Warning: If you're not a Jesus follower, reading this may cause confusion, a thirst for understanding or an outright curiosity. These side affects can be serious and may vary based on your personal experience and knowledge of the truth. If you suffer from any of the above side affects, you should consult a true Jesus follower after reading - one who knows they're still imperfect and humbled by grace for further advice. Reader discretion is advised.
The Fog
In the busy, hazy confusion of day to day events, ranging from personal to familial and then world wide, it's easy for one to get caught up in a cycle of concerns and activities that make certain things seem more remote or possibly even lost in the fog. It seems endlessly true that some things are more important than others ... but then none are more important than some.
Human beings are a busy lot - constantly acting and reacting to a huge variety of things in an endless number of different ways on a daily basis. Even when they're left alone they find things standing at the ready to consume their time, their thoughts and even their hearts if given the opportunity. The unsettled state of things in the world currently provides more than enough fodder for deep concern. So it's not too hard to understand how some of us can easily get distracted or even find our selves disconnected, if only temporarily, from other things that we truly do believe. It would seem that this would be even more likely if that "thing" weren't constantly large in our face, or it were perhaps even ... invisible.
Speaking from personal experience as a husband, a father and grandfather with a number of years to look back on, there have been occasions when I have wrestled with this issue myself. I can point to a particular time when I found myself in that place of distraction and eventually disconnection. I had somehow managed to allow myself to get to a place over time where I felt that life itself had sucked the life out of me. Jobs, goals, illnesses, finances, relationships, broken dreams, parenting, maintenance, repairs, etc., etc. overwhelmed anything else in my life to a point where I realized that I had become not much more than a flesh and blood machine. I couldn't spare the time to invest in being proactive because I was too busy reacting to an endless flood of new challenges and events. I can also say with complete confidence that it happened because I had allowed my priorities to get mixed up and out of order. I discovered that it's very easy to do when you either don't know, or lose sight of why you exist ...
Pure And Simple
As a Jesus follower I've accepted for decades that our God exists. That hasn't been a problem for me. That pathway of knowledge is something that was gracefully started by my dear mom and dad when I was young and something that I continued to search out. It became a firm belief that led to a relationship and a belief that our Lord Himself has confirmed without question in my life. Belief and the experience of close relationship with Him became a foundation of sure and certain knowledge. But a long missing element of the knowledge of His existence, one that nagged at me and gave me trouble could be stated in a simple question: why do I exist?
Without understanding the answer to that question, it was easy for me to put an invisible God conveniently on an invisible dusty mental shelf somewhere where I could easily find Him when I needed Him ... and of course, need Him I did (and always will as we all do). Although, I have known Him for a long time and have experienced His interaction frequently, the answer to the question of how I fit into the picture - my purpose, is one that sank in later rather than sooner in my life. I know it now and it's not nearly as complicated as I was sure that it had to be. Because my flesh was convinced that my purpose had to be something complicated and must be more "important" I kept looking beyond the pure and simple truth in search of that "special mission". But the truth is that our special mission, our purpose couldn't possibly be one of any greater importance. It's found more than once in scripture, but one of my favorite places is in Revelation 4:11
"You are worthy, O Lord our God, to receive glory, honor and power. For you created everything, and it is for your pleasure that they exist and were created." (NLT)
Pure and simple, straight up, clear and without room for conjecture. In this one verse we find our top ranking and most basic purpose - our special mission. When it's taken seriously as it should be, it becomes life changing. But when it's ignored or forgotten, trouble may not be far away. It's counter to much of the world's culture and it puts this life in a very different perspective than one that seeks self serving independence. It frames our time on earth in a completely different context and readjusts our focus when we seek to live it out. Further, when you combine that knowledge of purpose with what we can know of our Lord's loving and nurturing character, you begin to realize that His intended goal ... is a relationship! With each of us!
I believe that our Creator knew when He created each of us exactly what we would need to experience in life to form our individual character to produce a beautifully unique heart that He longs to hold close for eternity and one that He can joyfully savor in His kingdom. I think that this may answer in some part why we are allowed to go through some of the things that we may not be particularly excited about in life. I know that for my own part, I've experienced many challenges that I would never have asked to go through. But in each one, I've seen a benefit when I make an effort to look back at them with His perspective. You have to remember always that He sees us as the eternal spirits that He created us to be, not as one life to live human flesh we are so often invited to satisfy. So His plans for us are also eternal and are not limited to this short span of our life in the flesh. His teaching, training and correction are toward producing an eternal mature person fit for an enduring relationship with Him in the unending life that was His intention for us from the beginning. Consequently, I personally discovered that the good and doting Father will sometimes intervene in very uncomfortable ways to protect and correct the children He loves so dearly when they harbor a wrong and possibly damning perspective - to avoid losing them ...
