Vacationing from God

For our local school district, school ends today.  That means for hundreds of kids and families summer officially commences this weekend and rolls on for the next 3 months.  I loved summer break as a kid.  My brother and I would play baseball or basketball for endless hours in the driveway, and our afternoon trips to the local pool was always fun.  Sure, there was an increase of “projects” that mom or dad gave us to do around the house, but those projects never stole the joy and enjoyment of the summer.

One of the best parts of summer break was the break in routine and the lack of a tight schedule.  During the school year we had a tight schedule of school classes, sports schedules, church youth activities, and a variety of school related extra curricular activities; much of which ceased when school let out.  Within the joys, happiness, and excitement of summer break there lies a concern embedded in the unstructured, fun nature of summer time. . . .

Is summer vacation a time to take a break from God?

This is undoubtedly a temptation.  The temporal fun things of summer can distract and crowd out any consideration of God and the pleasures that are found in Him.  The lifestyle mantra of: “you are young, have fun” seems spoken all the more loudly during the summer time, as young people and young adults dive into the pleasures of life.  The beat of the music, the clothes which are worn, the unbridled schedule, and the sun on the skin all expose a dark secret all of us have:  summer time makes us feel good about ourselves. 

God seems all the less near, and all the less needed when we feel good  about ourselves.  This is one of the saddest elements of our sin nature.  While our soul craves freedom and fun, it is that very freedom and fun that exposes how much we need God.  We forget, even our actions and attitudes during the summer matter to God.  In order to “love God with all of our heart, soul, and mind”, the question is:

“will this be ever present during the summer months?”

This summer, whether you are an adult or a young person, you will have the opportunity of a lifetime.  During the summer months, we tend to see, be with, and engage people more than during the winter months.  We will have the opportunity to be a light shining in a dark world of self-absorption.  The only way this will happen is if we don’t vacation from God.  Don’t be afraid to attend church services (even on Sunday Night and Wednesday) faithfully.  Don’t be afraid to read about, think about, and converse with God.  Don’t be afraid to alter your behavior (clothing, music, attitude, etc) because of your relationship with God.  In short, don’t be afraid to NOT be like them-living a self-absorbed summer life.  Let everyone see, as the Psalmist penned in Psalm 73:23-28:

Who do I have in heaven but you?  God is enough.

Life Lessons from a Garden

This weekend marked our annual planting of our garden.  Gardening has become quite the hobby for us.  We now have five apple trees, a 4×8 strawberry patch, a cherry tree, pear tree, and a 30’x90’ garden.  We grow everything from beans to sweet corn, to white onions to pumpkins, tomatoes to hot peppers, and then some.  It leads to a busy spring and an even busier fall, but the value for us is immeasurable with the shelves full of self-grown canned and frozen produce. 

We had not  gardened till we moved to Northern Michigan.  Both of my grandfathers, as well as my wife’s grandfather, were avid gardeners; so perhaps, it is in our blood.  Nevertheless, it was quite the learning experience 8 years ago, as we did it for the first time.  Every year I open the pack of seed and think “Really?”.  If you look at a sweet corn seed, it’s all shriveled up and looks pretty pathetic.  A radish seed is so tiny that you can hardly see it.  Yet, it is amazing every year to place these small, ugly looking seeds in the ground and see what is produced every year come August and September.  The ugliness and the smallness of the seed doesn’t matter:

It’s going to die in the ground anyways to produce fruit

Whether you see this truth in John 12:24 or I Corinthians 15:36, there is a real truth that is illustrated every year, as we plant our garden.  In order for any of us to bear fruit of any value in light of eternity-we must die first.  Our agenda must die.  Our will must die. Our comfort must die. Our pride must die.  We often excuse our need to die and the opportunity to bear fruit by the “smallness and the ugliness of the seed”. 

Does God really want fruit from THAT person or from ME?

The answer to this is unequivocally: “Yes”.  It doesn’t matter what you look like, how much money you have, or what you think your talent base is or your personality “type”, God desires that the prestige you get from your talent use dies.  He desires that the comfort you get from your personality type or your pursuit of a lifestyle dies. 

