will of GOD

The will of God seems to be quite a mystery for most believers. Maybe it’s because I spent so many years in youth ministry, but that seems to be a central question for most Christians. “What is God’s will for my life?” I’m not sure that’s the right question, though.

I hearken back again to our communal nature. Human beings were not created to function independent of each other, but with and for one another. Most of the promises, commands and principles of Scripture only work within a community of faith. Only within a community of faith, then, do we discover the will of God.

God’s will has already been disclosed to God’s people! We’re told to love God with all our hearts, minds and souls. We’re told to love others as ourselves. We’re told to walk in holiness each day. We’re told to serve others. We’re told to win the lost. Rick Warren is right about the five general purposes for life. Every human on the planet has already been called and gifted to fulfill the will of God. But let's be realistic. We're not concerned about "every human on the planet" are we? We're concerned about ourselves. "What is God's will for MY life?"

This is where the Purpose Driven Life breaks down. It's not Rick Warren's fault! It's just that he can't help you here. Very few people can. No book, conference, pastor or friend can help us discover our own individual purpose(s). They might be able to help, but in the end that is the job of the Holy Spirit alone. Allow me to theorize a bit.

There is a general will and call of God that each of us must heed and follow. To accomplish that, God has graciously given us all corporate gifts such as unconditional love, acceptance, community, etc. There is also, though, a specific will and call of God that individuals must heed and follow. To accomplish that, God has graciously given us personal gifts such as leadership, healing, discernment, teaching, prophecy, etc.

In my estimation, most believers falter in the same area. They want to find out their personal calling instead of their corporate calling. They seek God’s will for their life instead of God’s will for their world. But I don’t think we find one without the other. Not that it has to work this way, but I typically observe that it happens in the following order.

People begin by surrendering to God’s corporate will. This is fleshed out in simple yet profound aspects such as loving their wives and children deeply, serving in their local churches, being faithful and accountable to friends, etc. It’s almost as if they say to themselves, “I don’t need to know the specifics. I just want to do what God has already told me to do in Scripture.” Most of us would have to admit that there’s plenty there! We could easily spend the rest of our lives simply fulfilling what God has already told us to do in the Bible.

Along that journey, though, God usually surprises us. It's within this community calling that we usually see our individual calling revealed. One guy I know simply asked his pastor what needs the church had. Through prayer and discussion, my friend ended up volunteering as one of the rotating speakers for his church’s outreach service. Guess what…he loves it! He's been doing it for six (6) months already! He now feels like evangelism is his specific calling! What began as a simple act of meeting a corporate need transformed into a discovery of God’s personal calling and will for the rest of his life! Wow!

God is not mean. I think some people imagine God as the hustler on the street with three cards playing a game...just toying with us. "If we’re good enough or we work hard and long enough, we might just end up striking it big. Maybe, just maybe, we’ll figure out the secret." I don’t think there necessarily is a secret. I think we need to be faithful with what we’ve already been given—His word. If we prove ourselves faithful with that corporate calling and will, God will begin to reveal His personal calling and will. It’s not necessarily a formula. It’s really just obedience. Hmmm…what a concept!

joy

Last night some great friends and I were talking about what it means to be child-like. In Matthew 18 the disciples asked Jesus who was the greatest in the Kingdom of God. I would imagine they were jockeying for position—not much has changed in 2000 years, huh. Anyway, instead of answering them directly, Jesus calls a child over and says they need to be like the child. Hmmm.

For centuries people have wondered what Jesus really meant. What does it truly mean to be child-like? I don’t think Jesus wants us in diapers again or playing video games ten hours a day. That would be childish. We’re to be child-like. Some concepts that seem to fit are things like “surrender,” “trust” and “humility.” Those are great. A good friend of mine once observed that children have an "unshakable confidence in their parents." Wow. While I completely agree and applaud those ideas, though, the Holy Spirit has continually kept one theme in my heart—joy.

Do you ever hate church? Have you ever been in the presence of other Christians and wanted to scream? Do you ever ask questions like, “Seriously? Is this it? Is this what life is all about?!” Maybe you haven't. Or maybe you're in denial. What's amazing, though, is that we don’t see it in children.

My little boy, Josiah, has joy. That boy loves life! He wakes up every day with a smile on his face. He goes to bed every night wanting to be up and play more. He can find joy and fun and satisfaction with the strangest thing. One time his grandparents gave him the gift of a huge red Radio Flyer wagon—it is phenomenal! It came in this HUGE box and…that’s where we lost him. He didn’t even get to the cool gift inside the box because he was so enamored with the box itself. Then, when he saw the big red wagon it was all over. “Two awesome gifts in one?!?!?!”

Even when Josiah has a bump in the road, he bounces back really quickly. He had to get a couple shots the other day. (The doctor is not Josiah’s favorite person in the world.) He squirmed and cried and fussed…for about fifteen minutes. Then, the world was cool again. He found a bug on the sidewalk.

Man, I want to be like that. I want to love life. I want to be filled with joy every day knowing that my Dad has the coolest things in store. Even when things go “horribly wrong” in my eyes I want to have a better perspective. Like Jesus suggested, I really want to be more like Josiah.

let go

I have this dream. In it all this awful stuff happens…and I’m fine. It’s not life-threatening kinds of things, but just the everyday, irritating minutia that usually drives me absolutely crazy. In my dream, I’m okay with all that stuff. I simply let it roll of my back with a smile. I take it to the feet of Jesus, lay it down and walk away. In my dream, I have learned to let go.

