You are faithful to me.
You always have been,
You always will be.
God doesn’t want you to be miserable
(I didn’t write this)
When people talk to me about geography in Nashville, I do one of two things:
1. I nod my head and pretend I know what part of the city they are referring to.
2. I tell them, “I don’t know where that is. We just moved here.”
Neither one of those two responses is entirely true. Pretending I know is not true and saying we just moved here isn’t true. We’ve lived here for 18 months. So why don’t I know my way around town yet?
Because I kissed geography goodbye when I was a kid.
I decided a long time ago that I didn’t have room in my head for street names or directions or addresses. I realized I had limited real estate in my brain and essentially told geography, “Kick rocks chump.”
Would it be fair to say that, as a young boy, I predicted a future in which we would all have handheld GPS units? Is the term “visionary” one we should use to describe me? Tough to say, but the reality is that years ago I bid adieu to both geography and math.
As a writer, math is my Achilles’ heel. The mere mention of numbers makes me cringe. I am approximately one year away from not being able to help my 8-year-old with her math homework. I hate math.
Which is why I used to think God would call me into the mission field to teach calculus.
My fear was that, if I gave God my life, if I turned over all my hopes and dreams to him, he would instantly make me train to become a “mathlete.” I’d have to get an abacus and complicated calculator and spend my days doing things I hated to do.
Why?
Because I thought that’s how God did things.
And I’m not the only one who thinks that way sometimes.
I do a joke when I speak to church groups. I say, “Every Christian knows that the first thing God does if you give him your life is make you move to Africa to become a missionary. You’ll go zero to hut in about 4.2 seconds.” And folks laugh, but there’s a crazy truth behind that joke. If we think the first thing God will do to us if we come close to him is the worst thing we can imagine, then we serve the worst God ever.
If you’re not wired to be a missionary in Guam, if nothing about that feels at all like what God has uniquely created you to do, why would he immediately call you to that task if you trusted him with your life?
That’s an extreme example, but you’d be surprised how often I saw that happen last year. Because I wrote a book about closing the gap between your day job and your dream job, a lot of people have talked with me about figuring out what they’re called to do.
And it’s amazing how many people think being a Christian means doing the opposite of what you’re passionate about.
A chaplain told me that one of his college students came to him and said, “I’m conflicted. I really want to serve the Lord, but I love film making. I don’t know what to do.”
That word “but” is such a beautiful trick by the enemy. That young man felt alive and filled with joy when he made films. In those moments, though, he couldn’t imagine that God was happy about that, or enjoyed him making films or could be served and glorified through film making.
He didn’t say, “I really want to serve the Lord, and I love film making.” He said, “I really want to serve the Lord, but I love film making.”
I don’t know how exactly we got here. I think, in some ways, it’s an extreme over-correction to the prosperity gospel. When you talk about how good God is, people can’t wait to say, “He’s not an ATM machine in the sky who magically gives you whatever you want?” But who ever said that? Who said that a life filled with the joy of God was devoid of hardship or never full of moments where you must mourn as loud as you dance?
I’m sad for a culture where there is serving God on one side, and on the other side of that is joy. Where those two things are believed to be separate. Where we are forced to take our individual talents, put them under our bed, apologize about them and try to fit the handful of “serving opportunities” that match our definition of Christian.
I think back to the conversion of Paul.
Do you remember before he became a Christian? When he was called Saul?
He was a bold, powerful, vigilant persecutor of believers. And then God met him on the road to Damascus and turned him into a quiet, meek bookkeeper who spent his remaining days in a cave alone transcribing ancient texts.
Not at all! God turned him into a bold, powerful, vigilant promoter of belief.
He didn’t squelch what was inside Paul. He didn’t ignore the talents he himself had placed there. If anything, he called them out in deeper, louder, more beautiful ways. He showed Paul what it really meant to be Paul!
Maybe you will be a missionary. Maybe that’s the call you will get. But if it’s not, please don’t for a second believe that God wants you to be miserable. That he wants to call you into an adventure where your true gifts will shrivel up and die. That his chief aim is to make sure you never experience joy in his presence.
Because that’s not the kind of God who would ever love you enough to send his son to die for you
from: http://www.jonacuff.com/stuffchristianslike/2012/02/does-god-want-you-to-be-miserable/
Before the throne of God above
I have a strong and perfect plea
A great high Priest who’s name is Love
Who ever lives and pleads for me
My name is graven on His hand
My name is written on His heart
I know that while in heaven He stands
No tongue can bid me thence depart
When satan tempts me to despair
and tells me of the guilt within
upward I look and see Him there
Who made an end of all my sin
Because a sinless Savior died
my sinful soul is counted free
For God the just is satisfied
to look on Him and pardon me
Hallelujah
Praise the One Risen Son of God.
Behold Him there, the risen Lamb
My perfect spotless righteousness
The great unchangeable I AM
The King of Glory and of grace
One in Himself, I cannot die
My soul is purchased by His blood
My life is hid with Christ on high
With Christ my Savior and my God
-Before the Throne
Passion is the heart set free to pursue that which is truly worthy. Those who set their hearts on that which is most worthy – the glory of God – live with joy-filled abandon. Their hearts are both seized and satisfied with the ambition for Jesus to be ardently worshiped. That love comes to dominate and integrate all other desires so as to live in the freedom of single-minded purpose. -from Perspectives, the reader
“We’re not talking about people who are lost and don’t know the Lord; we’re talking about people who are lost and don’t know the Lord and there’s no one that speaks their language that can tell them. There is no church that exists…That’s an unreached people group.” – a Pioneer in Central Asia
Sometimes things happen and all I can think is, “How do I even get into this situation?”