When a seed is unwilling to die in the ground in order to produce the plant, it rots.  There have been a number of times that I have planted (in particular pumpkin seeds are susceptible to this) and nothing came up.  I dig down into the ground and find the seed still there in the ground-rotting.  It turns gummy and pasty, and often times it has turned moldy.  In the end, it is good for nothing.  There is hardly a sadder element to pastoring than to see people unwilling to die in order to bear fruit and they sit there rotting and unhappy.  There is a lie in particular that says: “I can make this work”, and it tries to blend in “staying alive” while wanting to bear the fruit of the Christian walk.  This brings total misery.  It brings double mindedness, frustration, and confusion.  As you plant or have planted this spring, consider this one question:

Am I dead so that I may produce fruit for the Master Husbandman?

Cleaning out the Garage

My dad and mom come into town today.  Their arrival marks a big moment in my son’s life-kindergarten graduation.  Their arrival also means a project, that I have had on my to-do list since winter, must get done today: cleaning out my garage.  There are times that I love my garage, and then there are times I loathe it.  It is small, barely large enough for our one vehicle, and most certainly it’s not nearly large enough for the variety of hobbies and interests both Bonnie and I (confession-more “I” than “her”) have. 

As I have thought and procrastinated about cleaning out the garage, there are a variety of parallels to our walk with Jesus.  It is easy to think of all the clutter and “stuff” that is in our lives that begins to crowd out our walk with God.  Much of the stuff in our lives is good and profitable, but could the stuff crowd out the supremacy of Christ in our lives? 

It is not as though the stuff needs to be “thrown out”, but rather the priority of it’s place must be readdressed so that the purpose of our lives are fully accomplished. 

With all the hobbies we have, gardening, hunting, fishing, boating, woodworking, as well as the various tools we (I) have to do projects around the house and on the cars, it is amazing how quickly the space in our garage ceases to be a place to house our van.  Frankly, for many of us, our garages could become a source of embarrassment for the volume of clutter which keeps them from accomplishing it’s real purpose.

Perhaps it’s time to evaluate our personal lives.  Is it time to “clean out the garage”?  It’s not completely throwing everything out, but it’s putting everything in it’s place.  Just as my chainsaw or hunting pack shouldn’t take the place of my minivan in my garage, so shouldn’t so many other things from relaxation to recreation crowd take the place of Christ in our lives.  Could it be our lives have become an embarrassment of distraction and clutter from the toys and “stuff”, that have taken us away from the purpose God created us in the first place?

A truly powerful relationship with Christ takes a contemplative purpose from which clutter should not distract.

Certainly, we can agree Christ needs to be supreme.  Yet, will we be willing to quit putting off cleaning out the garage, and take action drawing near to Christ and refocusing our relationship with Him.  Cleaning out the “garage” of life can be an overwhelming task, yet it is fulfilling and rewarding to know and see the purposes of God accomplished through the supremacy of Christ in our lives. 

Sticking With It

It was one year ago tomorrow that North Country officially voted me as their Pastor.  Everything preached and taught that day is still as vivid and important to me as ever.  It seems like an eternity ago, yet I can still remember it as though it were yesterday.  I remember exiting the church that evening, not knowing what our future with the church would hold, and then having a church member stop over at the house and tell me: “Don’t worry, you can unpack your bags”. 

Much has changed in this first year.  Perhaps, more has changed than in a “normal” situation with an unknown pastor moving into an unknown church.   It is funny and interesting to realize even when change does happen, how quickly the change becomes the new normal and the fact that there was change was soon forgotten.  I find this true, even in myself, and how God has used the office of pastoring, and the people He gave me to pastor to change me. 

Nevertheless, here is the question I’ve been asked repeatedly over the last week or so:

So, do you think your first year of pastoring was a success? 

Intriguing question if you ask me.  I’ve thought and been perplexed extensively over the question.  Part of me wants to say: “Ask the church”.  Part of me wants to say: “Does it matter?”  Still, another part of me wants to say: “I don’t know”.  There haven’t been hundreds walking the aisles here.  There haven’t been accolades heaped, nor millions rolling into the bank.  So, do we look at this data and say “Failure”?  I suppose not.  