That’s not my daily experience, though. I wish I could say it happens like that all the time. In truth it happens maybe 10% of the time. That’s not very good. But it does happen sometimes. And by faith I believe that I’m moving in that direction. It’s going to happen more and more. Perhaps I haven’t learned to let go, but I’m learning to let go!

This church planting thing is tough. I’ve never had more of an experience where I wanted to jump in and do stuff in my whole life. Anyone who has been heavily involved in ministry can attest to the enormous stress. There are always hundreds of things that need to be done, but we simply don’t have the time, energy or resources needed.

And I’ve never been a lazy person. Ever. God has blessed me with a very strong work ethic. In fact, the opposite would probably be true. Quite often I’ve found that I have put ministry (the doing part) ahead of my family, my health and even my personal relationship with God (the being part). So, naturally, when we decided to plant a church, I braced myself for a whole lot of doing—a whole lot of stuff. But then the weirdest thing happened…God stopped us.

I won’t recount all the details here because it’s very long and probably boring for anyone besides my immediate family. The short of it, though, is that God told us—rather, made us—stop doing. He told us (and me in particular) to just calm down, relax in Him and just be. He’s teaching us to depend on Him and Him alone. He’s teaching us to trust that His plan for this church (and this world, for that matter) is better than mine. He’s teaching us to rest. He’s teaching us to let go.

Like most of the experiences of the past year, that directive from the Lord is a paradox. It’s exhilarating in the sense that we see His miraculous work. But it’s infuriating in the sense that we have no clue what’s coming next. It’s thrilling because we know that He is in complete control. But it’s frustrating because we know that He is in complete control.

I’ll bet that sounds familiar. Don’t we all struggle with letting go? What do we do about it? Well, I’m not really sure yet. Ask me again in a year or so. Until then, I’m going to keep trying. My gut tells me that I will instinctively reach out and try to squeeze the life out of something again. I’ll attempt to get back in control. But, in His grace and wisdom, God will lovingly and firmly put me back in my place and allow things to continue on in their beautiful, organic, unexpected ways. Today may we all experience a little more of God’s grace to let go.

grace

Every human is beautiful.

Isn’t that a wonderful thought? No matter what gender, nationality, physical, mental or emotional disability, every single human being is a beautiful and marvelous creation. I wish we all believed that. This world would look dramatically different if we did.

The sad fact, though, is that the world will never buy into that idea. There will always be models on the front of the magazines and celebrities will always be the well-spoken and good-looking ones. Our culture is much too superficial and immoral to ever see a person’s true worth. But what about the Church? Is there a chance that the Church could really believe and act like that? Like every human is beautiful? It could happen and it should happen!

That little phrase sums up what Holy Seed Community Church means by “grace.” Grace is an enormous topic with thousands of little nuances. It’s really hard to define, but really easy to see. It’s really hard to dispense, but really amazing to receive. Many of us have heard grace described as “God giving us what we don’t deserve.” I think this is a fair description. Usually it’s contrasted with “mercy” defined as “God not giving us what we do deserve.” Again, that’s a helpful way to look at it. But I believe grace is even bigger and broader than that.

We’ve come up with a few buzz words that might help people understand what we’re getting at when we talk about grace. These words describe the kind of community and environment we want to create and then nurture.

• Forgiving—we want to be known for canceling the debts people owe us.


• Accepting—we want everyone to feel right at home among us.


• Beautiful—we want people to understand that God adores them exactly the way they are.


• Blessing—We want people to leave our company better than when they arrived.

Those are really lofty goals. Realistically we cannot hope to offer this kind of grace to anyone. However, we believe in miracles. We believe that when we make the effort, God meets us half way. We believe the Lord literally places grace within us so that we can then give it to the world. Is it hard? Absolutely! Do we fail sometimes? You bet! Will we keep trying? Without a doubt!

God has given us so much grace it’s impossible to even calculate. Grace is everywhere at all times. It goes before us to protect and guide. It follows us to forgive and comfort. It surrounds us to stimulate and strengthen. We have all been literally saturated with grace. It’s very much like that breath of oxygen you just took. You didn’t have to concentrate on taking it. You just took it. It’s similar to the protective skin that covers every inch of our fragile bodies or the brain that processes thousands of thoughts every second or the fingers that can actually type out a new blog. We can do nothing apart from God’s grace.

What would happen if we were more aware of God’s grace? How would life be different? Could we even count how many blessings are in our lives? How many praises would we need to utter in a single day? It’s not just about the gigantic blessings of a wife, little boy, friends, a home, etc. It’s also about the tiny things like veins that know to only bring blood to the heart and arteries that only carry it away to the rest of the body. Grace. It’s about the tears that have that perfect chemical composition that our poor scientists still can’t perfectly match. Grace. It’s about the planet under our feet that spins at just the right speed and just so happens to be at the perfect distance from the sun so that we don’t freeze nor do we burst into flames. Grace.

If we’ve been given so much grace, how could we not give it away to others in return? How dare we hoard it all to ourselves?! Holy Seed will be a place of grace. We will be a community through whom grace flows easily and quickly. By the grace of God, we will be a people of grace. Because every human is beautiful.