When I was a young man in the Lord, my devotion was strong but my limited understanding of His ways limited my walk with Him. It was as though my life was a nice sedan; I was driving and had God close, Him sitting and watching from the backseat. Pretty neat, I thought. Most people are driving around by themselves, but I have God in my car! I can ask Him for help anytime I need it. "Lord, there's a turn coming up; should I go left or right?" "Lord, we're hitting a bumpy patch in the road; can you help out here?" I thought that was pretty good, and it was, far better than most folks have it.
But then, in a few short years, I fell into some very difficult circumstances. They were really my fault, but I chose to blame the Lord. Why did He let this happen? In my heart, my nice sedan morphed into a long bus and I moved Him all the way into the last row. It was as though I was saying, "Lord, you messed that up. Since it's obvious I can't really count on You, I'm taking over from here on out. You stay way back there and I'll let you know when I need you."
Foolish, yes, but it seemed like the thing to do at the time. I don't think I'm the only one who has held that kind of attitude towards God. It took a few years to fix, but He was patient and enduring with me. He has a way of pushing things, you know. I gradually became desperate to let Him fix it all His way and realized He had to drive.
That was big, because I still had trust issues with God. I slowly let Him get behind the wheel but treated Him as though He was a student driver and I was the Instructor. He had His hands on the steering wheel but I was right next to Him, ready to take over any time I wasn't comfortable. Gradually, I realized I had to let Him drive without interference from me.
I began to wrap my mind around the picture of Him behind the wheel and me in the backseat. That took some doing, too, and I can't say that even now I'm consistently staying in the backseat, but I think I'm doing better than I was.
After awhile, He began asking what I was believing Him for. I think my answer was a neatly drawn box that enclosed a list beginning with salvation and forgiveness of sins. The list quickly got down to things like a better job, good health, a new fence and roof for my house, less debt, a nicer car, good stuff for my family...and so on.
That's a nice box, He said, but what if what I want for you is out here? And He pointed to a spot a few inches outside the border of my box. No problem, I thought, I'll just extend my box out there and include that spot. But He wouldn't let it rest. Okay, He said, what if I point to a spot over here? And He pointed to a different spot, this time in the opposite direction and even further outside the border of my box. I was uncomfortable with where this was going but slowly said, Okaaaay, my box will reach over there.
So, with increasing distress, I stretched my box far enough to encompass the new spot. Wouldn't you know, God being God, He didn't stop there. He kept pointing to spots further and further out, further and further away from my comfort zone, always asking "What if...?". Even to my somewhat stiffened neck, it became obvious where this was headed. He wanted me to get rid of the box altogether. He wanted me to let Him be God. (Now THAT's a radical concept!)
So what's the outcome? If I get rid of the outline of my box -- Look God! No box! -- my list is still there, but the borders are gone and the emphasis has changed. I still have my preferences and requests, but they're no longer excluding what He wants. The very small picture is my stuff; the very big picture is His stuff. I've quit emphasizing the specific stuff that's in my list of preferences and requests and am now growing a sense of wonder and excitement, not knowing what He's got out there but trusting that it's really, really good, the kind of good that's long run big picture eternally good. You might say I'm trading in my small expectations for a sense of big expectancy. I didn't come up with that thought, replacing expectation with expectancy, but it's a good one.
The box was my comfort zone; everything outside my box was my discomfort zone. How foolish! If I really trust my loving Creator and Saviour, shouldn't I be comfortable with whatever He wants? I no longer demand to get things my way nor do I demand to know the details about what to expect. It's enough to know that His hopes, ambitions, and desires for me are incredibly wonderful. I don't know many of the details, but I know His heart, and I can trust it and walk in a sense of well-being. That's expectancy, and it's good. That gets down to the nub of this post. We lead busy lives but hear Preachers calling us to more Bible study, more prayer time, more fellowship with our Brothers and Sisters, more evangelism, more participation in various church activities, more effort, more work, more discipline. Those are all good things, but fitting more and more of God into our lives becomes a difficult, exhausting endeavor. After all, He really does ask a lot of us, doesn't He? That being said somewhat tongue-in-cheek, let's flip it around.
