From Charles Spurgeon’s “Faith’s Checkbook”
Choice Men (women too, -ed.)
August 27
I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction. (Isaiah 48:10)
This has long been the motto fixed before our eye upon the wall of our bedroom, and in many ways it has also been written on our heart. It is no mean thing to be chosen of God. God’s choice makes chosen men choice men. Better to be the elect of God than the elect of a whole nation. So eminent is this privilege, that whatever drawback may be joined to it we very joyfully accept it, even as the Jew ate the bitter herbs for the sake of the Paschal Lamb. We choose the furnace, since God chooses us in it.  We are chosen as an afflicted people and not as a prosperous people, chosen not in the palace but in the furnace. In the furnace beauty is marred, fashion is destroyed, strength is melted, glory is consumed, and yet here eternal love reveals its secrets and declares its choice. So has it been in our case. In times of severest trial God has made to us our calling and election plain, and we have made it sure: then have we chosen the Lord to be our God, and He has shown that we are assuredly His chosen. Therefore, if today the furnace be heated seven times hotter, we will not dread it, for the glorious Son of God will walk with us amid the glowing coals.

Sent from Faith’s Checkbook Mobile Devotion Android app – www.WhitneyApps.com

It’s kind of like some rechargeable batteries – they become less and less able to hold a charge over time.  More charging and less powering.  I was like that – less able to deal with adversity, less able to recharge, less able to think creatively.  I think the real answer will be a sabbatical in 2010, but for now, I’m taking a break, looking at new habits that will help me to be healthy and effective.

I don’t want to be like a worn out laptop battery, and I’m not planning on allowing myself to get so worn down that I can’t do my job.

If you’ve lost your resiliency – especially if you’re a pastor – it’s worth the effort to recover that ability.  For me this vacation is different than any other I’ve had.  My focus this time isn’t on escaping from my work but on allowing God to renew me, restore me, and transform me.

Jesus says, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”  (Matthew 11:29)  Jesus clearly states that one can wear his yoke andfind rest for one’s soul.  That’s all I’m looking for. 

I’ll let you know how it goes!

I hadn’t realized this until my wife was radio “channel surfing” this morning. She came across a Christian radio station and they mentioned “the Lord Jesus Christ.”

“Is that a CD mom?” he asked.
“No. It’s on the radio.”
“Yeah, but is it the iPod playing over the radio?”
“No, it’s really on the radio. It’s a Christian radio station.”
“It’s about time!” Johnny replied.

My kids have an innate awareness that this isn’t a Christian world in a way that I never did. It will be interesting to see how that affects the way he sees being a follower of Jesus along the way. He’ll probably help me learn to be a pastor in a post-Christian world too.

I put on some recorded hymns as we ate breakfast.  As the boys and I worked on cleaning up the kitchen, the hymn “Come, Labor On” came on.  Now I’ve always wished that that hymn had a better tune.  It sounds like a funeral song, but the words are great.  They speak of our response to God’s grace.  We had already heard “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” with its line,

Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all

That’s true, and I really feel it.  I personally feel the call to service my Lord with my whole being.  That’s where “Come, Labor On” comes in.

Come, labor on.
Who dares stand idle, on the harvest plain
While all around him waves the golden grain?
And to each servant does the Master say,
“Go work today.”

Come, labor on!
Claim the high calling angels cannot share;
To young and old the Gospel gladness bear;
Redeem the time; its hours too swiftly fly.
The night draws nigh.

Come, labor on!
Away with gloomy doubts and faithless fear!
No arm so weak but may do service here:
Through feeble agents, may we all fulfill
God's righteous will.

Come, labor on!
No time for rest, till glows the western sky,
Till the long shadows o’er our pathway lie,
And a glad sound comes with the setting sun,
“Well done, well done!”

Taken the wrong way, this hymn might sound like we have to earn the love of God. But that’s not what it means at all. God’s love for us and self-giving for us in Jesus Christ is secure.  Now, God has chosen to use us to do his work. And serving in God’s fields, bringing Good News and joy to others is generally pleasant work. Also, there’s nothing like the feeling that God is pleased with you – “Well done! Well done!”

