2 posts tagged “corinthians”
But all this is beside the point of selecting "I'm Outta Time" for this week's song. I've been dealing with humility a lot lately. I've been getting ahead of myself in a lot of areas, struggling to overcome the anxiety that rears its ugly head whenever I try to "solve" my problems on my own. I put the word solve in quotation marks for obvious reasons. I cannot, nor have I ever been able to, fix my life. Realizing that has been difficult over the past couple weeks.
My life group is just about finished with Charles Swindoll's So, You Want to Be Like Christ?, an excellent study that breaks down eight essentials of Christ's example that, as Christians, we should work to replicate in our lives. The list, Swindoll admits, is by no means exhaustive, but it is entirely practical. I've been blessed to lead the discussions of each chapter ("Surrender" was my favorite), but of all the weeks I had to miss, "Humility" was one I'm glad I did. Not because I'm perfect. I am far, far, far from it. And that's exactly why I was glad I missed that life group. I got more out of the chapter when I finally read it this morning, because of the events of the past few days than I might have had I read it during finals week. This isn't an excuse, but it is an example of God's great power to bring all things in order, to plant seeds that only come to bear fruit when He deems it appropriate.
I got very, very angry with a friend of mine this week. I felt betrayed, and my reaction was to say things I felt were (and still are) justified, but in an angry, resentful tone. Even before this happened, I have been struggling to understand where God is taking me and where I will follow Him next. But I have been looking at the "problems" in my life in the wrong light. I really like Chuck Swindoll because he can present the Bible in plain terms, not dumbing it down but revealing the lessons of the text in a light I often miss. My girlfriend notes that I have a great habit of burying myself in studies but failing to exhibit common sense. This week, and indeed this month, have given me many examples of this.
Near the end of the chapter "Humility," Swindoll presents three "postures" we can take to exercise the spiritual discipline of humility. The first posture is sitting. The story in Mark 10:35-45, where James and John ask God for the primo seats next to his throne, we learn that as Christians, we need to sit on promoting ourselves. Swindoll writes, "Trust God to promote you when He determines that the time is appropriate. When He calls you, then rely on His calling and obey His Word." The second posture is standing. In Philippians 2:3-11, Paul describes Jesus' example to tell Christians that we need to stand up for others. I'll return to this one in a second. The final posture is bowing. 1 Peter 5:5-7 is an exhortation for Christians to bow low before our God. Swindoll writes, "here Peter addresses the core issue, the foundational problem to lack of humility, the source of self-interst: anxiety, the worry that if we don't watch out for ourselves, nobody will." Humility is thus an act of faith, trusting God that He has all things in order and knows His plan for our purpose.
And this is exactly where I fail. I get anxious over the capablity of myself and others to lead, and I get discouraged about the changes I expect to come about. I become cynical in my doubts about God's plan. And that's exactly what it comes down to: doubt. I have failed to put my faith in God's plans and allowed my concerns to become worries that hinder my relationship with Him.
In the case of my friend, I failed to put that second posture into practice. Swindoll's study on the Philippians passage was particularly convicting, and it's worth quoting at length:
Sure enough, my friend popped right into my head when I read that this morning. In fact, I could think of two people from that passage who stumbled -- my friend and myself. I had "made a royal mess" of my own life by failing to be humble, by failing to express the freedom to extend love and compassion that comes with surrendering to God's plan.We can encourage others to be humble by being sensitive to them in their needs. Look for opportunities to meet the needs of others, especially those whom many would consider the least deserving. (You know the one. He or she quite possibly popped into your mind as you read the last sentence.) Think of the least liked or most obnoxious person, or that person who has made a royal mess of life. Stand up for him or her. How can you become a servant to that person? Think of something simple that you can do soon. Don't put it off -- do it. Then keep doing it.
And I guess this is where the Oasis song comes into this blog. Sure, the lyrics are somewhat juvenile. Liam Gallagher, the singer, wrote this one, and he's no Dylan, not by a long shot. But the chorus is still particularly poignant for me:
I did stand behind my emotion when a friend struggled, and I let my lack of humility get the better of my actions. My challenge over the next week is to realize that God has a plan that I may never understand but in which I am fortunate to play a part. What part I play, though, depends on my commitment to spiritual discipline. Paul wrote, "I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified" (1 Cor. 9:27). I do not want to be disqualified from my lack of humility, from my failure to have faith, or because of the anxiety that comes with my doubt. God has a plan, and all I can do is sit, stand, and bow as He commands.If I'm to fall
Would you be there to applaud
Or would you hide behind them all
'Cause if I have to go
In my heart you'll grow
And that's where you belong
What are passions? How do we get them? Are they developed from exogenous forces that come from our environments, from places and things and situations we cannot change? Are they inspired by God? Or are they something we consciously form, something we create in ourselves?
I have struggled with this question in the wake of significant changes in a ministry I am affected by and in which I have a vested interest and commitment. A “season of change” -- to use a frustrating, but apt cliché -- has entered into the leadership, and people I feel closely connected to have left, citing an erosion of passion as the primary reason for their departure. With tears in their eyes and pain in their hearts, they spoke up in a meeting and let others know their justifiable frustrations, concerns, hopes, and ultimately, the decision to step down. As I left the meeting, I could not help but dwell on the concept of passion -- what it means, how it develops, where it comes from, how it grows, how and if it dies.
