Tag Archives: Growth

Who Do You Follow?

December 7, 2008

Follow JesusI’m a big fan of blogs and social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Through them, I’ve been able to expand my “PLN” (Personal Learning Network) and connect with interesting people around the country and the world who share my profession and interests. The conversations I’m having enrich my life and stretch my thinking on a fascinating and eclectic variety of topics.

As I get to know new people through the Internet, most of whom I’ve never met in person, I’m realizing that just as with face to face relationships, there are levels to the connections I have with people, and there are parallels to my relationship with Christ.

  1. I subscribe to their blogs. These are people in my network who I know have ideas that reflect my own point of view, or who can challenge my perspective in ways that grow me. They have no idea who I am, and on a given day I may read what they write or ignore it, depending on time and my mood.
  2. I comment on their blogs. These people have ideas that resonate with me to the point that I want to respond. They are now aware of me, but they may or may not respond back, and from their point of view I’m likely just one of a crowd of people who make up their audience.
  3. I follow them on Twitter. I’m intrigued enough by these people that I want to know more of the experiences, conversations, and raw thinking that eventually lead to the more thoughtful and polished blog posts. These glimpses into daily life give an interesting perspective, too, and help me to see more of the context around their blogs.
  4. I engage them in professional conversation. Through Twitter and blog comments, I pursue a two-way conversation about topics of mutual interest. We respond to each other and generate discussion that extends and expands over time.
  5. I engage in personal discussion. These are people who I have let into a more exclusive corner of my world, and who have invited me into theirs. We know and care about the little details, not just the big ones.
  6. We seek each other out. These are the people who are always on my radar. They are the ones whose Tweets I specifically look for, whose blog posts I make a point to read daily, and with whom I won’t hesitate to share when something interesting happens to me. These are the people I will go out of  my way to help and to celebrate with.

There are people who subscribe to Jesus’s blog—they attend church, maybe even read the Bible—but that doesn’t mean they know him, and there is certainly no relationship to speak of. Then there are those who comment on that blog: they shoot up the occasional prayer, hoping that the comment will make it through the spam filter and wondering if the blogger even reads all the comments that come in.

Of course, there are plenty of Christ followers. In Twitter, you can follow someone simply by clicking on the Follow button. Click, done: they’re in your list, and now all of their tweets come into your personal collection. Following Jesus really is that easy. Ask, done.

The problem is, too many people are satisfied to stay there. It’s not what God wants. The whole point of discipleship is to take us deeper, to bring us to the point where we converse and eventually seek each other out. If I’m honest with myself about my own relationship with God, it’s probably closer to the Follow level than it is to that deepest level.

But when I consider this long enough, I come to an amazing realization. I didn’t suddenly come to God’s attention by clicking that Follow button. Christ was on my list of followers long before I was on his—in fact, long before anyone else was even on my list. God has followed me from the day he created me, and he has patiently sought me out. It’s not up to me to somehow say something relevant or witty enough to get his attention. I already have it. I just have to listen and engage in the conversation with him, open my whole life up, and seek him out, to develop the depth that he desires.

@jesus Welcome to my PLN. Thanks for following me! Sorry it took me so long to return the favor. I guess we have some catching up to do...

Also tagged , , – No Comments

Stepping Into Grace

November 11, 2008

The more I learn about God, the more I realize that it is our active participation that keeps His plan moving. We are the gears and wheels and engine of the vehicle He designed. As long as we continue to function the way the Engineer intended, the vehicle works perfectly. And like a car that needs maintenance, when some of the parts aren’t working right, the car can still function, it just may not be quite as efficient.

This morning during my devotions, I came across this verse in Romans:

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

Romans 5:1-2 (NIV)

As often happens, I’ve known this verse for a long time, but today I specifically noticed the end of verse 1. Grace is not something that is handed to us. It is freely given, but we have to do something to receive it. Faith unlocks the door, Christ opens it, but we have to step into it. This doesn’t mean we have to earn grace–that’s impossible. It just means that unless we claim the gift, it will stand empty and out of our reach.

Let me never forget that I cannot spend my life just praying and hoping and waiting for God to change me. He will, but it’s going to take work on my part to make it possible. It’s my obedience and the work that I do that activates the promises and starts them working in me.

Also tagged , – No Comments

Effort Matters

October 9, 2008

When we’re growing up as a young Christ-follower, one of the things that we learn is to begin building spiritual disciplines into our lives. It’s where the word disciple comes from. Scripture includes many of these disciplines, and I’ve read more books and articles and heard more sermons on it than I can count.

So here I am adding once again to the volume. Why do people need to keep hearing it over and over, though? Because it takes work, and we want things to be easy.

The problem is that our lives have been designed so that it takes effort to get results. Certainly God gives us gifts, but he expects us to use them. Even secular writers recognize the need for effort in order to accomplish something. Seth Godin, a popular business writer, talked about this recently. He advocates deleting two hours of “spare time” each day which you currently devote to unproductive activities, and instead spending them doing things like exercise, learning new things, and writing thank you notes. He suggests spending one day a week just being with people you love, and for one year spending money only on things you absolutely need.

He is of course talking about discipline. The discipline to focus relentlessly, to use his word, on things that matter, things that will make a difference and move us towards success.

