This is part 3 of Grant’s “Reluctant Obedient” devotional series. Part 1. Part 2.

We’ve been talking about the Reluctant Obedient, and there is a practice that he knows that he must become proficient at: spiritual disciplines. Those little practices like time in the Bible, serving, praying, and worshiping that put a person in a place to be transformed by God. Some of them are easier than others. All of them have incredible benefits, and a few of them are an outright joy. But here’s the cold, hard truth about spiritual disciplines:

It’s all fine and dandy until it rains.

Think about it. Running, exercise: fine and dandy. Until it’s 31 degrees and raining sideways. Studying for a test in a subject you love, like math. Until they start using words in the equations instead of numbers. Painting landscapes. Until it rains.

Obeying Jesus: Learning to obey Him is fine and dandy and comes with some great benefits at the start. Giving money away and seeing how it advances the Kingdom. No more gossiping and seeing it change your spirit. No sex before marriage and watching it improve your dating relationships. Spending more time with Him through Scripture study and prayer and watching your stress level decrease.

Then it rains.

An unexpected crisis at work. A call from the principal’s office. A financially devastating bill. A downward turn in the health of a loved one. Loss of a job. Loss of a marriage.

And when it rains, it pours.

Our enemy loves these opportunities. “Where’s God now?” “Why is He silent?” “If there really was a God, and if he really loved you, this wouldn’t be happening.”

Time for my soul to hit a return volley to that noise…

Psalm 121

I lift up my eyes to the hills.
From where does my help come?
My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot be moved;
he who keeps you will not slumber.
Behold, he who keeps Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord is your keeper;
the Lord is your shade on your right hand.
The sun shall not strike you by day,
nor the moon by night.

The Lord will keep you from all evil;
he will keep your life.
The Lord will keep
your going out and your coming in
from this time forth and forevermore.

The tricky thing about hills is that they look closer than what they really are. But they also look smaller than what they really are.

God’s help will never be early. He’ll be on time. His time. Not our time. That hill from where my help comes from looks closer than what it really is…but I still trust Him.

When God’s help arrives, it is always more than what we need. It’s gracious. It’s overwhelming. It’s bigger than what it first appears.

The Reluctant Obedient learns the discipline of keeping his/her eyes up toward those hills. It’s not glamorous work. It’s not the kind of stuff that gets written in greeting cards or bumper stickers. It’s seldom public. It’s the grit of faith.

It’s developed over time and with constant begging for it to our Father.

Apparently there are many of us that connect deeply with C.S. Lewis and his claim to be the “most reluctant Christian” in the world. I have a theory about this.

We want to be happy. We think we know what will make us happy. We seek after what we think will make us happy only to find out that it does not make us happy. We find that one (more) thing that we think will finally make us happy, and the cycle continues.

And not all of the things we pursue are bad things. In fact, some of them are quite good: great family life, fulfilling career, serving others or community, making a difference in the world… But consider this thought from Psalm 1:

1 How happy is the man who does not follow the advice of the wicked or take the path of sinners or join a group of mockers!

2 Instead, his delight is in the Lord’s instruction, and he meditates on it day and night.

So there are two forces at work here. The first force is ‘the advice of the wicked’ and ‘the path of sinners’ and ‘a group of mockers.’ At first glance, I’d say this really isn’t a huge temptation, because who wants to be the wicked, the sinner, or the mocker, right?

It’s never that straightforward though. How many people have pursued greatness in their careers and earned truckloads of money only to realize that they’ve lived an entirely selfish, wasted life? Or how many people have pursued a deep meaningful relationship only for it to become an illicit affair or pregnancy out of wedlock? How many people thought more free time, more entertainment, more whatever would make us happy only to realize they wasted a lot of time, money, and energy?

