and in all things - because His promises are always true. "And all these things - your basic needs - will be provided for you."

Things in our world are as bad as they've ever been, right?

Like most of you, I was shocked, saddened, and ticked off when I heard the news of the bombing that occurred near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. The first thoughts that came to my mind were, "What in the world is going on here? What are people thinking?"

I have the same kind of reactions when I read and hear about high school girls who get raped at parties after they have passed out from drinking too much alcohol. It makes me even more sick to learn that guys are taking their pictures and passing them around social networks as if these girls are the punchline in a funny joke. Then when I hear that some of these girls have taken their own lives after learning that what has been reserved as intimate has been splashed all over teenagers phones, I immediately want to hold my three daughters a little closer.

When I saw the news story about the abortion doctor who performed numerous illegal abortions and even went to the extreme of killing some of these babies outside of the mother's womb, I wanted to see justice served. Yes, I know that abortion is legal in our country, but this was cold-blooded murder, not a government-sanctioned medical procedure. This man must pay.

On and on the list goes of atrocities that we see committed all around us. It's not uncommon that, when tragedies seem to be stacked one upon another, I hear the comment, "It's the signs of the times." This refers to the belief that surely Jesus is going to return soon because things just can't get much worse. Right? I mean, our world is as bad as it's ever been.

Right?

Let me say that things today are bad. Let me say emphatically that that things are bad because sin is bad. And as long as there is sin, there will be horrific acts committed by sinful people. How long has sin been around? Since the first man and woman decided that their way was better than God's way, that's how long. And since that first sin was committed, there has been a snowball affect that has covered every corner of the globe.

So have things gotten worse? Consider some of these examples from ages past:

• Child sacrifice was not uncommon in ancient cultures. Whether the children were offered to a false deity or to appease the "anger" of a volcano, child sacrifice was not only an accepted practice in some cultures but was also perfectly legal. (see Leviticus 18:21)
• In societies such as ancient Egypt, unwanted newborn babies were left on the front porch to die. That's right, if you didn't want your child you simply set it out with the trash. Ironically, Christians are credited as the first group of people to rescue children is such situations, plucking them from doorsteps and raising them as their own, thus setting the precedent for adoption.
• In the New Testament, King Herod Antipas, ruler of Galilee, divorced his first wife in order to marry his brother's ex-wife Herodias. Herodias had a daughter who was able to seduce Herod into giving her whatever she asked. And what was her request? She wanted Herod to decapitate John the Baptist (a man whom Herodias hated) and bring it to her on a silver platter so that she in turn could hand over the bloody head to her mother.(Mark 6:14-29)
• Then there was the whole idea in Rome about feeding people to lions and other wild animals and watching gladiators fight to the death in front of cheering crowds.

I could go on but you get the idea. These events were going on hundreds and hundreds of years ago and they involved activities that even the most corrupt governments of today would declare illegal. Because we didn't have all of the cable news networks and internet capabilities, these events were recorded in writing and not splashed across the world at microsecond intervals. Yet it still goes to show that things have always been pretty bad and that's because people have always been sinful.

In the midst of all of tragedies, catastrophic events, and human failings, there is one other thing that has never changed: God. Many wonder when God will stop all the evil in the world, and we simply have no answer as to what His timetable will be. But we do know how God has planned to stop evil and it's a plan that has already begun since the beginning of time - Jesus. God has chosen to redeem this fallen and broken world through Jesus and His desire to redeem sinful man has not changed.

Jesus has always been the solution to mans' sin problems No, things probably aren't going to change much for the better in our world, but Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He didn't come to merely fix us - He came to redeem us. As bad as the world can be, there is no comparison to just how good our God is through Jesus Christ.

You've Been Lied to Part 2 - God Needs You to Challenge Him

It wasn't all that long ago that I was a pretty healthy and durable young buck. Okay, it was actually more than just a little while ago, but there was a time when I thought I could take on - and defeat - anything the world threw my way. Since I was little on the shorter side (the masculine word for petite) I tried very hard to compensate for my lack of size. I did not possess an inferiority complex, I just wanted to make sure that no one underestimated me.

Whenever I think about times in the past when I "proved" to others just how capable I was, one incident always stands out in my mind. My freshmen your in high school I had the dubious distinction of being the youngest of three boys at the same school. As a result, I was always the little brother, my identity suddenly expunged from being an original. To top it off, I was born with a heart defect that caused an across the board reaction in my doctors when it came to sports - "No way!" they said. So, not only was I the little brother but I also couldn't compete in the athletic arena with all of my friends.

Do you think I sat around and did nothing? Psshhh! I refused to remain inactive, choosing instead to be a backyard pentathlete (football, basketball, baseball, soccer, tag, etc.) and I lifted those amazingly cool plastic-coated concrete weights in the garage. The doctors may have limited my formal participation in sports but as far as I was concerned everything else was fair game. Since both of my brothers played soccer on the high school team, I volunteered to be the soccer manager so that I could be close to the action (manager = glorified ball boy). I was there at every practice and sat on or near the bench for every game. I thought I was so cool!

