Live and Learn 2002
From the Series—Live and Learn
December 31, 2002C.S. Lewis said, “ Every life consists of a few themes.” This evotional is a look at the some of the themes that have been woven into the fabric of my spirit over the last year.
In his book, Listening to Life , Fredrick Buechner says, “If I were called upon to state in a few words the essence of everything I was trying to say both as a novelist and as a preacher, it would be something like this: listen to your life.”
One of the greatest obstacles to spiritual growth is the fact that God is always teaching , but we aren’t always listening or learning. All of us know people who have been Christians for twenty-five years, but they don’t have twenty-five years of experience. They have one year of experience repeated twenty-five times. Why? They aren’t learning what God is teaching. Deuteronomy 11:2 says, “ Remember what you have learned about the Lord through your experiences with Him .” Here are some “lessons learned” in 2002.
God is Predictably Unpredictable
John Chancellor said, “ If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans .” I believe in planning-- failing to plan is planning to fail . Our church staff recently went on a three-day planning retreat. We have a twenty-three page strategic plan for 2003. And all of that is well and good, but as Winston Churchill said, “ Planning is important . Plans are useless .” Proverbs 16:9, “In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord orders his steps .” In other words, you may think you know where you’re headed but you have no idea. When you follow Jesus you could end up anyplace !
God is predictably unpredictable. It’s not that God is inconsistent. Hebrews 13:8 says, “ Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever .” But how is he the same? Jesus was predictably unpredictable when he walked the earth. And Jesus is predictably unpredictable now.
One of my favorite discoveries this year is a name the Celtic Christians had for the Holy Spirit. At first earshot it almost sounds sacrilegious, but I can’t think of a better descriptor of a spirit-led life. Celtic Christians called the Holy Spirit the Wild Goose . If the truth be told, being led by the Spirit is a wild goose chase . Jesus put it this way in John 3:8, “ The wind blows wherever it pleases . You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going . So it is with everyone born of the Spirit .”
There is part of us that wants predictability and familiarity, but God is full of surprises. I’ve learned to expect the unexpected . But that’s what makes following Jesus and being led by the Spirit such an adventure. Oswald Chambers said, “T o be certain of God means that we are uncertain in all our ways , we do not know what a day may bring forth .”
As we enter a New Year, I have dreams and plans. But in actuality, I have no idea where I’ll end up because I’m not the one ordering my steps. God is.
The Simple Things Are the Important Things
Oliver Wendell Holmes said there are two types of simplicity: simplicity on the near-side of complexity and simplicity on the far-side of complexity. Holmes said, “ I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity , but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side .”
Jesus had an amazing ability to simplify complexity. In Mark 12, a teacher asked Jesus which Old Testament law was the most important. Jesus reduced the entire Old Testament--hundreds of laws--into on Great Commandment . “The most important one is this: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” Jesus had a unique way of turning complex spiritual issues into simple spiritual truths . Jesus lived a simple life and taught simple truths , but his simplicity was revolutionary because he lived on the far-side of complexity .
The early church rallied around a three-word creed: Jesus is Lord . I think we need to think through theological issues. We need to wrestle with doctrinal nuances. But too often we end up majoring in minors and minoring in majors . We need to wholeheartedly embrace the simple yet important truths!
Jesus Christ was fully human and fully God (Philippians 2:6-11). He lived a sinless life (II Corinthians 5:21). He died a substitutionary death on the cross. And he was raised from the dead on the third day (I Corinthians 15:4). Jesus Christ is the only means of salvation--the one and only mediator between God and man (Acts 4:12; I Timothy 2:5). He will return in glory (I Thessalonians 4:16-17). And He will judge the living and the dead (Romans 2:5-8; II Timothy 4:1).
The Little Things are the Big Things
In 1960, MIT meteorologist Edward Lorenz made an accidental discovery while attempting to develop a computer program to simulate and forecast weather conditions. On the day of the discovery, Lorenz was in a hurry. Instead of entering .506127, the number he had used in an earlier trial, he rounded to the nearest thousandth, or .506. He figured that a change of less than one-one thousandth would be inconsequential . When he returned to the lab later that day he found a radical change in the simulated weather conditions. According to Lorenz, the numerical difference between the original number and the rounded number was the equivalent of a puff of wind created by a butterfly’s wing. He concluded that a minor event like the flapping of a butterfly’s wing could conceivably alter wind currents sufficiently to change weather conditions thousands of miles away . In 1979, Lorenz gave a speech to The American Association for the Advancement of Science titled Predictability: Does the flap of a butterfly’s wing in Brazil set off a Tornado in Texas ? That principle became known as the butterfly effect .
In his book, Chaos, James Gleick describes the butterfly effect. “ Tiny differences in input can quickly become overwhelming differences in output .” It’s true in science. It’s true in life.
New Years is a great time to remind ourselves that small changes and small choices can make a big difference! Zechariah 4:10 says, “Do not despise the day of small beginnings , for the eyes of the Lord rejoice to see the work begin, to see the plumbline in the hand of Zerubbabel.” And Matthew 25:21 says, “You have been faithful with a few things , I will put you in charge of many things.”