I think the core of what Psalm 1 is saying is simply this:  when pursuing happiness, don’t take the world’s advice. Instead, take time to give careful thought to the instruction of the Lord. ‘Delight’ in that. Psalm 1 goes on to say this about the one who delights in the Lord’s instruction:

3 He is like a tree planted besides streams of water… whatever he does prospers.

6 For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to ruin.

The journey of the reluctant obedient starts with this understanding. I don’t have to chase after the wind anymore, I can plant myself by a stream that will never cease to nourish and grow me. I can delight in His ways and be sure that He is watching over me.

This is faith:

Putting something into action that doesn’t have an immediate return on the investment.

Staying and working in a marriage that you feel like leaving.

Giving grace and forgiveness to someone that you feel like seeking revenge on.

Spending time in prayer and in the Word when you feel tired, hurried, and stressed.

Practicing thankfulness when you actually feel like you don’t have enough.

A few years ago we had some dear friends drop a major life bomb on us on a Saturday night. They were divorcing. She wanted another man and didn’t love her husband anymore. Not only were they dear friends, but they were highly active in leadership at their church. We prayed over the phone and cried as well. Before we hung up, my friend asked what I was preaching about the next morning.

I said, “Who cares about that right now?”

He said, “God does. I’m getting up and going to church tomorrow to worship. To pray. To praise. I don’t feel like it. But if this marriage has any chance of surviving, it’s got to be done by Him. And if I’m going to my church in the morning, somebody is coming to yours needing to hear from you about the goodness of God, His grace, His love, and His pursuit of us. So tell me, what are you teaching on in the morning?”

Years later, I have no idea what I taught about that morning. I do know that I watched them both put in years of reluctant obedience to God’s ways. Today, their marriage is as strong as ever.

That’s the journey of the reluctant obedient: to do life according to His ways, believing that it is putting them in a place to be constantly fed.

I stumbled across this quote today from C.S. Lewis:

“That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929, I gave in and admitted that God was God and knelt and prayed; perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.”

This is the same C.S. Lewis that wrote Mere Christianity, The Great Divorce, and The Chronicles of Narnia. It’s the same C.S. Lewis that befriended J.R.R. Tolkien as he wrote The Lord of The Rings. He’s probably the most quoted Christian author and probably the most read as well.

It’s a bit surprising to learn that he was 32 years old when he finally was ‘checkmated by God.’ He wrote, that after years of arguing and discussion, he finally had to deal with “the unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet.” It would take him another six years before he finally wrote a book about his new faith.

Lewis was consumed by logic and philosophy, and that ultimately became his undoing as an atheist. For him, Christianity was true not because of what it made him feel. In fact, he was adamant the rest of his life that if feelings were the mark of truth, he’d remained a hedonistic humanist. It was much easier to live with that philosophy than the one of Jesus.

Eventually, this cold hard logic and philosophy led to a softening of his heart and a collection of writings that has had an unmeasurable impact. But it was his reluctant obedience to the pursuit of God that made the difference.

This is how all growth in people happens. Face a truth and then allow your life to be transformed to that truth. Adjust to the truth, and the feelings will one day follow. It’s the decision to obey, regardless of feelings, that makes the difference.

Tithing. Daily time in the Word. Prayer. Forgiveness. Grace. These are actions not based on feelings. In fact, if we waited for our feelings to motivate us, we would be waiting for a long time. But something strange happens along the journey of the reluctant obedient…

The feelings follow…eventually.

That same C.S. Lewis would also write this, in Mere Christianity:

“Faith, in the sense in which I am here using the word, is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.”

So if you are struggling with obeying some issue today, or struggling to ‘give in’ to Christ… Go ahead and reluctantly obey. Tell your feelings where to get off. Put them in their proper place, and then you can start exercising real faith.

Eventually… The feelings will follow.

My mom is obsessed with Phantom of the Opera. She sees it every chance she gets, but somehow, someway… I’ve never seen it live. Until last Thursday. Mom and Dad got me a ticket to see it in Kansas City.

I picked my parents up, and we headed downtown early to get some lunch. We ate at Cosentino’s Market just down the street from the Music Hall. We talked about the story of Phantom, and their past experiences with the story. I was already imagining the dropping of the chandelier!