What would it be like if we quit trying to fit Him into our lives and instead let Him fit us into His? What if, instead of caring so much about my stuff, I cared more deeply about His stuff? What if, instead of caring about how I felt about things and asking Him to be as concerned with my feelings as much as I am, it all turned around and I began caring about His feelings first? Think of the way a loving Mom is touched by her child's pains and joys, putting her child's needs above her own. If I'm truly His friend, walking with Him as King David did when God called him "A man after My own heart", wouldn't I be far more passionate about how God's heart feels and far less passionate about my own stuff?
Many years ago, while reading in the Psalms, I came to a verse that says "Look on my right hand and see, for there is no one who acknowledges me; refuge has failed me; no one cares for my soul." King David wrote that passage when he was in a desperate place in his life. It's recorded in Psalm 142:4. But when I got to the phrase "No one cares for my soul", it was as though God said to my heart, "That's how I feel", speaking about Himself. I could sense the tenderness and yearning of His heart, and if I may say, a lonely longing, wanting me to walk with Him there. He was calling me to a place beyond my own feelings and issues. He was calling me to a place beyond the "Gimme gimme" I usually spoke to Him. He was calling me to lose myself in His heart's desires and passions, pains and sorrows and joys, sharing in them with Him. He was calling me in some small way to be a man after His own heart.
He began to speak to me from other passages, too, such as Isaiah 58:13-14: "If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on My holy day and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy day of the Lord honorable, and shall honor Him, not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words, Then you shall delight yourself in the Lord..." . If I'm not doing my own ways nor finding my own pleasure nor speaking my own words, then whose ways and pleasure and words am I supposed to be caring about? His, of course! And if that becomes my delight rather than my duty, how much more wonderful it is!
And then there's Philippians 2:13: "...it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure." Oh, yes! May it come to pass! There are many more passages in the Bible that hint at this truth. I am still trying to get my arms around the goal of being a man after His own heart. Some days I do it much better than others, some days I don't do it at all. But it's a worthy goal and one that, I hope and pray, takes over my life.
A big part of reaching that goal requires letting God out of my box, trusting Him (because getting rid of the box can be scary!), and delighting myself in His dreams and passions far more than I delight in my own. There's a further benefit.
Once we get past the judicial relationship with God, one that is settled by trusting in the forgiveness and cleansing provided by His Son, Christians often enter next into what may loosely be compared to an Employer/Employee relationship with God. Being a good "employee" and working for Him on that basis is an okay place to start, but it's not how He wants this to end up.
He wants a love relationship with His children more than He wants a bunch of employees. It's as though He's saying "Love me with all you've got and I'll love you with all I've got. Then we'll move through life together and work it out as we get to it." He assigns us work to do and fruit to bear, but doing the work that's dear to His heart in shared love and passion is far better and much more effective than serving him as an employee. His work becomes my passion because His heart -- dare I say His smile and the tenderness of His eyes -- becomes my passion.
Dog in the Pickup
In the mid-90's, after another very difficult patch in my life, the Lord reminded me of something I'd long ago forgotten. Back in the 50's when I was a child in Louisiana, riding in the family car, an old pickup truck passed us. The man driving looked tired and dirty as if he'd been working outside all day. A large dog was in the bed of the pickup, looking dirtier than the driver. I recall mud that was dried on matted fur and, for want of a better term, dog slobber that had wrapped itself around his snout.
When the Lord reminded me of that long ago scene, it was as though I could see past the dirt and slobber and sense the dog's thoughts as he rode in his Master's truck. Sticking his face around the side of the cab, he looked forward, face into the wind, losing himself in the wind, anticipating the wind, and his heart cried out "Drive, Daddy, drive!"
