Faith

Poor reception or something else?

 

 

I’ve had some conversations lately that were not received as I intended.  Ditto with some of my writing and social media posts.    

As I increasingly resolve to lean into and live for the Lord while also planting seeds of faith every chance I get, I encounter more instances of, shall I say, poor reception.  This despite the Lord’s assurance that the Holy Spirit will give us words to say when our faith is on the line. (Matthew 10:19-20).  

In fairness, the context for Jesus’ assurance regarded more of a “being handed over to the authorities” situation.  Still, some otherwise normal conversations intended to be winsome feel like that, sinking into argumentative debating.

Does the Lord’s word accomplish his purposes even when poorly delivered by the likes of me? While I enter a conversation intending to be loving and responsive, somewhere along the line, another spirit butts in.  Did that nasty retort actually come out of MY mouth?  

Why is it that struggling, sad, or traumatized people are generally more open and attentive to faith conversations?  The hardest to connect with are those who: (a) are doing well in life, at least inasmuch as can be observed or feigned; and, (b) who I am closest to.  In the case of family, multiply the likely disconnect quotient by ten.   

No matter how toughened I think I am, to have my intentions doubted or dismissed by those I am most known to is emotionally deflating.  It's also something I realize I need to get beyond.  

Even Jesus’ experienced this when we visited his hometown during the height of his popularity everywhere else. There Jesus commented, “A prophet is honored everywhere except in his own hometown and among his relatives and his own family.” … And he was amazed at their unbelief. (Mark 6: 4,6, NLT)

I italicized amazed.  Imagine Jesus amazed by unbelief.  Whose unbelief amazed him?

Unbelief has lots of help, like success in life already noted.  Then there’s that other “presence” I mentioned that is virtually invisible to enlightened moderns but who likes to horn into every opportunity to plant Gospel seeds.  

Warned Paul, “...our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” (Ephesians 6:12, NIV)

Here God’s message in Scripture is consistent and often.  The basis of all our hope is not results or even receptive people but the Lord.  Period. You’ll never hear the Lord ask, “How is that working for you?”  Only, “Are you abiding in me?”

No matter how well or badly our attempt to share faith seems, the Holy Spirit is the only one able to bring new believers across the start line.  All the feathers are in God’s cap while none are in ours.  

Help me tell myself to take a deep breath, relax and have some fun with this, to not take myself so seriously.

No matter how much pressure I put on myself, the sobering realization also cited often in Scripture is that most people are not open to the Lord.  Most shut him down or off and prefer to live according to their own intelligence.  Jesus’ “narrow road” analogy is alarmingly in that it easily accommodates everyone who is tuned into God through Christ. (Matthew 7:14)

Check out how God coached Isaiah to approach his prophetic ministry.

He said, “Go and tell these people:

‘Listen continually, but don’t understand!
Look continually, but don’t perceive!’
Make the hearts of these people calloused;
make their ears deaf and their eyes blind!
Otherwise, they might see with their eyes and hear with their ears,
their hearts might understand and they might repent and be healed.”
(Isaiah 6:9-13, NET)

Ever hear that from a professor on the first day of class? “The road to an A is to listen and understand but every one of you is going to ignore my advice and fail.”   

Distressed, Isaiah replied, “How long, sovereign master?” The Lord’s answer doesn’t paint a pretty picture. (See Isaiah 6: 11-13, NET)

Every Gospel writer picks up Jesus citing this passage, as does Acts and Paul’s letters to the Romans and Corinthians.*

“Stand on God’s words and assurances vs. my own assessment about the situations and people I encounter. ”
— (Note to self)

When I feel cast aside, I need to order myself to fall back and regroup with the Lord!  Instead of rehearsing answers to anticipated objections or questions, more and more I pray that my hope and trust in the Lord is dialed up so I am strong in his assurance that I am covered no matter how things go.

When Jesus engages us, he also assures us that he’s got our backs.

“...do not worry about how to respond or what to say. In that hour you will be given what to say. For it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.”
— Jesus, Matthew 10:19-20

Notes:

1) Isaiah passage cited in New Testament: Matthew 13:14–15; Mark 4:12; Luke 8:10; John 12:39–40; Acts 28:26–27 and in the background of some of Paul’s letters (Rom 11:7; 2 Cor 3:14)  from "The Use of Isaiah in the New Testament" by Donald W. Mills

Growing Underneath

Have you seen the recent story about the earth’s biggest living thing?  According to Public Radio International,

“The largest organism on Earth probably isn't a whale or a giant octopus or anything else you might naturally think of first. It's a tree — or a group of genetically identical trees that stretches across more than 100 acres of Utah's Fishlake National Forest.” 

Aspen trees, specifically. The U.S. Forest Service calls the massive, “single-tree” aspen grove “Pando,” Latin for “I spread.”

Found coast to coast across North America, aspens grow in groups called stands. Within these stands, a single tree will spread by sprouting new stems from its roots that either sprout into new trees or live underground, sharing nutrients with each other for a long time.

Aspens are a favorite of my wife, Cindy. She likes how the leaves "waver" in the wind due to their triangular-shaped stems. An Our Daily Bread devotional we read together last week offered another aspen feature - how their underground root system plays a vital, re-foresting role after a natural disaster.  

Apparently, aspen root systems sleep underground for hundreds, even thousands of years, whether or not they produce trees.  After a fire, flood, or avalanche clears a space for them in the otherwise shady forest, aspen roots can sense the sun at last, sending up saplings that become trees.

“Just as natural disaster clears a forest to make new aspen growth possible, our growth in faith is also made possible by difficulties,” wrote ODB contributor Amy Peterson. 

“Consider it pure joy whenever you face trials of many kinds,” wrote the apostle James, “because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” (James 1:2–4).                 

According to James, not lacking anything is what a mature and complete faith looks. That’s problematic for me.  While I can claim occasional moments of not lacking anything, I generally lack something that I want or convinced myself I need.

Pride is my struggle.  As a guy, I want to support my family and be competent and capable in my responsibilities especially in my work/career. Unable to secure or retain positions that sync with my competencies, I've accepted other work where I struggle through learning processes that inevitably include embarrassing rookie mistakes.

Each new position presents a new learning curve to work through.  I try to handle the inevitable rookie errors with grace but often I'm shrinking inside, my self-confidence taking another hit. Are these tests of my faith, of God coaxing me, ever reluctantly, to trust more in him and less in myself?

While I do find being a rookie again for the sixteenth time in nine years a little frustrating, I am better about not letting the next mistake "get to me" or define me.  As I gradually learn new duties, I remind myself to thank the Lord for another opportunity to “let perseverance finish its work” in me. 

Like the aspen roots grow underground for a chance to re-forest a devastated region in the distant future, God allows and uses devastation in our lives for his own, re-foresting-type purpose.

Jesus himself established this "organism" that he invited me into, where my maturing faith feeds yours and ours melds with other believers.  Collectively, we are "growing underneath" but seen and approved by God, nurtured into a formidable, reckoning force .

“upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
— Jesus, Matthew 16:18b, KJV

We are what St. Paul metaphorically called “the body of Christ.”

“Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church...to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ ”
— Ephesians 4:11, NLT

 

May I suggest that the largest organism on Earth isn’t a tree after all?