About once a year, maybe twice if I'm lucky, I get together with what I call my "man friends." These are former coworkers whose paths no longer cross my own without some intentionality. Meeting with my man friends is nothing like meeting with my mom friends. Our conversation about our kids consists of this: "Your kids fine?" "Yep. How 'bout yours?" "Fine." And then we move on. Such a different world! These men are smarter, deeper, more informed, and better read than I am. They are thinkers and writers and storytellers. I'm so glad they keep me in their company.
As we sat around a Panera's table this summer, a rain storm raging outside the windows, we talked about the sad, scary state of the world. We all feel it. I don't know anyone who doesn't feel it, at least not anyone over the age of 12. After venting our concerns and frustrations, one friend asked, "So what is your response?" It was not a lofty question—"How should the church respond?"—but a practical one. A personal one.
That one question set off an avalanche of thoughts in my head. It drew together many threads from the past year. Thoughts I've had about my purpose and mission in this life. Things I've seen other people give their lives to but haven't quite latched onto myself. I don't know what clamor of words tumbled out of my mouth at the table that day, but I can succinctly give my answer now: I want to bring mature disciples to the throne of God. That is my offering, my worship. I want to be able to say, like the Apostle Paul, "We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ. For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me" (Colossians 1:28-29). Except instead of men, I want to be part of presenting "women and girls" complete in Christ. It's for them I want to labor.
Jean Fleming, commenting on this passage, wrote, "Paul desired to make a harvest offering to Christ, the fruit of his labors—mature followers of Christ. Paul was perplexed and pained. Why were they not living in the freedom and joy Christ offers? God intended more for them than just squeaking through the turnstile at heaven's gate."
I see followers of Christ living defeated, deceived lives, and I wonder the same thing. We were made for so much more.
That sounds like a very pie-in-the-sky answer to the practical question my friend asked. So here's the more down-to-earth answer: My response to the messy, scary chaos that we see on the news and feel in our souls is to point people toward the truth. Not one of a million ideas floated just today into the public forum posing as truth, but real truth. The kind that has always existed and will last through all eternity because it comes from the almighty maker of heaven and earth. In a topsy-turvy, anything-goes world, I want people to see that there is a true north. God's Word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our paths. I want to teach young girls that God's Word is the only place to find truth about their identity. I want to teach teenage girls that what they believe about God and His Word really does affect the way they act and talk at school. The Bible is not old-fashioned or irrelevant to what they're facing in their junior high or high school halls. It is their compass.
I can't change the world. I've got too much laundry to do, and carpool starts in half an hour. But investing in 5 or 25 or even 55 (dream big, right?) girls and women and pointing them to truth? Helping them see the power of Christ that lives in them? Exhorting them to truth and hope? Trusting God to let me be a part of making them mature disciples? That's what I can do. That's my response.
Have you thought about yours?
Tuesday, August 30, 2016
Sunday, August 14, 2016
Losing Jesus
I've had words spinning in my head for several weeks, thoughts on summer ending and school starting that I thought I needed to put out there and share with my tiny part of the world. I even got most of it written down, just yesterday.
And then today happened. I got a good, stiff slap-in-the-face. I needed it. Thank you, God, I needed it. It came in the form of a message spoken by a man named Jossy Chacko. If you haven't heard of him, google him and the work he's doing in India. His message was that we've lost Jesus. The church in the United States, in particular, has lost Jesus. He said we've lost our focus, our sense of mission. Like Mary and Joseph traveling home from Jerusalem at the end of Luke 2, we've gotten distracted by all that encumbers us and we've taken our eyes off Jesus, losing Him in the crowd.
Imagine this, Jossy explained. Imagine Michael Phelps standing atop his pool platform, ready to live out his life's purpose and mission. It's to swim. Just swim as fast as he can. But then someone switches on a TV. There's a game on, and it's Michael's favorite team. His eyes slip away from the pool. The settle on the game, quickly at first, fleetingly, but then he hears the roar of the TV crowd, and he has to look again. The game now has his attention, so much so that when the buzzer sounds to start his race, he falters. Instead of jumping in the pool, he stands on the platform, dazed and distracted. He's lost his focus.
There's no chance that's ever gonna happen, right? It's a picture so ridiculous that it makes its point well. Face-slappingly well. I have a purpose and a mission. To borrow from The Navigators, it's to know Christ and to make Him known. I was born for this. I've trained for it nearly my whole life. It's what I want to do more than anything in the world. And yet as I stand on the platform of my life, preparing to jump in and swim with all I've got, the distractions are everywhere. I actually jump in, swim for a while, and then crawl back out to get a closer look at the distractions.
They're no small distractions. The political election seems monumental. Issues with my husband's business buzz around our heads. The day-to-day work of raising these four kids--feeding them and getting them to soccer and looking into colleges--seems so big. There are broken things that need fixed and empty things that need filled. And just think of all the good books that could be read and the movies that could be watched. It's not that these things are evil or that they're wasting my time. It's that they steal away my focus. They take my eyes off Jesus. They keep me out of the pool. My Enemy knows he's not going to get me to renounce my faith or fall into a life of crime or prostitution, but if he can just keep me stressing over what to make for dinner, over which class my kids end up in and buying their school supplies, over how much I dislike transitions and cold weather and limited daylight hours, then he's got me in his grasp. He's pulled my eyes off Jesus. He's incapacitated me and kept me from my mission.
