The Truly Hard Part About Change

Stephen Altrogge:

At least once per day, I find myself thinking, I’m pretty sure my kids are insane. 

My daughter, Charis, is flipping out because she can’t wear the skirt she wants to wear. “You NEVER let me wear ANYTHING!” she tells Jen. I don’t usually point out that, technically speaking, we do let her wear clothes. My daughter Gwendolyn is screaming because I won’t let her eat the dishwasher detergent pouches that looks suspiciously like candy. My daughter Ella has just thrown a roundhouse punch at Charis, because Charis won’t let her pretend to be Elsa, from Frozen. You get the point. 

What I’m learning is that if I’m going to grow in patience, God has to put me in situations which actually require patience. Thus, God gives me children who are insane, in order that I might grow in love and patience. 

For some reason, I tend to think that change happens in a vacuum. It’s like I think of sanctification as being some kind of divine magic trick. I pray that I would grow in mercy, and God magically makes me more merciful. I pray that I would trust God more, and God magically infuses me with more trust. I pray that God would help me be more loving, and, presto chango, I’m suddenly more loving. 

Unfortunately, that’s not how it works. Sanctification happens through circumstances.

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"The shortest, surest way to all happiness and all perfection"

William Law:

…If anyone would tell you the shortest, surest way to all happiness and all perfection, he  must tell you to make it a rule to yourself to thank and praise God for everything that happens to you. For it is certain that whatever seeming calamity happens to you, if you thank and praise God for it, you turn it into a blessing. Could you therefore work miracles, you could not do more for yourself than by this thankful spirit, for it heals with a word speaking, and turns all that it touches into happiness.

…though it be the noblest sacrifice that the greatest Saint can offer unto God, yet is it not tied to any time, or place, or great occasion but is always in your power and may be the exercise of every day. For the common events of every day are sufficient to discover and exercise this temper and may plainly show you how far you are governed in all your actions by this thankful spirit.

(HT:  Randy Alcorn)

How Do You Endure Solitary Confinement for Jesus?

"Don’t mistake God’s patience for His indifference."

Michael Kelley:

It was 400 years between the close of Malachi and the opening of Matthew. Four hundred years of silence. Four hundred years of looking at the prophecies. Four hundred years of wondering if today was the day when God would act on behalf of His people in a dramatic way.

That 400 years mirrors another 400 years between the death of Joseph and the rise of Moses. Four hundred years of slavery. Four hundred years of oppression. Four hundred years of stories of a supposed deliverer.

In both instances, that’s one generation of fathers telling their sons to remain faithful and wait. And then that generation of fathers dying off, and another generation of fathers telling their sons the same thing. It’s a lot of waiting. A lot of hoping. And a lot of questions about the “when” of this God we’ve heard about. But we see, in hindsight, see that God was not inactive during that time, but instead knew the right “when.” We know this of course. Of course we do.

Except we don’t.

We think we do, but our impatience and frustration betrays us. In fact, I wonder today how much sin might be avoided in my life if I really believed in the perfect timing of God.

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The Key to Any Effective Ministry

Dave Durham:

This is what ministry is like for our church. We had to remove couches from the auditorium because folks were making out on them during the sermon. We had to insist that parents stay for church after dropping off their children, because some were going up the street and using us as babysitters. And once we had to ask a drunken man to please stay off the platform during the worship music set. Needless to say, I don't serve at your typical church.

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Tweet of the Day

Learning About Parenting From a Stand-Up Comedian

Kevin DeYoung:

Recently I learned something about parenting from a stand-up comedian. I was listening to this bit about children from Brian Regan and around the 1:35 mark he tells the story about his son flinging around half-eaten spaghetti from his mouth and watching the sauce splatter across the room. Regan explained that he made a mistake as a parent because he stopped him: “Hey man, knock that off. Can’t you see the paint on the walls is more important than the joy in your heart?!” At that last line the audience burst into loud laughter and applause.

I know, I know, it’s a stand-up routine and a not a sermon. Let’s not take it too seriously. But the audience resonated with the line–and so do many of us I imagine–because there is something uncomfortably and refreshingly insightful about the joke. Why would spinning around with spaghetti always be the wrong thing for a child to do? Obviously, probably not a good idea as a guest. And not a good habit to develop as a general rule. But isn’t the best response to such antics–on some days, in some situations, with some people–simply to laugh? Even better, think of the fun you might have if you slurped up your own spaghetti, started bobbin your noggin, and joined Junior in the act. Being a parent means being responsible, but does it have to mean always being the heavy?

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Get Brian Regan videos here. Highly recommended.