As we walked up to the Music Hall, the Phantom of The Opera truck was on the side street. We took our picture in front of it, completely looking like a bunch of tourists. We had first row balcony box seats. Dead center. Wonderful seats.

Waiting for the orchestra to tune felt like hours, but finally we heard that wonderful Concert A ring out. People stopped milling about and grabbed their seats. Talking quieted down to a whisper. Every ear and eye focused on center stage.

Then there is THAT moment. That moment of silence. The theater goes dark. The audience breathes in. That moment right there. That mystical second and a half where we all know that something divine, something incredible is about to happen, and we are going to be a part of it.

The opening chimes of Masquerade fill the room and we are off…

We don’t need to be taught how to worship. We sometimes need to be reminded to prepare to worship. We need those shared moments to bring it to focus. This way we can share in the anticipation that something mystical, something divine is about to happen, and we are going to be a part of it.

The show was fantastic. Fascinating. I’ve been humming All I Ask Of You for days now, but my preparation and anticipation fed that experience. Part of the reason it was so wonderful was because I wasn’t going to let it be anything but that.

On Sunday morning, something mystical and divine happens, and we get to be a part of it…when we’ve prepared for it. When we stop and let the orchestra of our heart tune, when we take that breath to let the ‘curtain’ fall and get completely focused on what is about to happen. When we prepare for worship…that’s more than half the battle.

Following the rabbit around the tree and into the hole turned out to be a lot more difficult than first imagined. I remember making my entire family late because I had to tie my shoes myself. I didn’t want any help. I didn’t want any parent to do it for me either

I can do this all by myself.

What a disaster, and it wasn’t even true! Have you thought about how complicated tying your shoe would be if you had to figure it out all by yourself with nobody else’s help? It’d be nearly impossible.

Yet when it comes to dating and marriage, it’s astonishing how many people try to do exactly that: figure out that complicated mess of string on their own. We’ve got the numbers to prove how nearly impossible it is.

41%   Divorce rate for 1st marriage
60%   Divorce rate for 2nd marriage
73%   Divorce rate for 3rd marriage or more
80%   Divorce rate for couples who live together first

It’s pretty clear that our culture has no clue what it’s doing when it comes to figuring out the knot of healthy dating and marital relationships. And we still seem to have a large group of strong-willed people who want to figure it out on their own. Why? Why is there such a resistance to dating and doing marriage God’s way?

“It’s old fashioned.”
“It’s out-dated.”
“It’s not realistic.”

Dating and marriage is infinitely more complicated than tying shoes, but what if there was a completely different set of numbers? Like a 100% chance to find a spouse that has both beauty and character? Or a 100% chance of a dating relationship that pleases God? Or maybe a 100% chance you’ll be in a marriage that you LOVE being in.

Like those numbers? How much would those numbers be worth to you? Would you buy that book? Attend that seminar?

I’m convinced if more people would study Song of Solomon and model their dating life and their marriage after it, the numbers on marriage would be drastically different. God wants us to have the best: the best dating experience and the best marriage experience. He’s put the blueprint in front of us in Song of Solomon.

The next 6 weeks we’re going to unpack it all and have a ton of laughs along the way. We will walk through all the phases of dating, courtship, marriage, and even the later stages of marriage.

This may just be the most important book on marriage ever written.

Ever.

Take the journey with us. We start it this Sunday.

“If you want to build a ship, don’t command men to gather wood, don’t divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.” – Antoine de Saint Exupery

I love this quote! It has easy application to the Biblical command to go and teach.

If you want to build God’s Kingdom, inspire people to yearn for their King.

It’s said by many statisticians that Christ followers have been trained with at least five methods for sharing our faith, and yet, we live in a post-Christian world. Have we relied on training rather than yearning? To yearn means to have an intense feeling of longing for or to be filled with compassion or warm feeling for something.