The Christ-follower must do the same thing, but look at it through the lens of God’s plan and purpose for us. Every choice we make, everything we decide to do with our gifts (among which are our time and resources), should somehow further God’s kingdom. We need to discipline ourselves, at least for a while, to assiduously reflect on everything we do. If it doesn’t further God’s kingdom in some way, change it or eliminate it. This doesn’t mean there’s no down time. If we are renewing and refreshing ourselves, then it’s productive time. Recreation can and should be re-creation. But we have to be absolutely transparent with ourselves about whether our activities are productive or if we’re justifying something worthless in the name of “relaxation”.

There are so many things that I wish I had more time to do. The only way I can make them happen is to eliminate the waste in my day and start doing them. Easier said than done, of course, or it would already be happening. But that’s what discipline is about. Plan the week, stick to the plan, and reflect on how to make the plan better for next week. And when I fail, don’t quit, but learn from it and keep trying. And when I fail again, get back up and learn some more. And when I fail the third time, find the new lesson in the failure. And again, and again.

Sherman Finesilver once said, “Keep these concepts in mind: You’ve failed many times, although you
don’t remember. You fell down the first time you tried to walk. You almost drowned the first time you tried to swim…. R. H. Macy failed 7 times before his store in New York caught on. Babe Ruth struck out 1,330 times. Don’t worry about failure. My suggestion to each of you: Worry about the chances you miss when you don’t even try.” I know I will fall if I try. It’s a guarantee. My prayer is simply this: that at the end of my life I will have arisen one time more than I fell.

Also tagged , , – 1 Comment

Comforted, But Not Comfortable

July 10, 2008

I’m very comfortable at my church. When I walk in to the building, into the sanctuary, it is a very welcoming, relaxed, environment. Everyone is friendly, the pastors are all approachable and real, the services and the worship are energizing and familiar. I’m very comfortable.

And that’s a bad thing. I realized this recently when our youth pastor was speaking on a Sunday morning. He speaks regularly, so it wasn’t something new for me. I enjoy his preaching. But in the middle of his message, he asked us to turn to someone sitting near us and say something to them. I don’t recall now exactly what it was, but I remember the distinct feeling of discomfort I felt because there happened to be no one near me that I knew. “I’m not doing that,” I thought. “I’m not here to discuss things with strangers, I’m here to worship God and hear the message and learn something new. This is really uncomfortable.”

At which point it occurred to me that perhaps that’s exactly what God wanted.

Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying church should be uncomfortable. I like that it’s friendly, inviting, and I can feel free to be myself there. I don’t have to put on my “Sunday” face when I walk in.

But I realized that once I’m comfortable, I tend to stay where I am. I don’t grow. I don’t live. And God can’t work in me or through me any more.

I don’t have to look back on my life to see times when being comfortable caused me problems; I just have to look back on the last year. Over and over again, God has made me uncomfortable because where I was comfortable was where he didn’t want me to be. It was a place where I was at best complacent and at worst sinful. And none of them were places where I was getting closer to Him, glorifying Him, and making a difference for His kingdom.

I realized, sitting there in that uncomfortable moment, that when God asks me to do something uncomfortable, it means that I have settled into a rut and need to get up off my behind and get moving again.

I have heard that death by hypothermia is ultimately a quiet and peaceful way to go. At first, of course, you shiver uncontrollably and there is pain as your extremities freeze. But eventually, as your core temperature drops, the shivering ceases, your mind quiets, and your body settles into a comfortable numbness. Eventually you lose consciousness and die.

The Pink Floyd song “Comfortably Numb,” although certainly not written with the spiritual parallel in mind, describes well what I think happens to us when we stop letting God push us out of our comfort zone:

There is no pain, you are receding.
A distant ship’s smoke on the horizon.
You are only coming through in waves.
Your lips move but I can’t hear what you’re sayin’.
When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse,
Out of the corner of my eye.
I turned to look but it was gone.
I cannot put my finger on it now.
The child is grown, the dream is gone.
I have become comfortably numb.

When we get too comfortable, our spiritual temperature drops, we stop moving, and we settle into that same comfortable numbness. God’s lips move, but we can’t hear what He’s saying. Whatever fire we had for God when we were spiritually young now seems like a fading dream—a fleeting glimpse out of the corner of our eyes.

God does want to be our comforter:

Lord, you know the hopes of the helpless. Surely you will hear their cries and comfort them. (Psalms 10:17, NLT)

Consider this, however:

God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. (2 Cor 1:3-4, NLT)

God should be the source of our comfort. But if we’re already comfortable, how can He be our comforter? Notice why we have troubles and why we need God’s comfort: it is so that we can turn around and pour the comfort into other people. If I’m sitting comfortably in that place where I don’t have to work or grow or change or even interact with anyone else, how will I possibly be able to comfort someone who is hurting?

My prayer every day needs to be, “God, let me not get too comfortable in my walk with you. Let me not ever get to the place where I don’t learn anything new from you. And if I do, make me uncomfortable so that I get up and start moving again.”

Also tagged – No Comments

How Not To Change

June 3, 2008

HidingWhy is it that during the most challenging moments of my life I put God on hold? I’m supposed to turn to Him, run to Him, jump into his arms and let Him guide me through it. I’m supposed to lean harder and let Him help me carry the burden.

But I always press pause. And I always end up digging myself a deeper hole.

read more »

Also tagged , , – No Comments
« Older posts
Newer posts »