Does it really matter?

Several times this week, I have told people that we need to let what matters matter.  Why is it so difficult for us to stay focused on what really matters?  In our relationships?  In our work?  In our relationship with God?  I am sure you have heard the description of someone that they major in what’s minor.  I think that describes most Christians.  We major in what really doesn’t matter.

Jesus confronted the Pharisees with their pettiness over His not washing his hands before a meal.  Apparently, his mother never taught Him any better; or maybe He just was looking for an opportunity to get into a debate with the Pharisees over their religious practices.  He went on to chastise them over their placing a burden upon the people by demanding they comply with rules and regulations that they themselves couldn’t even follow to the level of perfection they demanded.  Paul confronted the same problem in Galatia.  He wrote to the church there, that they needed to quite trying to justify themselves by their doing the right things.  The only thing that really mattered, he wrote, was “faith expressing itself through love (5:6).”

We can’t make ourselves any more righteous or any more significant by doing.  Yet, I find as I work with even those in positions of leadership in the church that they are focused more upon their doing than their being.  Our focus needs to be on our being…being more like Jesus.  We seem to appreciate that we are not saved by our works; yet, we seem to think we must prove that we are worth the sacrifice of God’s Son after the fact.  Nothing we can do on our own really matters.  The only thing that matters, as Paul wrote, is trusting God as He leads us to demonstrate His love to those around us, in the same way Christ demonstrated the love of the Father through His life and His death.

It is nothing but a distraction to think that we need to focus all our attention on doing what is right.  I have a sign in my office that states, “It is exhausting masquerading as a normal person day after day.”  Let’s stop the pretense.  We are not normal.  We are not good.  We are not capable of doing enough to be worth what the Lord did for us at Calvary.  But, we can share His love with others around us. Nothing else matters.  But, that does.

Godspeed, Phil

 

 

Have you stopped dreaming?

“At some point, most of us stop living out of imagination and start living out of memory.  Instead of creating the future, we start repeating the past.  Instead of living by faith, we live by logic (Mark Batterson, “The Circle Maker”).”

For some time, I have felt challenged to look at my prayers and I have to admit, they are often somewhat vague and simplistic.  They lack any imagination.  They have really become quite logical.

What Batterson suggests, and I agree, is that we reach a place where we stop using our imagination and dreaming of what could be.  We forego our idealism for pragmatism, or realism, or whatever we choose to call it; and settle for what we believe is more attainable.  We leave most of what we pray for up to God, praying with all sincerity, “Thy will be done.”  What we have really done is lost our connection with God and subsequently lost our faith.  Batterson suggests that the true measure of our faith is how specific our prayers are to God, and asserts, “The more specific your prayers are, the more glory God receives.”  However, many of us are afraid to be too specific when we pray.  We feel as though we need to leave God plenty of cushion in case He wants to do something besides giving us what we want.  And yet, James writes, we have not because we do not ask God for what we want (James 4:2).

Some of us have lost track of what we really do want.  Often we seem to give up praying for what we want because we don’t get what we really want.  Yes, we have to admit God does provide, He does protect, He does answer some of our prayers, but not the really important ones.  As it regards these, we run out of patience with God, we tire of asking and feeling disappointed, we feel somewhat uncertain about our own faith and don’t want to feel to blame, so we stop asking; because after all this, we don’t really believe God wants to give us what we want.  We even doubt ourselves as to whether we know what God really would want.  But, what if we are right?  What if what we have prayed about is what God wants to give us, that God really does want to give us the desires of our hearts (Ps. 37:4)?

 What if the reason we don’t see answers to our prayers is because we give up too soon?  Batterson writes, “You are always only one prayer away from a miracle.”  What if God is asking us to wait?  What is He has already heard and answered your prayer, but you just can’t see what He is doing?  What is He is just asking you to trust Him?  What if He wants you to keep dreaming and planning and trusting?  Think of Joseph who spent 7 years in prison before realizing God’s plan for him?  Think of Noah who spent 40 years building an ark?  What about Abraham who waited until he was 100 years old before he had a son?  And what of those listed by the writer of Hebrews, who “were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised (Heb. 11:38).”

 “Dreaming is a form of praying and praying is a form of dreaming…The day we stop dreaming is the day we start dying (Mark Batterson, “The Prayer Circle”).”

 

Keep dreaming!

Godspeed, Phil