We love to see our friends and families at church! We catch up on the latest. We schedule coffee dates. We feel good about being in church. But when was the last time we yearned for church so that we could worship freely in Spirit and in truth? (John 4:24) What lyrics recently broke down our walls and left us feeling like a raw, open wound before Jesus? Do we prepare ourselves during the week to hear from God through the spoken word? Are we praying with perseverance for the people who will be sitting with us in the worship center? Do we have compassion and warm feelings for being the church?

It’s frustrating for me as an employee of a church that occasionally, in those times scheduled for worship, well, I’m just on the clock. When those times happen, it’s easy to know that there wasn’t enough preparation in my own heart during the week. There wasn’t enough time spent yearning Jesus. Not enough time spent with Jesus in His word. Not enough time listening to Gods direction. Ignoring the Spirit’s nudgings when out and about with people. Closing my eyes to the needs all around me that require me to be the hands and feet of Jesus. Too much time spent just doing my daily thing.

The words to a song come to mind as I think of what it means to yearn…”Turn your eyes upon Jesus, Look full in his wonderful face; And the things of earth will grow strangely dim In the light of His glory and grace.”

Father, we want to yearn for You, but it’s hard. There’s so much life to conflict with this yearning. We want to be the person that people see Jesus in. We truly desire to make a difference in our world by serving You. Show us how.

Amen

-by Mari Parker

Are you tired from the hurry and go pace of life?

Are you drained from the people in your life taking a piece of you?

Are you exhausted from trying to fill the space around you with your relevance?

A few weeks ago, a friend and I were driving to a meeting and talking about life.  We wondered when should the time come to hit a pause button.

Ecclesiastes tells us there is a time for everything. “…a time for planting and a time for uprooting what was planted, …a time for tearing down and a time for building up, …a time for crying and a time for laughing, …a time for mourning and a time for dancing, …a time for searching and a time for losing”

A pause button: why is it needed?

1. to champion others, and
2. to get back on track with who we are

It’s our turn. Right now. We have the task of being Jesus and sharing Jesus. That’s on us. Now. A whole lot of people had that task before us, and a whole lot of other people will have it after we are gone.  It is our job to champion them. Make known those heroes of the faith who came before. Speak of them. Learn from them. Be inspired by them, and be motivated to do your part. We have to do this right, so those after us have a stronger foundation on which to stand.

Verse 13 of the last chapter of Ecclesiastes helps with the second part of why a pause button is needed: “The end of the matter…Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.” That’s also our how-to! This is how we get back on track. Fear God means to respect him. To know him. To be changed by him.

What would a pause button look like for you? A quiet ride through the plains of Western Kansas? A weekend get-away with some friends? Going to a movie by yourself? A massage? A hike around Lake Shawnee? Quiet time to read a good book? Enjoying a hobby for a few hours a week? Going fishing?

The pause is knowing when the time for not doing something is… It’s now time to laugh, or to dance or to let go.

As I wrote earlier, we spend a ridiculous amount of time trying to fill the space around us with our relevance. We are not that special! It’s just our turn! Our space needs to be filled with God, and a pause gives us that opportunity to refocus so that we give our best to God.

-Mari

How have you advanced the Kingdom in your profession?

I can honestly say that I’ve never been asked that question before, but there it was: on a questionnaire from a group that has asked me to speak.  Is it a bad question?  A good question?  How in the world do you even begin to answer that?

I’m sure there are things that have advanced the Kingdom that I’ll never know about: words spoken that the Spirit uses in a person’s life that I thought were in passing, encouraging words that a kid hears that he never heard at home.  But c’mon, that’s not unique to me.  Every Christ-follower will have those stories revealed one day: an act or a word that we didn’t think twice about but was a lifeline to someone else.

I could list mission trips, money given, Trash Mountain Project, ShareFest, feeding elementary school kids, people I’ve led to the Lord (hate that phrase…).

There’s no way around it.  Answering this question just makes me feel sick.  Either sick because I haven’t done enough or sick because of how arrogant I am to think that ANYTHING I’ve done advanced anything.  It’s a no-win question.