I’ve spent enough time in some biographies of men such as Tom Carson, Adoniram Judson, and other pastors in which didn’t have the flash bang opener for their ministries.  (Today, it’s called the ‘honeymoon’ period in pastoring)  Combine this with the images used in II Timothy 2:1-7 of a soldier, a runner, and a farmer, as well as the images used in I Corinthians 3 relating to the Bema Seat (Judgment/Rewards Seat of Christ) and one begins to see that God wants us to be faithful, and He ultimately rewards faithfulness.  As you go further into the “ins and outs” of Paul’s letters to Timothy and Titus, he had a supreme message for them: “Stay faithful to the Gospel, and God will view you as a successful minister of that very Gospel”.  Therefore, I concluded:

One year is way too short of a time to measure success if faithfulness is the measuring device. 

Year one has been a healthy, good year at North Country I believe.  There have been victories; there have been disappointments.  There have been people saved, and there have been some baptized.  There are some that have fallen away, and some have come back from falling away.  There have been some that joined the church in church membership, and there are some that ought to join with us, but have not.  In the end, it’s been a good year, and I am deeply thankful for everyone that comes each week to hear God’s Word preached, and fellowship with fellow Christians.  Every individual which attends each week is responsible for their relationship with God, and my prayer is they will be strengthened to want Him and to hear about Him more, as we head into year two. 

Wherever you find yourself in life, put your hand to the plow and don’t look back.  Stick with it.  If you are a carpenter, parent, office worker, etc. be and stay faithful to your calling and be who you are: an image bearer, glory bearer, and message bearer of your Lord in your context.  God has entrusted you with those three things, be a faithful steward of them, and entrust your life and reward in the hands of the God who made you and commissioned you in this life. 

Keeping Jesus Visible

Life is short.  The author of Ecclesiastes brings this small, but potent truth to mind quite clearly as he writes.  Dr. Les Ollila would often say in chapel:  “You life is a dash-every tombstone has a born date and an end date, but the summation of a life is not those dates, it’s the dash between those dates”.  It doesn’t matter your age, your race, your gender, or your income level, all of us will die at some point; and what is lost by the electronic, fast paced nature of today is the eternal nature of the treasures of heaven.

These eternal treasures get tossed aside in favor of a more pleasurable glitter and glow of the treasures of today, or the feel good stories and relationships that are shallow and have no meaning. 

As you head off into this Monday, this busy work week, ask yourself this one question: Do I show what really matters in the way that I live?  What stresses us out, shows where our treasure is.  What we crave and what distracts us from getting work done, shows where our treasure is.  People, our co-workers, our children, our spouses, our neighbors, must see in a visible way that an eternal relationship with Jesus is far more important than a temporal lifestyle here on this earth.  Our sleepless nights are often driven by the meaningless, yet God stands there looking at us, begging us with this question: 

“What about what I care about” 

Especially to the age demographic under 40, this is a deeply confrontational truth.  Those that fall in the “youth” age bracket are often consumed by the temporal and shallow, rather than the deep and eternal.  Living a life that sacrifices fun, and toys for the sake of laying up eternal treasures pales in comparison to the sacrifice that Christ made, as He laid down His life for others.  Beyond this, there are so many ‘causes’ out there calling for our attention that may be good in eradicating pain and suffering here on this earth, but they do not eradicate the suffering and pain that is to come if the individuals of these ‘causes’ don’t embrace Christ. 

How will they see Christ, if living for the eternal is not our greater ‘cause’?

The lifestyle consumed with the eternal will look different and be lived out different to each and every person, but it will be unmistakably different from those which are consumed by the now.  This is our calling for this short time here.  We don’t have long, whether it be by death or by Christ, our time here is fading fast.  May we strive to live a life that is salt and light-visibly and tangibly consumed with treasures which are different than the priorities and wants of the communities in which we live and work. 

Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.