Keep Plowing

Last week I had the privelige of being invited to speak at a spiritual retreat at a school for troubled teens in the Dominican Republic. There are about 40 high school students there who have been sent by their parents to go through a Bible based, boot camp type school to deal with a wide variety of issues. For a week, they suspended classes and I was the speaker every morning and evening.

Most of these students are very much hardened to the world and to the Lord. It was a challenge to say the least. I was astonished when the two oldest boys, who had been in the program for years and were the leading “atheists” on campus each went to counselors after the service the first night and said, “I am tired of fighting God. It is too hard to not believe.” The next night one of them got up and read an essay he had written about stepping out to trust God. It sent shock waves through the students. By the end of the week, a third to half of the students had given their lives to the Lord. I ended up spending four days doing back to back counseling with students. There was no hype, it was just an awesome, spontaneous move of God!

One day I got to speak to just the staff. I stressed to them that, by no means was I under the illusion that what was going on had anything to do with me. I was just some guy passing through and getting to do some harvesting. None of it would have been possible if they had not been there day after day, month after month, year after year planting and watering the seeds of God’s word and love. Some of these people had gone round and round with these young men for up to four years, then suddenly, everything broke loose. I would describe myself as a migrant farm working coming through for the harvest season. The teachers, counselors, and house parents are the farmers. They have loved, prayed, and shed tears over the students. They have sacrificed by living in the Dominican Republic (a beautiful place but without the comforts of home like reliable electricity and water). They are the true heroes!

The problem is that there aren’t too many of us who want to be the planter or the waterers. It is great fun to be the harvester. It was an incredible experience. But it isn’t always so much fun being the one to love on kids who reject you and your Lord. I run a youth center and after school program that doesn’t always seem to be bearing fruit. But I am called to plow up the ground. I may never be the harvester in these kids’ lives. I may never even get to see the harvest. Am I still willing to plow and plant and water? Many times I get frustrated and want to quit. But there is no harvest without the guys doing the dirty work all year long. So keep plowing and thank God for the times you get to swoop in and harvest where someone else has been faithful to prepare the ground for you!

What Are YOU Waiting For?

It is funny to read in 2 Peter that people were already questioning YOUR return to earth way back then. They were saying, “where is the promise of HIS coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were before from the beginning of creation…” (3:4). If the first generation of the church was asking what was taking so long, how much more those of us waiting 2,000 years later! The interesting thing is that YOU answered the question all the way back then. We spend so much time trying to prove that such and such prophesy has to be fulfilled before YOU can return but in this passage, YOU told us what YOU are waiting for.

Peter writes that (YOU are) not slow in keeping (YOUR) promises as some count slowness, but (are) patient toward (us). Not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. (9). YOUR patience and mercy are holding YOU back from returning before more people have the chance to know YOU. It is not about prophesy and history. It is all about YOUR wanting to see less people spend their eternity apart from YOU.

That means that if I want to move things along, I need to lead more people toward YOU. There is nothing I can do about the mark of the beast or the antichrist. But I can help bring about the culmination of history by partnering with YOU to help people know YOU.

Believing For Dead Stuff

Faith is an interesting thing. The moment we have what we had faith for, it is no longer faith. It does not take faith to call God our provider when we do not have any unpaid bills. It does not take faith to call Him our healer when we are healthy. It takes faith to rely on God when things do not appear to be under control. In Heb. 11:19 it says that Abraham had faith when he offered up Isaac because “he considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead…” In other words, Abraham had faith when circumstances seemed to be going against the promise and vision that God had put in his heart. He had faith that even if the vision died, God could raise it back from the dead. Faith is believing that even if it looks like everything is falling apart, God is still in control and there is nothing, not even death, that can put the final nail in the coffin of His promises for His people. I have had some promises and visions that seem to have died but I believe that God can raise them from the dead. Again I am haunted by the words of Erwin McManus who said, “If the cross teaches us anything, it teaches us that sometimes God comes through after we’ve been killed.”

Lord, give me the kind of faith to believe even when everything seems to be dead. Nothing, not even death, can make things too hard for YOU. I trust that YOU are in control even when I can’t see it.

Patient Enough to Hear God

Very often I get frustrated with trying to hear the voice of God. Each day I pray and I try to quiet my spirit and listen to what HE is saying. Often, I hear little truths that excite my spirit and bring joy and peace. Many of these truths are typed in this blog. But, I don’t often hear “the big one.” We all want to hear the big one. Something like, “I created you to do…” “Go to… and do…” etc… (I know, that was a lot of … s for one run on sentence…). I want the shaking room, the audible voice, the burning bush but it doesn’t seem to happen.

Then the other day I was reading the story of the burning bush and noticed a few things. The first thing that was that the burning bush didn’t happen to Moses every day either. Many times I think that the people in the Bible experienced miracles and the audible voice of God all the time. After all, that is what happens in all the stories so it should be happening in my life all the time, right? The problem with this thinking is that the Bible records the highlights. It would be really boring if Moses recorded his diary everyday. ‘Got up today. It was hot. The sheep stink. Think I will lead them toward that funny looking rock in the east today…’ I often forget that that little piece of thin paper I can see through and where the ink from my marker bleeds through
represents 40 years of Moses’ life that was a lot more like mine than like the day the bush caught fire.For 40 years there was nothing worth writing about in his life!!! For 40 years he lived in the desert and worked for his father-in-law. He didn’t even own his own sheep. For 40 years he knew he was called to be the deliverer of Israel but was light years away from being that. But he kept getting up and doing what God gave him to do even though he probably hated doing it. Could I be patient enough to do what God has given me to do for 40 years without understanding the point or seeing the hope for the future? I know I can’t. That is the sad part. It was only after another boring, long, hot day of doing nothing of significance that Moses heard God’s voice.

A big part of the problem is that God is outside of time and I am not. HE stands outside of the timeline and sees the whole thing at once. HE sees my yesterday, now, and tomorrow all at once. So when I am whining about not seeing how today can amount to anything, HE stand there and says, “I see the answer. Just hang on a minute, it is coming.” Therein lies another problem for me. God can say, “wait a minute” but HIS minutes are much longer than mine. The Bible says to HIM a day is like thousand years and a thousand years like a day. So an hour to God is 41 years and 4 months to me (I am not being literal here, only illustrating that time is different to God). HIS minute is like 251 days and 21 hours to me. A second is 4 days and 4 hours. If I could get this deep down in my spirit, I could be patient enough to hear God speak to me.

Alas, most of the time I am not patient enough. I cry out because from my perspective things will never change. That points out another problem with my puny little brain. I tend to look at things and extrapolate the worst possible outcome. God looks at things and projects the best possible outcome. HIS outcome will be better than I could ever think or ask if I could just be patient enough to hear HIM. After all, faith and fear are two sides of the same coin. They both project our vision of the future. Fear projects the worst, faith projects the best. I am called to look in faith. Not faith that the circumstances will work out how I think they should but faith in the ONE WHO stands outside of time and sees how HE will work things out for my good. In other words, faith is not nagging God into doing something but holding on to the God Who is doing something.

This all hinges on the question of whether or not I can hold on long enough to hear God speak and see God work. I often say, “I can’t take it any longer.” When I say that, I might as well say, “God You are a liar.” The Bible says that HE will not allow me to be tempted/tested beyond that which I can handle. So, if HE leaves me in it, I must be able to handle it. HE has more faith in me than I do.

Lord, give me the strength to hold on. YOU are the key to all of this. If I know YOU are there, I can go through anything. If I know YOU are in control, I can trust that YOU will work things out for my good, whatever that might look like.