I know it wasn’t meant that way.  I know it was asked with the sincerest of intentions.  In fact, I preach this message: that our jobs and professions are our single greatest mission fields.  So I totally understand the why behind the ask.

But answering it seems…daunting.  I feel supremely unqualified to answer.  Every good and perfect gift comes from the Father…

Amy and I leave today for a combination trip.  It’s our 25th wedding anniversary trip and a coaching trip with some other pastors and their wives.  Kids will be home without us, so if anyone sees smoke…  Call my friends at Topeka Fire Department.  It’s crazy the stuff you think of when you are going to leave your kids for an extended period of time: phone numbers, instructions on cooking, medicines, and dog care seem to dominate most of it.

But here’s what struck me.  And it’s my blog so I can brag on my kids if I want to…

Each of our kids has their own, deep, growing relationship with Jesus.  One is manifested in a heart for the guys on his floor in his dorm.  Another is focused on being an advocate for kids.  Another is working with special needs kids.  Now don’t misunderstand, each one has their own special issue that can drive Amy and I crazy at times as well.  (Shoes, backpacks, laundry…  You know which one belongs to you.)  They aren’t perfect, but they got that way honestly, as their parents were far from perfect.

But their faith is genuinely and deeply their own.  Did we have something to do with that?  Maybe.  We modeled both our faults and our faith in front of them.  We fought and cried and laughed, but today as we are leaving I’m struck that probably the most important Kingdom work I’ve ever done has been inside the radius of the five people I call family.

It doesn’t make the brochure look good.  It probably isn’t going to sell books or get me on a speaking tour either.  But I can’t escape it.  For all the accolades and accomplishments I could list, I don’t think they measure up to what’s inside my own address.

And Jesus’ words have a deeper meaning to me…

What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?

It’s normally around age eleven or twelve when the BIG FIGHT happens. Parent and child square off in an epic battle of the wills and minds. It’s happened with every kid in our house. It’s an awkward time in their life anyway: pre-teen/middle school/not a kid/not a teen either. The BIG FIGHT is never about anything really important. It’s about something minor like staying up late, watching a movie, or staying out with friends. But the BIG FIGHT is always about something deeper.

“You just don’t trust me. You treat me like I’m five!”

I wish that Amy and I had made a banner to hang in the kitchen:

You will be treated according to the maturity level in which you behave.

Parenting wasn’t (and still isn’t) easy: deciding what battles to fight and what battles to avoid, when to step in to rescue them from themselves, and when to just let it all crash down around them.

“When you decide to make adult, grown up decisions, we will treat you as an adult. If you keep acting like a petulant child, we will treat you like one – regardless of what your birth certificate says.” I am pretty sure that God functions with this standard as well. There are blessings and opportunities that He would love to give us, but…

At some point, we have to decide to grow. That doesn’t mean become boring. It doesn’t mean quit laughing or joking around. It means making God-centered decisions, decisions that consistently put Him first and put us in the best position to be on His mission: love people, serve people.

I’ve had a lot of coffees where this inevitable truth becomes the topic. It starts off talking about being a better dad or husband or wife or mom or kid or leader. But it all comes back to whether they are ready to choose to grow. It’s on this topic that things can get incredibly complicated as well.

Books, movies, studies, sermon series… How much material has been produced with a focus of growing us up? It’s countless. And overwhelming. Who has the time or energy to add sixteen more things to their life that are supposed to help?

That’s why I’m so excited about this series. What if I told you that it’s been condensed to only five questions that you need to nail down and wrestle with. That’s it: one handful, five.

Don’t confuse simple with easy. Nothing about growing up is easy. It just doesn’t have to be complicated.

So make it a commitment to be here Five Sundays in a row. Take the challenge. Each week you’ll learn one of the five core choices. After the series, you’ll walk away with a handful of values and choices that could make 2017 the best year of your life.

See you Sunday.