One day during a home game I was hanging out around the bench with a bunch of other kids from the high school. Since my oldest brother was a senior, I had gotten to know a lot of his friends and they treated me better than most freshmen. I'm not sure what precipitated it but one of the senior guys - who also happened to play football and weigh in excess of 200 pounds - decided to playfully wrestle with me. Before he knew what happened, I had lifted him off of his feet and over my shoulder. There I was, all 125 pounds of puny freshmen hoisting a high school jock on my back. Go ahead and challenge me if you want to see what I can do!

I got over my "me vs. the world" complex fairly quickly, realizing that I didn't need to challenge people just to prove a point. The same can be said of God. God is God. He doesn't need to be anything or anyone other than who He is. He has nothing to prove to us. But that's not what the world would have us believe.

Let's go back to Jesus again. There He is, sweating, hungry, and thirsty in the desert. Satan has failed to convince Him - and us - that we don't really need God so now he goes into the second wave of his attack. He is trying to convince Jesus and us that we need to challenge God in order for Him to follow through for us.

Then the Devil took Him to the holy city, had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, and he said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, throw yourself down. For it is written: He will give His angels orders concerning you, and they will support you with their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. Jesus told him, "It is also written: Do not test the Lord your God." (Matthew 4:5-7)

When it comes to our enemy Satan, originality isn't his strong point yet he sticks with what he knows will work. He starts with that same old line he used earlier: If You are the Son of God... Satan's strategy is always the same - he lives to drive a wedge between us and God, sowing the seeds of doubt, discouragement, and discontentment along the way.

This time with Jesus, Satan used a slightly different ploy in his quest. Instead of declaring that Jesus didn't need God, Satan admitted that He did. And he told Jesus that He needed God so badly that, unless He challenged God to step up to the plate and help Him, then God would not show up at all. God will be there, but only if we encourage Him along.

We've all been there. "God, if you will just do ___________ for me, then I promise I'll __________." We challenge God to deliver, believing that if we don't then He will be left out in the dark and we'll be on our own. In these circumstances we understand that we need God, but the temptation is to convince Him that He actually needs to show up, as if He's some absentee father whose ex-wife calls him at the last minute to remind him of their son's birthday.

This is just foolish.

Jesus' answer to Satan reveals just how foolish it is to challenge God in this way. Satan sure looked impressive throwing out Scripture promises, but as the author of those very Scriptures Jesus knew better than to twist the truth. God's word promises His hand upon us and his shield around us. If God has declared it then we don't need to test Him with what He has already promised to be true. Do not test the Lord your God.

We don't need to proposition God with His own promises. Who in the world do we think we are?

The world will tempt you to challenge God when things don't seem to be going your way. "Where is your God now? How could He let something like this happen?" These questions are asked as if God is lost somewhere in another time continuum, oblivious to the current circumstances in our world. Yet nothing could be farther from the truth.

We don't need to test God. He doesn't need us to rate Him He doesn't need our approval. His promises are true for both now and into eternity. God isn't looking for us to challenge Him. Rather, His desire is that we trust and obey Him alone, for He alone is worthy of our all.


 

You've Been Lied To Part 1 - You Can Do it All on Your Own

By the time the hour and a half was up, I was feeling a little beat up to say the least. My wife and I had just completed our first session of Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University and I can honestly say that I was humbled to the core. Realizing how under-prepared we were for the future felt like a punch to the solar plexus, but at the same time the feeling of resolve we left with over how our future could be was exhilarating.

I have spent a good portion of my life trying to be in control of my circumstances and future. Sure, there were times when I found myself in a bind or two, but for the most part I figured I had things covered. I still trusted God to provide, but of course if I'm honest those times were situational at best. When I couldn't get it done, off to my prayer closet I would go. Boy, have I had things backwards!

One of the great lies that this world will throw at you is that you can provide everything for yourself. With a little grit, spit, and stick-to-itiveness, you can accomplish anything. That is the American dream, right? The Bible is full of admonitions for us to work hard, deal with others with integrity, and to avoid laziness. But even though we read those words and agree that they are true, there is still much inside of man that believes that we don't need God. No, we don't come out and say it like that and we would bristle if accused of harboring those thoughts, but by our actions and choices we unwittingly announce that this is what we believe. You can do it all on our own.

At the beginning of Jesus' public ministry, he found Himself in the Judean wilderness where He was fasting for 40 days and 40 nights (Matthew 4:1-4). Now, before you try to process that, understand that as God in the flesh this would only be possible for Jesus or for those whom God gave special ability. Yet as a man, Jesus was undoubtedly hungry and thirsty. He had physical needs, just like you and I do. Put yourself in Jesus' sandals and the first thing you might have done was look for the nearest Chick-Fil-A to go and chow down in.