It always puzzles me when others I meet don’t feel the same desire to serve the Lord. If you don’t know him, I get it. But when Christians say that they’re through serving God or too busy to serve, or it’s not a priority, it confuses me. I can understand saying, “I really want to serve God, but I can’t figure out how to do it with the kids and the job, etc.” That I understand. Sometimes, people need permission to rest a bit! Or a different way to serve that they haven’t considered yet. The song has a word for that too: “No arm so weak but may do service here.” Anyone who desires to serve God can do so.

Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.

My Dad suggested taking a trip to the channel at the end of the lake – maybe a mile.  There’s a state park there and we could row into it.  That sounded like fun so after dinner one night, we went out.  We started out playfully, following the shoreline around to the channel, but it took longer than I expected, and night was falling.  Stubborn Determined person that I am, I decided to go all the way anyway.  So we went all the way.

By the time I started back, the sun was behind the mountains and a wind had come up.  I didn’t want to be out on the lake at night without a light – invisible to the motor boats on the lake so I had to get back.  I decided it would be faster to head straight across the width of the lake rather than follow the shore, and I began to row as fast as I could.

In the middle of the lake, the waves were significantly bigger, and for a moment, I was concerned that my foolish plan had endangered my boys.  But they were never worried because Daddy was in the boat with them.  Fortunately, we made it back to the dock in plenty of time and without any incidents.

I found myself thinking about Jesus’ disciples going for a similar boat ride with him (See Mark 8:23-27.)  A storm came up and the disciples got scared.  I think I would have also.  Jesus was sleeping, not rowing.  But I believe that the point of the story was that if Jesus is in the boat with you, you don’t have to be afraid, as my sons were unafraid to be in the boat with me.  The good news is that the one in the boat with us isn’t just a decent kayaker, he’s the one who has the power to calm the seas!

The last time this happened, I had a talk with Josh.  Since he knows that it’s wrong, why does he keep doing it?  “Dad, could you put the crayons up high where I can’t reach them?” he asked.

I wish most adults were so wise!  When you’re experiencing temptation and falling for it again and again, the best thing you can do is to either get it away from you or get yourself away from it!  Joshua has uncommon wisdom for a three-year-old.  Hopefully more of us will learn from Joshua and deal with the things that cause us to stumble by “putting the crayons up high”!

“There’s nothing to do!”

“You could ride your scooter or kick the soccer ball or pull weeds or throw your rocket football or play hide-and-seek with your brother or ride your bike or play with the hula hoop or look for bugs.”

“That’s boring.”

We have a great yard right now and a nice patio, and plenty of toys for the kids to play with. But they stop seeing that and see anything familiar as “boring.”

As I was thinking about how sad that was, I realized that I do the same thing! I focus on whatever is missing in my life at this moment and forget or discount the blessings that God has provided in my life.  Just like Johnny!

This morning, I asked the congregation to think about their blessings and then asked how many had thought of something that hadn’t recognized as a blessing before.  In one service, a bunch of people raised their hands.  In the other, almost none.

We have a choice.  We can be thankful for the blessings we have or we can decide that they’re

“boring” and concentrate on what’s not right.  It’s a matter

of an “attitude of gratitude,” and life’s a lot more pleasant and satisfying that way.

Our church has experienced a lot of growth lately and we’re having growing pains.  That’s partly because our building is way too small.  It was built in a time when a) churches didn’t have parking lots – they expected to fill the whole property with buildings and b) neighborhood churches were the thing.  There was a plan for a bigger building across what is now grass and parking lot, (it would never be approved under current building codes), but the small “chapel” that was built first was the only worship space that ever made it off the drawing board.  On Christmas Eve or Easter or at the memorial service of a beloved person we can fit 144 people in the pews (6 per small pew), but nobody will sit at that density the rest of the time.  The more realistic four per pew yields 96.  The subtract the first three pews that nobody wants to sit in (maybe they don’t think I bathe) and you have 72.