I am a truth crier. When truth is resonating deep within my soul, it pours out through my eyes. As I heard the message this morning, the tears dropped uncontrollably into my lap. Jossy Chacko was talking to me. I so easily lose Jesus. I lose sight of Him. I get worked up about this, that, and the other. I gripe and complain. I worry. I obsess about my schedule and a few gained pounds and who's going to drive who where. And Jesus gets fuzzier and fuzzier, until He's altogether out of focus.
Of the many responses I had this morning, one was an urge to apologize to my kids. From what they observe on a daily basis, they could easily think my purpose and mission is to keep the living room picked up or to keep myself in good shape. Cleanliness and physical fitness are good qualities, but they're not my mission. Do my kids see me living out my real mission? Would they say I've spent their lifetimes teaching them, more than anything else, about Jesus? Not just about being a good, responsible human being who can write a good sentence and earn a good living some day. Have I taught them that their number-one mission on this earth is to know Christ and make Him known and that everything else pales in comparison? I'm sad to say that I don't know how they would answer that question.
I go to bed tonight thankful for that slap in the face. It's still stinging. I hope it's stinging tomorrow and the next day and the next day. God, forgive me for being so easily distracted. Fix my eyes on You alone.
And then today happened. I got a good, stiff slap-in-the-face. I needed it. Thank you, God, I needed it. It came in the form of a message spoken by a man named Jossy Chacko. If you haven't heard of him, google him and the work he's doing in India. His message was that we've lost Jesus. The church in the United States, in particular, has lost Jesus. He said we've lost our focus, our sense of mission. Like Mary and Joseph traveling home from Jerusalem at the end of Luke 2, we've gotten distracted by all that encumbers us and we've taken our eyes off Jesus, losing Him in the crowd.
Imagine this, Jossy explained. Imagine Michael Phelps standing atop his pool platform, ready to live out his life's purpose and mission. It's to swim. Just swim as fast as he can. But then someone switches on a TV. There's a game on, and it's Michael's favorite team. His eyes slip away from the pool. The settle on the game, quickly at first, fleetingly, but then he hears the roar of the TV crowd, and he has to look again. The game now has his attention, so much so that when the buzzer sounds to start his race, he falters. Instead of jumping in the pool, he stands on the platform, dazed and distracted. He's lost his focus.
There's no chance that's ever gonna happen, right? It's a picture so ridiculous that it makes its point well. Face-slappingly well. I have a purpose and a mission. To borrow from The Navigators, it's to know Christ and to make Him known. I was born for this. I've trained for it nearly my whole life. It's what I want to do more than anything in the world. And yet as I stand on the platform of my life, preparing to jump in and swim with all I've got, the distractions are everywhere. I actually jump in, swim for a while, and then crawl back out to get a closer look at the distractions.
They're no small distractions. The political election seems monumental. Issues with my husband's business buzz around our heads. The day-to-day work of raising these four kids--feeding them and getting them to soccer and looking into colleges--seems so big. There are broken things that need fixed and empty things that need filled. And just think of all the good books that could be read and the movies that could be watched. It's not that these things are evil or that they're wasting my time. It's that they steal away my focus. They take my eyes off Jesus. They keep me out of the pool. My Enemy knows he's not going to get me to renounce my faith or fall into a life of crime or prostitution, but if he can just keep me stressing over what to make for dinner, over which class my kids end up in and buying their school supplies, over how much I dislike transitions and cold weather and limited daylight hours, then he's got me in his grasp. He's pulled my eyes off Jesus. He's incapacitated me and kept me from my mission.
I am a truth crier. When truth is resonating deep within my soul, it pours out through my eyes. As I heard the message this morning, the tears dropped uncontrollably into my lap. Jossy Chacko was talking to me. I so easily lose Jesus. I lose sight of Him. I get worked up about this, that, and the other. I gripe and complain. I worry. I obsess about my schedule and a few gained pounds and who's going to drive who where. And Jesus gets fuzzier and fuzzier, until He's altogether out of focus.
Of the many responses I had this morning, one was an urge to apologize to my kids. From what they observe on a daily basis, they could easily think my purpose and mission is to keep the living room picked up or to keep myself in good shape. Cleanliness and physical fitness are good qualities, but they're not my mission. Do my kids see me living out my real mission? Would they say I've spent their lifetimes teaching them, more than anything else, about Jesus? Not just about being a good, responsible human being who can write a good sentence and earn a good living some day. Have I taught them that their number-one mission on this earth is to know Christ and make Him known and that everything else pales in comparison? I'm sad to say that I don't know how they would answer that question.
I go to bed tonight thankful for that slap in the face. It's still stinging. I hope it's stinging tomorrow and the next day and the next day. God, forgive me for being so easily distracted. Fix my eyes on You alone.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)