Tag: God

Identity

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4671-tree-water It's been 2 years since I stepped down as worship leader of our last church and I have to say it's been the absolute best thing God has done in our lives.  God has revealed the idols in my heart and needless to say is chipping them away.  It is indeed a slow and painful process because I put a lot of years of hard work in to building them.  John Calvin gets credit for one of the best observations ever made in post canon theology. He said, "The human heart is a factory of idols…Everyone of us is, from his mother's womb, expert in inventing idols."

The idols I have created are far too many to name, but I will let you in on one of them.  One of my biggest idols has been identity seeking. Before I was in ministry, I developed a pattern of moving from job to job.  I would be content for 2 or 3 years until I realized it wasn't fulfilling enough.  Instead of sticking it out and enduring the trials I was facing which usually centered around my relationships with superiors, I opted for lateral movement hoping something would click inside and I would settle down.  After being laid off from a company after 8 years of employ, I bounced around some more all the while thinking that my musical gifts had to be the ticket to escaping this volatile existence.  I thought that once I became a vocational worship leader that my heart would be filled, that my identity would be fulfilled. Many good folks along the way were enablers to maintaining the sheen of this idol.  Anytime someone complimented something I did or a song I performed, my idol was being polished. It wasn't their intent, but I was more than willing to let them.  I wish I could say my motivation behind serving in the church has always been to lead people to Christ, but mostly it has been done to lead people to myself. 

As a worship leader, I soon realized the frustration in securing my idenity through my career.  The biggest problem in finding your identity in anything other than Christ is that there is always opposition. There is no clear path to finding yourself in this world or anything in this world apart from Jesus.  You discover the opposition comes from other identity seekers like the people you work with and those you work for. The evolutionary theory almost seems plausible as the larger egos win out in a spiritual survivor of the fittest. 

I struggled mightily behind the scenes trying to reconcile my identity with the self-image I created. Thankfully the fork in the road arrived prior to the breaking point. Through wise counsel, I took the honest path which seemed to lead through the forest of uncertainty, while the disingenious path looked clear and comfortable. Now, here I am 2 years later and not where I expected to be. In fact, I would have fought this path tooth and nail 5 years ago.

Someone asked me recently if I enjoyed my job.  I told him that I don't enjoy what I do,  but I have more joy in the midst of what I'm doing if that makes any sense.  I want a life like that tree in Psalms, the one planted by the stream.  Though it's leaves wither, the tree never dies. It flourishes in all seasons. That's my desire, to not only weather the conditions of each seasonal turn, but to flourish in fruit-bearing joy. That is the identiy I long for.

Primed for Growth

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Painting-a-room-toutx About a month ago my wife asked me to paint the bathroom.  I did not disagree with this notion as the unattractive wallpaper that had been there since we moved in 14 years ago was beginning to peel and reveal an even uglier wallpaper underneath.  The bathroom is small so I figured that it was time to "knock it out" in a couple of days.  As most of my friends know, I am not a painter.  I don't have the patience required and usually hire the job out to the professionals.  This time, however, I decided it was time to take matter into my own hands. I was going to do this! 

I soon discovered that very few home projects are as simple as slapping paint on the walls.  I had to research what to do with the wallpaper.  It came down to a choice between peeling it off or painting over it.  Either way, neither option can be done easily in a couple minutes. Once I started the process of painting this bathroom, I learned very quickly that this was not going to happen overnight.  I discovered that it takes oil based primer to seal the wallpaper from the wet joint compound we were going to apply to the wall.   I also learned that I needed a water based latex primer to go on top of the texturized compound so that the paint would not be absorbed by the compound and lose it's sheen.  It's the sheen of the paint that makes the wall look beautiful in the end and while I hate all the steps involved in painting a wall, I know that they are important in achieving the look I want.

This experience is such a parallel to the spiritual journey God has me on right now.  I know God brought me and my family to The Village Church for a very important purpose.  I am his project. 

God understands what it takes to create His likeness in a human soul.  He did not leave it up to me to complete this project.  The natural response is to slap paint on the walls of my soul with religiosity and good works and bypass the necessary steps.  Let's face it, primer and joint compound are boring. Paint is exciting!  No one goes to the home improvement store to "pick' out their primer.  When we choose paint, we  are choosing color.  We are looking for fresh, new, and exciting.  It is the paint that catches our eye and stirs our senses when we walk in to a freshly painted room.  But as professionals will tell you, every element beneath the paint has a big impact on how the paint adheres and how it ultimately looks. 

The Christian faith is very much like painting a room, but our fallen nature would prefer to bypass the gospel primer and exchange it for the sheen of self-help.  We want to have stronger marriages and manage our finances better, but as my pastor Matt Chandler has said, "We want his stuff, but not Him."  Very few are interested in the foundational work that must be done.  No one wants their ugliness exposed and peeled away.  No one really wants to pay the price of reconciliation and repentance.  They want pure hearts but are not willing to let the surgeon's scalpel circumcise their hearts. In short, most people do not want the gospel. 

There is no shortcut to being conformed to the image of Christ.  There is peeling, scraping, and priming before that coat of paint is ever applied.  The Cross is the joint compound, the Gospel is the primer, and the painter is God Himself.

Sovereignty is for the birds

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Swarm This evening I witnessed a huge flock of birds as they cast their cooperative shadow upon a busy intersection.  They swirled around as if playing a fluttering game of musical chairs!  As they settled momentarily upon a conglomerate of perches ranging from tree limbs to electrical wires, I was suddenly romanced by thoughts of the sovereignty of God.  Entranced by the realities of migration, I was reminded that these ordinary birds boast extraordinary instinctive prowess.  It seems very reasonable to "fly south" before inhospitable climates approach, yet unreasonable to expect a bird to possess the faculties required to make such sound decisions.  Thus, the birds have good reason to fly south every November, though they possess not the ability to comprehend or explain the reason for doing so. 

God's sovereignty is crystal clear in every ordinary taken-for-granted occurrence in the natural world whether it be bird migration, working ant colonies, or the unstoppable force of arctic glaciers.  When we take a closer look, it's not a sovereignty that is passive, but one that it is causal.  In other words, our God not only formed man from the dust of the earth, He continually forms man with the fire of His Spirit.  He doesn't merely set things in motion, He is motion!  His hand not only points the way for the migrating fowl, It transforms the seasons which inspire migration! He is not only the wind beneath the wings of the sparrow, He is the flexor of each wing of every flying creature! He directs every movement, glide, and flap by the Word of His mouth!

All of this sounds glorious when we're talking about birds, but how does the reality of God's sovereignty affect our hearts?  As image-bearers we love the Light who guides our steps, but as broken mirrors we despise a God who has already plotted our course.  As redeemed, we love a God who plans our future, but as depraved we hate a God who decided the ending before speaking the words "let there be light".  We love that God has given us a choice, but hate that God has made our choice.

We don't know God's reasons for the suffering in this world, yet we incessantly demand a reason.  When we do, that's pure unbelief.  It's unbelieving and short-sighted to define God's sovereignty as somehow owing an explanation. As Tim Keller said, "If
you have a God big enough to be mad at for not stopping evil, then you
have a God big enough for having reasons why He hasn't stopped evil
that you can't conceive of.

Meanwhile,  the sparrow doesn't resent his annual trek . He can not conceive of a reason to fly south, but then again he can not conceive of a reason not to.