There are many angles from which we can consider the passions we have as individuals. They can come directly from God. They can come from our environment, out of our control. They can be something we create. Or, more likely, they can be a mixture of all three. If they come directly from God, there are questions to be asked. How large is our involvement in fostering those passions? Do some passions come for a season? If so, when do we know that the season is over?
I don't particularly like the environment argument, so I'll dismiss it outright. Situations are complex for all of us, but what we are passionate about is something that comes from God but is pursued by us. God uses our environment, our relationships, our struggles, our skills -- all of it -- to create an excitement about an area of ministry, work, school, or something else where we feel we can have an impact and allow God to work through us. But that word -- excitement -- seems misleading. Too often, I feel we attach passions to our feelings. We look at our situations and consider how we can use these passions to create solutions, foster growth, and lead. But nowhere in Jesus' example does His passion rest on solely excitement, on intense feelings of well-being, on happiness. Jesus sweat blood. He struggled with His purpose, His passion. At times it was not easy. It was not a smooth transition to sacrifice.
Admittedly, it is easy for me to sit and type these words, not having gone through the intense struggles and deep pains that the people who have left the ministry have experienced in the past few months. But regardless of this fact, I relate to their fears, their successes, their failures, and their pains through their passion. We worked in the same ministry. We reached the same people. We worshiped together. Why am I so fortunate to retain the great feelings of my passion for this ministry? Why, as they said, has God brought about a period where their passion has “died?”
On the other end of the spectrum are those who did not initially have a passion for our ministry. On the face of it, this seems unacceptable to many, particularly those under the passionless. But time seems to have “flipped” the scenario. Today, the passionless have been humbled, broken, and seem to have developed what they did not have earlier. How did this happen? How did passion develop where it did not exist before?
I believe that passion is something God inspires in all of us in different areas. But to deepen this idea, I also believe that it is something God inspires through the relationships we make with one another as believers and outwardly toward unbelievers. We watched a video at Amplify on Tuesday night about a ministry that provides food for homeless people -- lovingly referred to as “FHBs,” or “Fellow Human Beings.” The ministry gives a great example of how relationships can change passions by altering perceptions. The speaker in the video put it plainly (and I paraphrase, here). “It's easy to drive by someone and give them money. It's harder to come down and invest time into their lives.” I can't recall how often I've reached into my pocket and pulled out some loose change to give to a homeless person. At best, it cost me a soda that day. But when I speak to my parents about their mission trips to orphanages in Mexico, they can both recall in vivid detail -- and nearly twenty years later, in some cases -- the faces, the lives, and the places they impacted. My parents have had a passion for giving, but it only became real when they went down and made a relationship, invested time in someone's life, and spoke love into their lives. Passion is God inspired, but it is also something we have to work at on a daily basis. Relationships take careful consideration of feelings, but they also rely on the “tough love” challenges of close friends. They rely on open ears and open hearts and open eyes to deepen the calling that God has placed.
So if passions can develop by us being open to his calling, how then do they die? I still do not understand this. In truth, I may never know. But I do know that when we are most broken, when we are angered and hurting, there is a love that can cover all wounds, that can heal all relationships, that can change lives. There is a peace that passes all of our understanding, all of the inferior machinations of our futile attempts to comprehend His purpose for us. For those who stayed for the meeting, there was no shaking the feeling that love did not govern over all that was said. We left and went our separate ways, and I'm sure we all found different ways to look fondly at what God has done and optimistically at what He will do next in the ministry. But we left without loving. We left without compassion. We left without a basic passion for each other, not as “leaders,” not as “ministers.” As friends. As Christians. As Fellow Human Beings. We all -- and I mean all -- left without a passion for love. Godly, forgiving, perfect love. I am saddened, deeply hurt, and struggling to understand how I stood by and did nothing to say what God had put on my heart.
In the days ahead, there will be many challenges for the ministry, including those who stay and those who leave, whoever they might be. But the great challenge is not to find replacements. It is not to find candidates. The challenge is to find a way back to the passion that united us all together as Christians. The challenge is, for those who leave and for those who stay and for those who come, to arrive at a place where what we do is founded on love. It is to reach a level of spiritual maturity where we can comprehend the struggles, downturns, and problems with communication that come from the relationships that evangelism requires.
These words come from someone who grapples with these issues on a daily basis. My personal life is fraught with errors in judgment, lack of communication, and a deficiency of outward manifestations of His love and forgiveness. But that is no excuse for silence. That is no excuse for a greater sin of omission. I apologize to all who attended for not taking the initiative on my part to express how I felt last night. I pray for everyone who attended and pray for guidance for the great decisions they now face. I pray that where there are Christian souls, there are open hearts and open ears, attentive to the direction God is leading them to, careful to take every step toward their passions with love. That love for one another, that heart of our faith is, in the end, the greatest passion of all, the one we share regardless of where we find ourselves today and expect to be tomorrow.
If you do nothing else after reading this post, look up 1 Corinthians 3. Read it slowly. Think it through. And pray about your passions.