Grace Upon Grace
I've had innumerable experiences with my Lord in this life. His comforting presence and watchful guidance over my life has been a continual blessing even in the most traumatic of times. One of those many experiences in particular that left an indelible mark on my heart is a brand that I hope never cools and never fades. It's one that I intend to share here as an example. I've mentioned this story elsewhere, but I mention it again because I know that we all at least momentarily live in a world heavily infected with clouded reasoning and foggy deception and it can serve as a worthy warning. It was in this particular interaction, my Lord's designed purpose to reset and establish my greatest priorities once and for all - to get my head and my heart out of the fog and out of a misguided focus. At the time it would have been so easy for me to see it as some kind of crushing punishment. But in reality, it was His loving effort of extreme grace to save me...
Proverbs 3:12 "For the Lord corrects those whom He loves, just as a father corrects a child in whom he delights."
My wife and I have together, with the Lord's obvious and gracious participation, raised a fairly large family with seven children. In the process, I found that in order to make any progress toward future goals beyond just meeting immediate needs, I had to try to work harder at it than some and to learn as much as possible. After years of struggling and continually advancing in knowledge and skill in my chosen work, I started my own business which I funded by cashing in my retirement account. For years I had been very successful managing the same kinds of duties this venture would require in positions with other companies, so it made sense that I should have success in my own. As is common, things started out a little slow, but began to pick up more quickly as people became more familiar with me, my ethic and with the quality of my work.
It was only a period of months before I landed a project of very significant value and one that we completed very much to the satisfaction of the clients over a period of ten months. The Lord was showing us much grace and we were well on our way to achieving the level of success that I had dreamed of and knew that we had the ability to reach. I determined to make this project a showcase of years of accumulated knowledge and skill. I realized that after having spent quite a bit of money to develop the plans that they held, the owners of the project were disappointed with them. Knowing the considerable amount of money that they were about to spend to build something they weren't really excited about, I took it upon myself to begin redesigning the project as close as their budget would allow to their dreams. It was a tremendous amount of work which also required that I recalculate the costs according to all of the changes. Knowing that it was my intention to use this project as a glowing example of my ability and a springboard into other similar work, I worked the numbers hard and cut the profit of the job well down in order to make it something extraordinary. In the end, the clients were ecstatic and the project drew a fair amount of attention.
But while it was in progress, the project was all consuming. When I wasn't on the job, I was shuffling its paperwork after hours and simultaneously trying to keep up with things at home. With little time to pay any attention to the rest of the world, I was pretty much oblivious to the fact that the national economy was falling into a recession deeper than anything I had seen in my lifetime. I heard rumors, little bits and pieces of bad news, but assumed it was the normal cyclic tremors experienced periodically in the construction world of the northwest USA. I was confident we would be alright given my work ethic, skill level and management expertise. I was not prepared for what I was about to discover to say the least.
We had begun increasing our household to a much more comfortable level than the close-to-the-bone budget level we had maintained for years. We could now afford to drive the new cars and have the kinds of things that we could only watch others enjoy for years. What time we did have to spend in any kind of leisure was not spent prudently following the wisdom of the book of Proverbs, studying scripture or thanking the Lord for His tremendous blessings. It was spent self indulgently and focused elsewhere. It was a euphoric new high we were experiencing and one that my wife and I had worked so many very hard years to get to ... but it didn't last.
Nearing the successful end of this large project I began resourcing to find new job leads only to find that there were none. I called all of my contacts only to find that they were all equally alarmed. Over the next year I was able to secure some work, but it was only when I was willing to do the work for sums well below the actual value. In an effort to keep my crew together and the company alive until things picked up again, I reinvested anything and everything I could back into the company. Finally, when we were on the brink of total financial collapse, I managed to land the job that would set everything back upright. By now of course, I had still only partially acknowledged the error of my ways and was so relieved that the Lord had given me an opportunity to recover. My wife and I were in shear panic mode. But, I was still thinking about how to save the "things" we had managed to acquire and was congratulating "myself" silently for being so resourceful in keeping the company afloat and in landing this new project. I'm hoping that you're seeing where this is going and why ...
I was about three weeks into the new project and it was going well. I had managed to keep my core crew and added a few new hands as well. I had invested what meager borrowed resources I could scrounge together to start this job, but I was now beginning to think about how to organize our recovery and keep as much of our household and business gains intact as possible. We had starved everything we could starve budget wise in a painful effort to reach this next opportunity and everything was now hanging by a thread. But it looked like it was going to pay off much to the relief of our panicked minds. During the first couple of weeks the project was expanded considerably and I was beginning to settle in for the ride - still preoccupied by things other than "my purpose". But then, three weeks in ... it all collapsed.
