I have encountered a problem in my life. A long time ago I got saved and my heart became God’s mobile home. A few times a year I would hear a sermon and I would know it’s time to do some cleaning. I would vacuum and dust and be careful to avoid the closets. When all was said and done I would sit back, very proud of myself, and think, “God must love living here.” Recently I discovered that God does not mind a dirty house as much as one with a bad floor plan.
I have been in full time ministry for many years. I have also worked a “secular” job and done ministry on the side. In both cases I still confined God to the same mobile home He had when He first moved in.
I have been thinking about the poor a lot lately. I want to help them, but I don’t have a great deal of experience in that department other than buying the occasional homeless person food if they happen to be conveniently located near the fast food joint I was already going to. And I don’t count what my church does because honestly I am not actively involved in the process past my donations of money or clothing. It takes a lot of work to help the poor ya know. You gotta research places that already help them and then find one that will let you volunteer at a time when you won’t miss your favorite show. Or you can just go driving and try to find some poor people, but it might take hours before you can find ones that suit your taste.
I always thought God wanted to come and clean my house, but what He really desired was a remodel. Cleaning is much more convenient for me. I can get that done in a day, sometimes even an hour. But a remodel can take years in some cases. I have kept God behind the walls of comfort I built since I was young. God wants to knock them down.
My job and even my ministry have been so boxed in. I never gave God the freedom to roam by living outside the box. I think of the apostle Paul and how the Bible says that his job was a tent maker. What if he would have been satisfied with that ministry? What if he would have said, “I provide tents to those in need,” then patted himself on the back for doing “the work of God” and never moved beyond that specific work? If I am a senior pastor or the church janitor, or anything in between, and my ministry is confined to the job that I do then I have just turned my ministry into a vocation. When the only ministry I do is what I do for my “ministry” then I have taken the power of God to work through me to change this world and given it boundaries.
God has been telling me He wants freedom in my life and I plan on giving it to Him. Remodels are messy. And time consuming. But when they are through the value of the house increases greatly. God will not be satisfied with a new coat of paint. He knows where every one of His lost sons and daughters are in this world. He knows where every hurting person goes in the morning to get coffee. He wants the freedom to take you there. Will you let Him? Will I?
We are about to find out…
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Glimpses of Greatness
I wanted to be Mount Everest. I found out I was an apple. Let me explain.
If someone were to write a book about my life no one would read it. To be honest, I don’t think I would read it either. I am not main character material. I don’t think I am even supporting character material. I have never done anything that most people would consider truly impactfull or daring. I am not famous or associated with anyone famous. As far as looks go, I have been blessed with a commonness that acts as a sort of social camouflage. In short, my life will never be viewed by the whole of society as being extraordinary.
I struggled with this idea for a long time. I had the misconception that if your life were truly great then society would recognize it. On more than one occasion I set out to become “great”. I even came up with a list of ten things that, if I did them, would thrust me into greatness. (I only finished one.) I viewed life like a giant pyramid scheme. I either had to influence a small group of people so greatly that they would follow in my footsteps, and the pattern would continue or I had to influence thousands of people in a small way thereby creating a great effect cumulatively. Looking back I realize how contorted my perception of life was.
Do you know what the largest mountain in the world is? If you were to say Mount Everest you would be wrong. Mount Everest’s peak is higher that any mountain in the world, but from base to peak Mauna Kea over 4,000 feet taller. Why don’t we know this? We don’t know this because two thirds of Mauna Kea is under the ocean and what we cannot see we do not care about. Society today is consumed by what we can see. We admire athletes because we can track exactly how successful they are with statistics. We love movie stars because we have proof of how amazing they are based on box office sales. It’s too hard to look up to the guy who feeds the homeless everyday because there is not an iPhone app to show us the effect he is having. We want heroes with accessible updates. I thought the validation from society would be proof of being great. I just wanted to make a difference. I was not willing to accept that even if the biggest part of me always remained hidden I could still do that. Then one day I read a book that helped me understand how wrong I was.