We almost always have more than 72 people.  Adding the Trinity Cafe, our video venue with coffee and snacks, we can get 120 people on a good Sunday at our 9:00 service.  At 11:00, people don’t sit in the cafe so it’s stuck at about 100 tops.

So we need to do something to make space to grow God’s family!  How do you do that in a small building?  The simplest plan is to add another worship service.  That means either reworking the Sunday morning schedule and maybe shrinking the existing services and fellowship time to make it all fit.  Or it could mean installing seating that would allow more people in the same space (you can fit 20% more people in separate chairs than you can in pews).  Or it could mean moving an existing worship service off site to a bigger space.

The things least likely to mess up what we’ve got going already are adding a new evening worship service and changing the seating in our sanctuary.  Adding a service is a big commitment and it requires a number of committed people to keep it going.  Buying new chairs is expensive (maybe $20,000 to get 150 nice-looking, comfortable seats with wooden legs that hook together).  I find both of those daunting – mostly because the needed resources are out of my control.

There’s that word again!  We’re called to make leaps of faith and to allow God to do great things, but God rarely writes the plans in the clouds of the sky or delivers the plan engraved in stone tablets.

We meet tomorrow to see what the group’s discernment (fancy theological word for looking for God’s will) has been.  We may be able to make a decision and then move ahead with making it happen.  I’ll keep you posted.

What we’re not going to do is sit idly by and allow the momentum that God has provided to die.  We do not plan to “quench the Spirit.”  We will do something and it will be risky.  But – whether it succeeds wildly or fizzles – God will be there with us.

If you read this, please pray for us (and me personally) as we step out in faith!  Where are you headed, Lord?  We want to follow you there!

So last night, I was trying to figure out what “I need to do to fix this.”  That usually leads me to a bad place emotionally and spiritually so I thought it would be great to get up early with Eleanor and pray.  But I didn’t.

When I did get up, I was focused on all of the things everyone needed to do.  But in the background of my mind was a message I hadn’t noticed.  The kids at church had sung a song for Mother’s Day on Sunday, and it was running in the back of my mind, as a soundtrack for my own internal conversation.  “Our God is a great big God.  Our God is a great big God.  Our God is a great big God and he holds us in his hands.”

God has a plan, and God will hold our church and me as we move ahead in the things that God has planned for us.

I sure understand that.  I don’t know what it is about me that makes me struggle against what God wants for me.  I will have a sense that God is leading me in a particular direction and there’s a part of me that will immediately go the other direction.  I did it in a big way when I was running away from the call to vocational ministry.  Now I do it in smaller ways.

The common thread is that whatever God is calling me to is always better than the alternative plan I have in mind.  Once I finally give up on fighting God, once I agree with or submit to or am reconciled withGod, there is peace.  It always works out better too.  Even when I can’t figured out how it could possibly work out beforehand.

Maybe you can be wiser than I am: ”Agree with God, and be at peace; in this way good will come to you.”

I knew that I needed to do it, but I sure didn’t like the idea of standing in front of a whole group of people and talking about sex.  Heck, I don’t want to talk to a small group of people about sex.  And my parents were there too!

So I did it anyway, and I have to tell you, I haven’t been this uncomfortable preaching for years.  But at the same time, I knew that it was important and good.

What really made me nervous was the idea that people would become angry and defensive.  Or that they’d hear me as telling them that they had to clean up their lives to earn God’s love.  I didn’t want to sound condemning, but I wanted to speak God’s truth about what God wants for our lives.

I was amazed to get good feedback from people.  Several people told me that what I had to say was helpful and that they were trying to work on things but weren’t sure how.  One person shared feedback with me that I knowwill improve a marriage.  Another person bought the book I recommended and is looking for a group to discuss it in.

God was amazingly gracious and worked through my nervous obedience to do some very cool things.  Now what was I afraid of?

If you have a half hour free, you can listen at http://www.trinitywestsac.org/podcast/archives/94

I am learning more and more that I can trust that when God calls us to something, it may be difficult, but God works powerfully through it, and the fruits that come from the action are good.