A Healthy Fear of Our Capacity to Ruin The Work of God

I am so much this way--the aggressive personality--that for a long time I questioned whether I could function as a pastor, whether I would not overwhelm people with my personality. Enthusiasm was not just my middle name: it was my first, middle, and last names. Eventually the Holy Spirit began to tame my spirit, and out of these changes I discerned that pastoral ministry was actually much easier than I thought. Basically at the beginning of a ministry, the leader should humble himself and not try to do too much. Really, even later a good pastor is pretty much a good listener, a patient, deliberate questioner; and at the beginning of a church-planting enterprise you will be astonished how well things will go if you are just a gentle, kind learner.

My own conviction is that the flesh is still so strong in the Christian leader that each of us needs a healthy fear of our own capacity for ruining the work of God with our unconscious pride.

- Jack Miller, The Heart of the Servant Leader, p. 86

(HT: Dane Ortlund)

On Patience and Faith

I am not very patient.  This post from Michael Kelley was helpful for me to read today.

I suppose that we might just decide to be patient; to will ourselves past our frustration. But I think we all know that won’t last. You decide to be patient, and you know what? It doesn’t happen fast enough. So you find yourself frustrated at how long it’s taking you to be patient.

But patience, like any of these other fruits of the Spirit, is rooted in faith. Think of it this way – what does a person of true patience communicate to those around them about what they believe?

- They communicate a belief in a sovereign God who is readily involved in even the most mundane areas of life.

- They communicate a trust that this God is orchestrating events for their good, even when those events seem haphazard and chaotic.

- They communicate an appropriate view of themselves, that their agenda and schedule is actually not the most important thing in the universe.

- They communicate an openness to divine interruption, believing that they might join God in some unexpected way for some unexpected work on behalf of the gospel.

- And finally, they communicate that they believe in the enduring patience of God, who instead of being frustrated with us, continues to love us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies.

For me today, the exhortation is not just “be patient.” It’s “believe.”

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Hurry is No Friend to Love

Dr. Zack Eswine:

Hurry is no friend to love.

Instant video streaming, on-demand programming, twenty-four hour grocery, credit-cards, texting, and next-day delivery are wonderful. They reward my desires instantly. Immediacy befriends me. Entitlement invites me to come over. We party at once and without delay. So, when I crave a food, want a mood from a show, or need aspirin from Walgreens at 3:00am, I feel quite grateful for this split-second, on the spot way of life.

But ask me how long I can handle no response after I’ve texted or emailed somebody before I begin to doubt whether they like me, or think I’ve done something wrong to offend them or ascribe negative judgments about their character, and you can begin to see through me into an area of weakness. I am unskilled at waiting; unpracticed in managing the emotions that waiting requires. I am an amateur at patience. Which according to the Apostle Paul means that I am in this area of my life an amateur at love, unschooled and unseasoned. Naively, I try to apply the instant, immediate, entitlement way of life to my relationships, my marriage, my work-place, my dreams, and my problems. Perhaps this is why young married’s these days are struggling to make it through their first three years and why the average stay of a pastor or a congregant in a church isn’t much better.

I’ve been trained that when I do not get what I want, exactly how I ordered and immediately, I can raise my voice, complain, ask to see a manager, threaten to take my business elsewhere, threaten to speak poorly about the experience to other consumers. But try these tools when attempting to build a long life of friendship or love with another human being or in community as a congregation of Jesus-followers and this “on-my-demand” kind of approach doesn’t cut it. I can push a button, mouse-click a computer screen, or slide my plastic card for instant reward with little effort. But building a career of integrity in a company will require most of us to work hard, daily, with integrity, and over the long haul. This humbles those of us who are rookies at sticking around. Jesus provides the grace here that we rookies need.

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God's Sense of Timing

God’s sense of timing will confound ours, no matter what culture we’re from. His grace rarely operates according to our schedule. When Jesus looks at Jairus and says, “Trust me, be patient,” in effect he is looking over Jairus’s head at all of us and saying, “Remember how when I calmed the storm I showed you that my grace and love are compatible with going through storms, though you may not think so? Well, now I’m telling you that my grace and love are compatible with what seem to you unconscionable delays.” It’s not “I will not be hurried even though I love you”; it’s “I will not be hurried because I love you. I know what I’m doing. And if you try to impose your understanding of schedule and timing on me, you will struggle to feel loved by me.

- Tim Keller, King's Cross: The Story of the World in the Life of Jesus, p. 63


(HT:  The Blazing Center)

Patience = You Are Not in Control

Dave Dorr:

So what is patience? Patience is understanding the settled reality that we are not in control. We are at peace with the fact that life is run by someone else. When we are patient we are paddling downstream, letting the force of life guide us along, knowing we can steer, but not turn upstream. Impatience is turning the boat, rowing hard against the current; we still move downstream, but with incredible exhaustion.

Impatient people are tired people.

We want more control than we have. But God wants patience to permeate our inner being. Why? Not just because life and its trials will require patience, but we need to reconcile our souls to our lack of control, trusting that God is good. If God is good and he is in control, then we can trust the satisfaction or obstruction of our will is the good design of a loving and gracious Father.

And that is worth the wait.

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