I felt God's heart calling me to be the dog in His pickup. A dog who puts his face into the wind, losing himself in the wind, anticipating the wind. A dog who's heart says, "Drive, Daddy, drive!"
But then, in a few short years, I fell into some very difficult circumstances. They were really my fault, but I chose to blame the Lord. Why did He let this happen? In my heart, my nice sedan morphed into a long bus and I moved Him all the way into the last row. It was as though I was saying, "Lord, you messed that up. Since it's obvious I can't really count on You, I'm taking over from here on out. You stay way back there and I'll let you know when I need you."
Foolish, yes, but it seemed like the thing to do at the time. I don't think I'm the only one who has held that kind of attitude towards God. It took a few years to fix, but He was patient and enduring with me. He has a way of pushing things, you know. I gradually became desperate to let Him fix it all His way and realized He had to drive.
That was big, because I still had trust issues with God. I slowly let Him get behind the wheel but treated Him as though He was a student driver and I was the Instructor. He had His hands on the steering wheel but I was right next to Him, ready to take over any time I wasn't comfortable. Gradually, I realized I had to let Him drive without interference from me.
I began to wrap my mind around the picture of Him behind the wheel and me in the backseat. That took some doing, too, and I can't say that even now I'm consistently staying in the backseat, but I think I'm doing better than I was.
After awhile, He began asking what I was believing Him for. I think my answer was a neatly drawn box that enclosed a list beginning with salvation and forgiveness of sins. The list quickly got down to things like a better job, good health, a new fence and roof for my house, less debt, a nicer car, good stuff for my family...and so on.
That's a nice box, He said, but what if what I want for you is out here? And He pointed to a spot a few inches outside the border of my box. No problem, I thought, I'll just extend my box out there and include that spot. But He wouldn't let it rest. Okay, He said, what if I point to a spot over here? And He pointed to a different spot, this time in the opposite direction and even further outside the border of my box. I was uncomfortable with where this was going but slowly said, Okaaaay, my box will reach over there.
So, with increasing distress, I stretched my box far enough to encompass the new spot. Wouldn't you know, God being God, He didn't stop there. He kept pointing to spots further and further out, further and further away from my comfort zone, always asking "What if...?". Even to my somewhat stiffened neck, it became obvious where this was headed. He wanted me to get rid of the box altogether. He wanted me to let Him be God. (Now THAT's a radical concept!)
So what's the outcome? If I get rid of the outline of my box -- Look God! No box! -- my list is still there, but the borders are gone and the emphasis has changed. I still have my preferences and requests, but they're no longer excluding what He wants. The very small picture is my stuff; the very big picture is His stuff. I've quit emphasizing the specific stuff that's in my list of preferences and requests and am now growing a sense of wonder and excitement, not knowing what He's got out there but trusting that it's really, really good, the kind of good that's long run big picture eternally good. You might say I'm trading in my small expectations for a sense of big expectancy. I didn't come up with that thought, replacing expectation with expectancy, but it's a good one.
The box was my comfort zone; everything outside my box was my discomfort zone. How foolish! If I really trust my loving Creator and Saviour, shouldn't I be comfortable with whatever He wants? I no longer demand to get things my way nor do I demand to know the details about what to expect. It's enough to know that His hopes, ambitions, and desires for me are incredibly wonderful. I don't know many of the details, but I know His heart, and I can trust it and walk in a sense of well-being. That's expectancy, and it's good. That gets down to the nub of this post. We lead busy lives but hear Preachers calling us to more Bible study, more prayer time, more fellowship with our Brothers and Sisters, more evangelism, more participation in various church activities, more effort, more work, more discipline. Those are all good things, but fitting more and more of God into our lives becomes a difficult, exhausting endeavor. After all, He really does ask a lot of us, doesn't He? That being said somewhat tongue-in-cheek, let's flip it around.