The Lord was once again showing me grace. This project was very large. I had taken it on as a subcontractor under a pair of architect/developers that I had worked with several times before. They were friends, but also very much sticklers for detail which I didn't mind because I wasn't one to take short cuts. They were also very big sticklers when it came to contractual issues. I didn't mind this either as it tended to protect all parties when properly negotiated and my negotiating skills were very sharp - something I was proud of and had proven time and time again.
I was standing next to the pickup of one of the architects on that warm summer morning discussing the details of some new work that was being added to the project when I began to feel strange. I tried to steady myself as I began to feel a little weak, but within seconds the entire left side of my body went completely numb and I crumpled into a heap in the dust next to the man I had been speaking to. Prior to this I had had no major health issues. I was 48 years old and had been very strong and in very good health, so there was no warning or reason to expect anything that was happening. As I lay there completely unable to process what was happening to me, I heard my friend who I knew to be a Christian begin to pray over me as he waited for the 911 operator to pick up ...
I was having not one, but three simultaneous strokes caused by a heart defect that I had worked very hard all of my life with and that I was totally unaware of. Later as I lay on the gurney in the cold emergency room, my mind was racing with all of the "what ifs" and "whys?". My head felt like a giant was banging two boulders together with my head in between them and all of the muscles on the left side of my body were totally useless. I couldn't even communicate in any form without extreme effort and then only minimally. My biggest concern? -Why now? Just when I'm able to start pulling it all back together after so much worry and so much strain. Why now?
I think it was about the third day in the hospital when my architect friend came to see me. The Lord was once again showing me grace and I was beginning to regain much of the movement on my left side and the giant's boulders had shrunken to much smaller rocks. I was glad to see him and I thanked him for helping me and for his prayers. I was just about to tell him not to worry that I'd find a way to make sure the work was done according to our agreement without fail when he stopped me. I could tell that something was weighing heavy on him and he was searching hard for the right words.
I had a contract with them and one that I had every intention of honoring no matter what. I couldn't imagine what was troubling him so much. Then he spilled it - I had a contract with them, but they had never signed a contract with the property owner. Their agreement was based on a handshake and the owner had changed his mind and decided to work with someone else to save money. Another contractor, as desperate as we were, had offered to do the job for less money and had taken over the project. It was all gone. My physical strength and endurance now turned to weakness, my years of business prowess, construction skill and expertise had failed despite all of my extreme effort ... and through this, once again ... the Lord was showing me grace.
The Joy Of A Divine Spanking
That was all several years ago now, but I would still to this day emphatically state that I didn't deserve what happened. In my defense, I can truly say that in light of the sovereign and supreme reality of the God that supersedes worldly society and the truth of my purpose ... I deserved worse.
My wife and I lost everything over the next months. Everything we had worked so hard for - the house we lived in for over 25 years, the cars, the motor home, the business ... everything. And as odd and contrary to conventional worldly society as it may seem ... it was a matter of divine and compassionate grace. I'm sure that someone is probably very confused about now. But if that's true, there's a perspective that might help bring my comments into focus.
Let's talk about that perspective here for a moment. How much does any human being dare to steal what rightly belongs to a God who controls not only the forces of nature with a whisper, but reigns sovereign over everything within the boundaries of this universe that He created? Further, what human in their right mind, would at the same time knowingly ignore that same awesomely powerful God - setting Him in rank below the pursuit of perishing human junk and interests? What fool would treat this God who holds the power of life and death in His hand in such an insolent and shamefully disrespectful way?
The Answer ... (wait ... for ... it): me.
There were so many things wrong with the picture of the man that I was in that preceding moment of time in my life. The real increasingly shameful truth is that in the back of my mind, somewhere on that dusty invisible shelf where I put my God, was also the knowledge that testifies to the fact that I knew better.
Because I had in the flesh so tenaciously endured so many hardships and had successfully managed so many things in life, I became proud of my accomplishments. I took pride in physical strength, agility, tenacity, knowledge, skill and many other abilities. I began to think of myself more highly than I should have. I had become envious of things that other people had that we weren't able to afford for so long. Obviously choices we had made played into our situation and I do realize that the Lord has blessed us so very richly in the family that He's allowed us to have. But with all of the other things around us and available in the world, I had begun to want more and the fog began to further obscure the truth of reality.
I will now stand unwavering to declare the truth forever: There has never been any good thing or accomplishment in my life that I have been able to achieve without having been enabled to do so by the very same God who created me. There is no thing that I have received or benefited from in this life that did not belong to the God who created every good thing that exists either in basic form, or in re-purposed form through man. He owns it all and all credit, thanks, praise and ownership is due Him. He stands forever as the greatest priority above any other importance, person, issue or thing that exists and it is my purpose that I am learning daily to fulfill - to seek His pleasure. That my friends is the raw truth of reality.