The key phrases are “ small beginnings “ and “ few things .” In God’s eyes, the little things are the big things. Oswald Chambers said, “ It is inbred in us that we have to do exceptional things for God : but we have not . We have to be exceptional in the ordinary things .”
Maturity Doesn’t Equal Conformity
I Corinthians 12:5 says, “There are different gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God who works all of them in all men.” The key word is “different.” Maturity doesn’t result in conformity . It results in nonconformity .
Gary Thomas says, “ People have different spiritual temperaments .” The problem, according to Thomas, is that “ we prescribe the same spirituality for the farmer in Iowa and the lawyer in Washington, DC .” I think one of the greatest mistakes we can make is to think that God wants all of us to serve him or worship him or seek him in the same way.
Too many churches take the easy way out: they equate holiness with cultural conformity . So the way you look, your religious vocabulary, or where you go or don’t go become the measuring stick of holiness. That’s not spirituality. That’s superficiality. What you end up with is a church of clones. Everybody is like everybody else . Not only is that boring, it’s nonfunctional. I Corinthians 12:17 says, “If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be?”
When you stand before the judgment seat of Christ, God is not going to ask why you weren’t more like Billy Graham or Mother Teresa. He’s going to ask why you weren’t more like you-- the person he created you to be! There’s nothing wrong with heroes and mentors --people we look up to and pattern our lives after. But if you want to be someone else you’re second-guessing God because He’s the one who made you to be you. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “ Imitation is suicide .”
We need to worry a lot less about conforming to the people around us. And we need to worry a lot more about conforming to Christ . And Jesus was a nonconformist . That’s why he was crucified. He didn’t fit into the religious leaders’ “ religious box .” He was counterintuitive and countercultural --anything but a conformist.
Francis Schaeffer said, “One of the greatest injustices we do to our young people is to ask them to be conservative. Christianity is not conservative, but revolutionary. To be conservative today is to miss the whole point, for conservatism means standing in the flow of the status quo, and the status quo no longer belongs to us. If we want to be fair, we must teach the young to be revolutionaries, revolutionaries against the status quo .”
The Greatest Risk is Taking No Risks
Jeremiah 46:17 says, “Give Pharaoh of Egypt the title King of Bombast, the man who missed his moment .” I Chronicles 21:20 says, “Jehoram was thirty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eight years. He passed away to no one’s regret , and was buried in the city of David, but not in the tombs of the kings.” Those are two of the saddest epitaphs in Scripture--the man who “missed his moment” and the man who “passed away to no one’s regret.”
Colossians 4:5 says, “ Make the most of every opportunity .” How do we do that? By taking risks!
Ecclesiastes 11:1 says, “ Cast your bread upon the waters , for after many days you will find it again.” You can analyze a God-given opportunity to death . Sometimes you just need to cast your bread on the water, take a risk, and step out in faith.
The cure for the fear of failure isn’t success. The cure for the fear of failure is failure . The cure for the fear of rejection isn’t acceptance. The cure for the fear of rejection is rejection . Allergies are a perfect analogy. The way they treat allergies is by exposing you to small quantities of what you’re allergic to . That’s how you build up immunity. If you’re allergic to failure, you need to fail a few times. Step out in faith. Take a risk because the greatest risk is taking no risks!
The More We Grow the Bigger God Gets
At the end of Prince Caspian , one of the books in the Chronicles of Narnia series, there is a great dialogue between the children and Aslan, the lion who is the Christ-figure in the book. One of the girls says, “Aslan, you’re bigger.” He says, “That is because you are older, little one.” She says, “Not because you are bigger?” Aslan says, “I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger .” So it is with our relationship with God: the more we grow the bigger God gets.
There is part of us that wants to make God measurable because we can manage what we can measure. So we demystify and pigeonhole God. But as A.W. Tozer warns, “ The end result is a God who can never surprise us, never astonish us, never overwhelm us, never transcend us .” G.K. Chesterton said, “How much happier you would be, how much more of you there would be; i f the hammer of a higher God could smash your small cosmos .”
Psalm 34:3 says, “O magnify the Lord with me, let us exalt his name forever.”
Live In Day-Tight Compartments
In his book, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living , Dale Carnegie tells a story about a medical student named William Osler. William was extremely anxious about his future--graduating from school, starting a medical practice, making a living. He was working himself into a nervous breakdown when he came across the writings of Sir Thomas Carlyle. Thomas Carlyle wrote and William Osler read these words, “ Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand .”
Those words revolutionized Osler’s life. He stopped worrying and started living . William Osler went on to become the most famous physician of his generation. He organized the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and became Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford. He was even knighted by the King of England.
In an address he gave at Yale University, Osler told the students that he owed his success to a simple principle. He called it “ living in day-tight compartments .” Osler said we need to let go of “ dead yesterdays “ and “ unborn tomorrows .” He said, “ The load of tomorrow, added to that of yesterday, carried today, makes the strongest falter .”
Jesus said, “ Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life ? Seek first His kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well. Do not worry about tomorrow , for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own .”
As we enter a new year, let’s take it one day at a time!