What would it be like if we quit trying to fit Him into our lives and instead let Him fit us into His? What if, instead of caring so much about my stuff, I cared more deeply about His stuff? What if, instead of caring about how I felt about things and asking Him to be as concerned with my feelings as much as I am, it all turned around and I began caring about His feelings first? Think of the way a loving Mom is touched by her child's pains and joys, putting her child's needs above her own. If I'm truly His friend, walking with Him as King David did when God called him "A man after My own heart", wouldn't I be far more passionate about how God's heart feels and far less passionate about my own stuff?
Many years ago, while reading in the Psalms, I came to a verse that says "Look on my right hand and see, for there is no one who acknowledges me; refuge has failed me; no one cares for my soul." King David wrote that passage when he was in a desperate place in his life. It's recorded in Psalm 142:4. But when I got to the phrase "No one cares for my soul", it was as though God said to my heart, "That's how I feel", speaking about Himself. I could sense the tenderness and yearning of His heart, and if I may say, a lonely longing, wanting me to walk with Him there. He was calling me to a place beyond my own feelings and issues. He was calling me to a place beyond the "Gimme gimme" I usually spoke to Him. He was calling me to lose myself in His heart's desires and passions, pains and sorrows and joys, sharing in them with Him. He was calling me in some small way to be a man after His own heart.
He began to speak to me from other passages, too, such as Isaiah 58:13-14: "If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on My holy day and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy day of the Lord honorable, and shall honor Him, not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words, Then you shall delight yourself in the Lord..." . If I'm not doing my own ways nor finding my own pleasure nor speaking my own words, then whose ways and pleasure and words am I supposed to be caring about? His, of course! And if that becomes my delight rather than my duty, how much more wonderful it is!
And then there's Philippians 2:13: "...it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure." Oh, yes! May it come to pass! There are many more passages in the Bible that hint at this truth. I am still trying to get my arms around the goal of being a man after His own heart. Some days I do it much better than others, some days I don't do it at all. But it's a worthy goal and one that, I hope and pray, takes over my life.
A big part of reaching that goal requires letting God out of my box, trusting Him (because getting rid of the box can be scary!), and delighting myself in His dreams and passions far more than I delight in my own. There's a further benefit.
Once we get past the judicial relationship with God, one that is settled by trusting in the forgiveness and cleansing provided by His Son, Christians often enter next into what may loosely be compared to an Employer/Employee relationship with God. Being a good "employee" and working for Him on that basis is an okay place to start, but it's not how He wants this to end up.
He wants a love relationship with His children more than He wants a bunch of employees. It's as though He's saying "Love me with all you've got and I'll love you with all I've got. Then we'll move through life together and work it out as we get to it." He assigns us work to do and fruit to bear, but doing the work that's dear to His heart in shared love and passion is far better and much more effective than serving him as an employee. His work becomes my passion because His heart -- dare I say His smile and the tenderness of His eyes -- becomes my passion.
Dog in the Pickup
In the mid-90's, after another very difficult patch in my life, the Lord reminded me of something I'd long ago forgotten. Back in the 50's when I was a child in Louisiana, riding in the family car, an old pickup truck passed us. The man driving looked tired and dirty as if he'd been working outside all day. A large dog was in the bed of the pickup, looking dirtier than the driver. I recall mud that was dried on matted fur and, for want of a better term, dog slobber that had wrapped itself around his snout.
When the Lord reminded me of that long ago scene, it was as though I could see past the dirt and slobber and sense the dog's thoughts as he rode in his Master's truck. Sticking his face around the side of the cab, he looked forward, face into the wind, losing himself in the wind, anticipating the wind, and his heart cried out "Drive, Daddy, drive!"
I felt God's heart calling me to be the dog in His pickup. A dog who puts his face into the wind, losing himself in the wind, anticipating the wind. A dog who's heart says, "Drive, Daddy, drive!"
That's pretty Awesome! Keep doing what you're doing and be encouraged in our Lord!
ReplyDeleteThank you for the kind words and encouragement. Feedback, both sweet and sour, will hopefully help me improve this blog. Also, please let me know how you found this spot on the Internet; it may help me better manage what I'm doing.
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