In the book A Brief History of Eternity, Roy Peacock explains how scientific laws have changed throughout history. Today we know that everything that has mass has an electromagnetic field and that field draws things to it. Even objects millions of light years away are affected by the pull of Earth in a minute way and vice versa. In 1686 Isaac Newton discovered gravity with the, now famous, apple falling to the Earth incident, but he had it a little bit wrong. Newton believed that the Earth pulled the apple towards it and that’s why it fell. Scientists now know that “falling” is an illusion and that both the apple and the Earth are actually pulling each other to each other. Because the Earth’s mass is so much greater the effect it has on the apple is much greater. This side of “the pull” is much more visible so it looks as if it just pulls the apple to it. But on an atomic level the apple actually pulls the Earth up to it at the same time.
It’s hard to believe that something as small as an apple could move the Earth, but the same principal holds true with everything in the Universe. That means that no matter what people see when they look at me I still have the power to move the greatest things. I am an apple. Just an apple. But apples have more power than I thought.
Now, more than ever, I want to make a difference. I want to make the world a better place. I am not deceived by thinking that I am greater than anybody else walking this Earth, but I have finally shed the weight of finding my worth from how others view me. Everyone has greatness in them. For a few blessed people it seems to shine bright at all times. For the rest of us it comes and goes. What if we learned to recognize it? What if we fight to capture it from others and ourselves when it comes? It would allow us to remember what is deep inside us on the days when we do not feel like we are shining. Sometimes those are the days when we make the most difference. Remember that even the apple has to fall to move the world.
If someone were to write a book about my life no one would read it. To be honest, I don’t think I would read it either. I am not main character material. I don’t think I am even supporting character material. I have never done anything that most people would consider truly impactfull or daring. I am not famous or associated with anyone famous. As far as looks go, I have been blessed with a commonness that acts as a sort of social camouflage. In short, my life will never be viewed by the whole of society as being extraordinary.
I struggled with this idea for a long time. I had the misconception that if your life were truly great then society would recognize it. On more than one occasion I set out to become “great”. I even came up with a list of ten things that, if I did them, would thrust me into greatness. (I only finished one.) I viewed life like a giant pyramid scheme. I either had to influence a small group of people so greatly that they would follow in my footsteps, and the pattern would continue or I had to influence thousands of people in a small way thereby creating a great effect cumulatively. Looking back I realize how contorted my perception of life was.
Do you know what the largest mountain in the world is? If you were to say Mount Everest you would be wrong. Mount Everest’s peak is higher that any mountain in the world, but from base to peak Mauna Kea over 4,000 feet taller. Why don’t we know this? We don’t know this because two thirds of Mauna Kea is under the ocean and what we cannot see we do not care about. Society today is consumed by what we can see. We admire athletes because we can track exactly how successful they are with statistics. We love movie stars because we have proof of how amazing they are based on box office sales. It’s too hard to look up to the guy who feeds the homeless everyday because there is not an iPhone app to show us the effect he is having. We want heroes with accessible updates. I thought the validation from society would be proof of being great. I just wanted to make a difference. I was not willing to accept that even if the biggest part of me always remained hidden I could still do that. Then one day I read a book that helped me understand how wrong I was.
In the book A Brief History of Eternity, Roy Peacock explains how scientific laws have changed throughout history. Today we know that everything that has mass has an electromagnetic field and that field draws things to it. Even objects millions of light years away are affected by the pull of Earth in a minute way and vice versa. In 1686 Isaac Newton discovered gravity with the, now famous, apple falling to the Earth incident, but he had it a little bit wrong. Newton believed that the Earth pulled the apple towards it and that’s why it fell. Scientists now know that “falling” is an illusion and that both the apple and the Earth are actually pulling each other to each other. Because the Earth’s mass is so much greater the effect it has on the apple is much greater. This side of “the pull” is much more visible so it looks as if it just pulls the apple to it. But on an atomic level the apple actually pulls the Earth up to it at the same time.
It’s hard to believe that something as small as an apple could move the Earth, but the same principal holds true with everything in the Universe. That means that no matter what people see when they look at me I still have the power to move the greatest things. I am an apple. Just an apple. But apples have more power than I thought.
Now, more than ever, I want to make a difference. I want to make the world a better place. I am not deceived by thinking that I am greater than anybody else walking this Earth, but I have finally shed the weight of finding my worth from how others view me. Everyone has greatness in them. For a few blessed people it seems to shine bright at all times. For the rest of us it comes and goes. What if we learned to recognize it? What if we fight to capture it from others and ourselves when it comes? It would allow us to remember what is deep inside us on the days when we do not feel like we are shining. Sometimes those are the days when we make the most difference. Remember that even the apple has to fall to move the world.
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