That’s what happened one night last week. I was smack in the middle of small group when I got a text from a woman I know asking me to call her right then. Once I made sure she was alright, I told her I would call back after small group. So at ten o’clock I drove home, so ready to just get in bed. I called her back when I got home and found out that she had called to ask me if she could borrow $20 to pay the Sheriff’s fee to bail her daughter, who I am extremely close to, out of jail.
Sometimes, I hesitate to post blogs because the whole purpose is for them to make God greater and me less. I don’t ever want anyone to think I’m a good person or any of that. I’m not. Only He is good. Seriously. But in this situation, I can assure you that if it hadn’t been for the Lord, I would have gone to bed let everything get worked out the next day. It is only because of Him that I acted the way I did.
Because honestly, I just wanted to go to bed. However, sometimes God has different plans. I asked the Lord what I should do, and He brought “defend the cause of the needy” to mind. I had a lot of arguments about why I didn’t need to do that. I didn’t know where the money was really going, I could do a lot of other things with that money, it was late, blah blah blah. But when I asked again, I got the same response.
I made some calls just verify the fee and that you could really bail someone out at that hour. The woman at the Sheriff’s office was incredibly kind and told me she felt like it would be okay to do it.
As I went downstairs to leave, my roommate had overheard my calls and asked what was going on. I explained it to her, griping about how I end up in these situations, and she asked to pray before I left.
She thanked God that I get in these situations. And she pointed out something that God really developed as I was driving to the house to deliver the money.
Jesus paid the price for my ransom. He set me free. He paid the cost so that I could be set free from my chains.
And by helping pay bail, I had the enormous blessing of understanding just a teeny tiny bit of what it must have felt like for Jesus – at the incomprehensibly high cost of His own sinless life and blood – to pay the price for my freedom.
Wow.
I went by the bank and drove on to the house. The lady came outside, and I handed her the money. She began to assure me that she was getting a check tomorrow, and she would pay me back. I told her she didn’t need to pay me back. Relief washed over her. Jesus didn’t ask for anything back from us, so who was I to demand repayment? I wanted to pray with her, but I didn’t want to make it seem like I felt entitled to because I had given her money. I did tell her, though, what God taught me in the car. We kept talking and it ended up that I was able to pray over her.
So I got home late and with $20 less, but I had the incomparable blessing of understanding another aspect of the love Jesus has for us.
Ps. Here’s how well my Father provides for me. Two days later, I got a card from my grandmother, with a $20 bill tucked inside. (I hadn’t told her anything.)
And all will see the glory of this man
With fire in his eyes
He’s jealous for his bride
He’s faithful to the end
He’s faithful to my heart
“If Christians would really live according to the teachings of Christ, as found in the Bible, all of India would be Christian today.” -mahatma gandhi
missions
“We will only advance in our evangelistic work as fast and as far as we advance on our knees. Prayer opens the channel between a soul and God; prayerlessness closes it. Prayer releases the grip of Satan’s power; prayerlessness increases it. That is why prayer is so exhausting and so vital. If we believed it, the prayer meeting would be as full as the church.” – Alan Redpath
“It is true that Bible prayers in word and print are short, but the praying men of the Bible were with God through many a sweet and holy wrestling hour. They won by few words but long waiting.” – E. M. Bounds
”I wasn’t God’s first choice for what I’ve done for China. I don’t know who it was. It must have been a man—a well–educated man. I don’t know what happened. Perhaps he died. Perhaps he wasn’t willing. And God looked down… and saw Gladys Aylward. And God said, ‘Well, she’s willing.’” – Gladys Aylward
“I am ready to burn out for God. I am ready to endure any hardship, if by any means I might save some. The longing of my heart is to make known my glorious Redeemer to those who have never heard.” – William Burns
“The motive is this, ‘Oh! that God could be glorified, that Jesus might see the reward of his sufferings! Oh! that sinners might be saved, so that God might have new tongues to praise him, new hearts to love him! Oh! that sin were put an end to, that the holiness, righteousness, mercy, and power of God might be magnifi ed!’ This is the way to pray; when thy prayers seek God’s glory, it is God’s glory to answer thy prayers.” C. H. Spurgeon
“If ten men are carrying a log – nine of them on the little end and one at the heavy end – and you want to help, which end will you lift on?” – William Borden, as he reflected on the numbers of Christian workers in the U.S. as compared to those among unreached peoples
When James Calvert went out as a missionary to the cannibals of the Fiji Islands, the ship captain tried to turn him back, saying, “You will lose your life and the lives of those with you if you go among such savages.” To that, Calvert replied, “We died before we came here.”
“God is pursuing with omnipotent passion a worldwide purpose of gathering joyful worshipers for Himself from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. He has an inexhaustible enthusiasm for the supremacy of His name among the nations. Therefore, let us bring our affections into line with His, and, for the sake of His name, let us renounce the quest for worldly comforts and join His global purpose.” – John Piper
“The command has been to ‘go,’ but we have stayed – in body, gifts, prayer and influence. He has asked us to be witnesses unto the uttermost parts of the earth … but 99% of Christians have kept puttering around in the homeland.” – Robert Savage, Latin American Mission
“Never pity missionaries; envy them. They are where the real action is – where life and death, sin and grace, Heaven and Hell converge.” – Robert C. Shannon
http://www.historymakers.info/stuff/resources.html