It was at this time when Jesus would have been at His weakest that Satan approached Him with a proposition. Isn't that how the enemy Satan does his most effective work, when we are at our weakest? Seeing Jesus in that state, Satan tosses Him a temptation that sounds an awful lot like a dare:

If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread. (Matthew 4:3)

In other words, "Jesus, I know you're hungry, so why not pull out your God card and make Yourself something to eat. I mean, You are God's Son, right?" Understand that at this point being hungry and needing to eat to satisfy that hunger would not have been wrong under most circumstances. We need to eat or we will die. But that wasn't the challenge issued by Satan to Jesus. He didn't care about Jesus physical strength or His well-being. No, in tempting Jesus to turn a stone into a piece of bread - which He most certainly could have done without effort - Satan was serving up a big ol' fat lie to Jesus: You don't need God to provide for your needs. You can do it all on your own.

The biggest, nastiest word that Satan used in his strategy to tempt Jesus and in turn what he uses to tempt us is the word if. The enemy wants to cast doubt on what our God can do. You say, "My God will provide." Satan asks in response, "Really?" After all, we seem almost hard wired to want instant gratification - how many of you have declared "I'm starving!" while waiting for supper to be ready, knowing that only a few hours ago you had lunch and even after that a snack? Because of our impatience we want things done on our time table, not God's. As a result, we begin to believe the lie that we can do it all on our own. 

It's not so much that we don't believe that God can and will provide. It's just that we are too prideful to wait on Him. 

But Jesus exposed the father of lies for who he was and is. With His belly grumbling and his blood sugar probably at an all-time low, Jesus stood up tall, looked Satan straight in the eye without blinking, and declared, 

It is written: Man must not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. (Matthew 4:4)

By declaring these words of Scripture, Jesus was countering Satan's lie with the truth of God. Yes, we need food to live, but oh how we need God so much more. And our God has promised to provide for our needs if we will just wait on Him.

But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you. (Matthew 6:33)

The enemy does not have your best interests in mind. Satan would rather see you wallow in the despair of self-sufficiency than to ever see you trust God with even the smallest of things. That's why he lies to you, trying to coax you away from trusting in the only sure thing in the universe. Don't believe the lie! You can and should work hard to provide for your needs and the needs of your family, but you cannot out-give or out-provide God.

Waiting for...something

Have you ever been to a restaurant that was super busy and your server never could quite refill your tea fast enough or get your food out soon enough? First world problems, right? For some people, minor inconveniences like these drive them absolutely crazy, to the point that they will stiff their server on the tip or even chew them out for the poor service. You've seen the guy, the one who keeps looking around for his server, visibly fuming because his food isn't ready, unable to keep his ridiculous comments to himself. Maybe that's you.

Having been a waiter before I can totally sympathize with servers. What happens in the kitchen is beyond their control, yet they are the "face" of the restaurant and so they become the proverbial whipping post when service is poor. It is my strongest belief that everyone, before they finish high school or college, should have to wait tables at least once just to gain a little bit of perspective.

We could all probably benefit from lessons in waiting.

Think about Noah. In the Old Testament book of Genesis chapters 6-9 we find his story. Basically, by the time Noah came on the scene the whole world had already gone to pot and God was pretty much fed up with everybody. And you think things are bad now! God decided to wipe the slate clean and send a deluge of water that would scour the earth and take with it every living creature. All but Noah, his wife, his sons, and their wives that is. Noah was righteous in God's sight - he walked with God (Genesis 6:9) - so God's plan included repopulating the earth with Noah's family after the flood, giving everything and everyone a fresh start.

God told Noah to build an ark that was huge in its dimensions - 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, 45 and feet high. I'm not sure how old Noah was when he started this project but he had just turned the tender age of 600 when he finished. Yes, 600 years old. When the rain started, Noah gathered his family and the animals into the ark and he waited. The rain only lasted 40 days and 40 nights but Noah was holed up in that boat for far longer. In fact, he didn't step out until he was 601 years old, 1 year and 10 days later.

I couldn't imagine what it must have been like to be boxed in with elephants, giraffes, beavers, and birds for over a year while a giant storm raged all around me. I'm sure the smell was quite pleasant. But Noah waited on God to finish His work and to calm the storm. Only then did he step out of the ark into a world transformed by God. If he had stepped out any earlier, he would have sunk in the waves.

Waiting is hard. Nearly impossible for my six-year old son. Yet it is during the times when we are forced to wait that God is doing His most critical work in us. If you've been too impatient to let paint dry or bread to rise fully, then you know the results never turn out well. The same is true when we fail to wait on the Lord.

What God accomplishes in me when I wait on Him may not be the same as what He completes in you, but finish the job He will (sorry, that really sounded like Yoda!). If you are in the middle of stuff right now and are itching to take the bull by the horns and fix it yourself, can I encourage you to pipe down for a minute and trust God that He is working in the midst of the waiting. His plan will become clearer soon enough but only if you patiently trust Him. Let me finish with this great promise from God found in Isaiah 40:31:

But those who wait upon the lord will renew their strength.