What happened to me was without any doubt or question in my mind or heart - a Fatherly intervention. You could call it a trip to the heavenly woodshed. I will always prefer to call it an act of Fatherly love. I knew Him and had experienced Him in my life so many times previously. His interaction in my life was a common occurrence and something I took for granted. So much so that I began to lose sight of where my strengths, abilities and my blessings came from. I let my vision become clouded by things, goals and desires other than my Master. I took credit that belonged to Him. I was drifting down a path that would have eventually led me to places that only He could see, but most certainly away from the doting Father who loves me so dearly. Not willing to bear the loss of my fellowship, nor allow me to suffer greater harm, He corrected me. He took away my pride. He removed everything that I had placed above Him. He showed me my weakness without Him and made known and clear my purpose to exist ... and I love Him dearly for it.
Off The Shelf
There's a problem with putting our God on a shelf. It can be a very perplexing thing to even attempt. No matter how many times you try to put Him back, He just won't stay there. He's not just an ideological figure that can be manipulated through the will of man. He's alive and He's real! He's more real than anything we can touch with our hand, more real than anything we can see with our eyes and He's even more real than we are. He existed first and He created us from dust - breathing life into us through the power His own breath. He has the power to take us out at any time He wants to, but no man can ever reason Him away. He stubbornly continues to exist regardless of what people may say about Him and what He's said is true whether men choose to believe it or not. In the end, He will exact justice on behalf of His own reputation and the folly of fools will be exposed in the harshest of terms.
So that being the case, what is the true perspective of reality? I say it's His perspective and one that we begin to learn through the serious study of His word and also by our experience in a personal relationship with Him. But I'll warn you, serious introspection based on our God's reality can have some very monumental life changing effects. He is a loving and generous God, but He doesn't view things through eyes of flesh or the intellectual eyes of human reasoning. He doesn't compromise or change His view point because of the arguments of carnal minds. His perspective and wisdom are so much higher and are eternal and eternally enduring. He is the center of our universe and the reason that we exist. If we either don't get that or choose to let ourselves forget it at any moment, we run the risk of finding ourselves in serious trouble.
I know that if you're reading this and you're not familiar with our Lord, you're probably very confused about my view of what I've related. In the eyes of someone who views things from the worldly society of humanity it doesn't make a lick of sense - I get that. But, if that's the only point you have to see it from, then you're honestly and tragically missing the far bigger picture. Look around - the world's a mess. Mankind has been failing from the beginning by his own devices. We build just to watch it all be destroyed over time. In the human perspective we fight, we struggle, we live and we die. And if that's all you've got - you can keep it. If you're living for what you can get out of this world, you can have it - I certainly don't need it. In my Lord I already have more than any person without Him could ever possibly possess. And I know that there's even more, so much more. I've experienced it and I continue to experience it every day. I have a future well beyond this little perishing sphere of dirt. I have a solid hope, a promise of a future that far exceeds the limitations of this little planet. It's a hope anchored in the God who has never failed. I'm investing my hope and my future in the God who promises me a much better and much longer life beyond this one.
Worldly values, things sensually appealing, selfish ambition, independence, pride, greed, human violence, and a huge list of human issues and self declared rights are a few of the ingredients that create the fog around us. These things usually eventually lead to trouble and in extreme cases people die from them every day. Usually the very basic root cause is just a desire to find contentment and happiness. Isn't that really what everyone is looking for when you shake it all down? The problem is that perishing worldly things don't have the ability to satisfy an eternal spiritual need that we were created with. We were created with a need to be in relationship with our Creator because that was the very purpose that He created us for. Those other things tend to surround us and cloud our ability to clearly keep our eyes on the truth of our life's purpose. If we let them, then we deny ourselves the very thing that we spend our whole lives in search of.
We who truly know Him try do our best to live to please Him. That doesn't mean that we have it all together - in fact, if our focus isn't where it should be we're just as capable of being knuckle heads as much as anyone else. We've all made mistakes, so we're on the same level with anyone else in that regard - no better. The only difference is that by our accepting the fact that someone else took the punishment for our screw ups and made it possible for us to be forgiven, we have been reconciled to the very one we were created to need - our Father God. That someone was our God's only begotten Son Jesus. If you know Him, then you know what an incredible and awesome joy the job of our purpose is because of who He is.
If you don't know Him, I don't think there's a human alive that can fully describe all that the wonder and experience of knowing Him personally brings.What mortal being can adequately explain God? For those of us who do know Him, we came to truly know Him by experiencing Him personally. We might be able to tell you a lot about Him. But if you really want to know Him, that will require making the effort to experience Him personally in relationship with Him. What could you possibly have to lose? You have far more to gain than you could ever know without taking that first step. Without taking that step, you have everything to lose - including a host of things that you can't even begin to know about without that experience.
If you want to get to know Him and all that He offers to those who will listen, I'll just extend the same invitation that some used when inviting others to hear Him teach while He walked the earth:
"Come and see" ...
Comments
Post a Comment