Fear and Faith

When I search my heart and find my faith lacking lately, it is less about doubt than it is about fear. My lacking faith is really my increasing fear. I fear a great many things, and I wonder how or if certain things will happen. I am afraid of certain outcomes happening and other outcomes not happening. I am confident in who God is. I am confident in what He is able to do. My lacking faith is not so much about any doubts I have. It is about the fears and worries my mind and heart feel at particular points in life.

Lately I have been wondering whether faith has more to do with lacking fear than it does with lacking doubt.

Thumbtack

In the last few weeks, I have made a connection with the website thumbtack.com It is a great service to professionals in various fields who would like to allow others know more about their services and talents. It has been a great connector for me as a speaker, writer, and even as an officiant.

The entire website allows for a freedom to accept and decline for the professional and for the customer if the services are not able to fulfill expectations (for instance: I am not likely to accept a wedding as that wishes to have 'mention of God' or a variety of other possibilities like scheduling, distance, etc.)

I would appreciate it if you know anyone who might need a speaker, writer, or other things listed here on my website to also direct them to My Thumbtack Profile.

Savior before Teacher

Who is Jesus to me? He has to first be Savior and LORD before He can be my Teacher. Anyone who only calls Him Teacher must be hopeless, because no pupil or disciple could really accomplish His teaching; not even the best ever student could accomplish his teaching. I need Jesus first to be Savior and LORD. I need first that very realization that I cannot accomplish even a portion of his teaching, because THEN I am 'poor and humble in spirit' enough to know my need for rescue from my undeserving and incapable condition.

Only then can I look with any confidence at His teaching for my life as His disciple and follower. Without His rescue I would only live in despair all the days of my life in comparison to the life he teaches me to live.

Ozzie Chambers wrote, "He came to make me what He teaches me I should be."

I am saved and controlled and covered by His Spirit in those places I wish I could do on my own but could never hope to accomplish on my own. If I begin with my poor and humble need, Jesus says, "You are blessed." (Matthew 5)

You will be happy if you begin with your humble view and realization that you could never accomplish the half of His teaching on your own if not for His Spirit and salvation within.

What's good for ya

God, I have so many things I am thankful for, but I realize I rarely intentionally and actively thank you for those blessings in my life. Psalm 92 opens with the reminder that "it is good to be thankful to the LORD". Good for what? Good for who? I am convinced that it is good for me to be thankful. It is good for me to be thankful, and I am not so sure it is only good in the sense that a good person is a thankful one. I believe being thankful does me good.

So here is my heart and mind prepared to thank you for so many things.

Thank you for protecting my heart through my leaving the pastorship of SOLAS.

Thank you for Eric Waterbury, Jesse Peterson, Glenda Harr, Justin Wallace, Gary Tangeman, Ryan Masters, Grant Cox, Brandon Farmer, Nicole Farmer, Mark Shetler, Anh Powers, Dan Demuri, Tim Layfield, Jeff Koons, Steve Rodriguez who likely all are unawarely said just the right thing at the right moment when my heart and mind needed it most. This is YOUR doing.

Thank you for Tonya who has been a cheerleader who has been frustrated by frustrating things and also encouraging when it is most needed.

Thank you for the smiles and hugs of my daughters where I find beauty that points my heart and mind to you.

Thank you for statements and notes and "drop bys" from friends just to make sure things are good and okay.

God You are good. You are all together good. Surely goodness is to follow all the days of my life.

Purpose of Difficulty

Sorrow and difficulty are going to be parts of our lives. We waste our mind's thoughts when we think that these things ought not to be. That is a waste because they simply are parts of life. The real question we want to pose to ourselves is, "How will I be after this and through this? What is God forming in me that will change me into a new creation?" I am being made new, and my sorrow and difficulty are the pressing things, which God uses to make me who I am becoming from His design.

Praying for you/me

Reading Psalm 88 today after I have resigned from a ministry I have loved for 7 years has presented me a great challenge. Though the Psalmist never turns toward any real resolve in this Psalm, there is one phrase he repeats over and over throughout all his sorrow and lament where I find my heart's biggest challenge.

Over and over the Psalmist says, "I have called out to you every day, O LORD; I have spread my hands to you...in the morning my prayer comes before you. I have cried out to you for help, O LORD."

Will I in this time, cry out to God each day? Will I spread out my hands to Him? Will my prayers come before Him OR will I wallow and mope and "try to figure it out"?

Today, I ran into a friend at the coffee shop and told her the news. She said she was sorry, and then she said she would be praying. I thanked her like I have everyone who said similar things the last week. But then she said, "No! I mean that. I WILL pray for you."

I stopped to look her in the eye and say, "I believe that. Thank you." (NOT that I don't believe others are actually praying for me, but her directed affirmation was helpful.)

This has me thinking and challenged in this time. I appreciate all the prayers people are offering up on my behalf right now, and I am truly humbled by so many great friends who would do this for me, but here is the challenge: I MUST PRAY...also! I must pray each day and extend my needy and shaking hands to God. I must cry out to Him every day.

My last open letter to my students: prequel

Today reading about the death of Elisha in 2 Kings 13 has given me a reflection for my heart at this very moment in my life. Just before he dies, the king over Elisha's people comes to him for a final blessing. In a moment involving bow and arrows and the prophecy behind it, king Joash does not react to the fullest potential he could have in regards to the future of the nation in accordance to what the King chose in that moment. In verse 19, Elisha is saddened by the King's response to pound the ground 3 times instead of 5 or 6 times because however many times he chose to pound the ground would be how many times his nation would overcome the attacks of their enemies later.

Here after my resignation as college pastor and going into the night of my goodbye reception I feel Elisha's sadness. One of the most troubling, dis honoring and truly heartbreaking things for me as your pastor of 7 years would be to hear and/or watch those I have taught and lead with all my heart go and not truly live out the things I have spent so much of myself to teach and invest in you.

I want to have the heart of Paul in some of his letters' openings to say to you months and years from now: "I praise God when I remember you. I am confident that HE (NOT I) who began a good work in you will perfect it. I have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love you have for one another. It is right and good for me to feel this way."

I pray and really hope NOT to feel like Paul's opening to the Galatians when he says, " I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who CALLED YOU by the grace of Christ, for a distorted gospel."

My friends and my SOLAS FAM, if I have truly had such a strong impact on you (as many of you have said), I want to hear and see stories proving that in the future!

All my heart and love is FOR YOU. I've always been for you, and I will always be for you. Grace and Peace!

All is grace!

Your pastor,

PC

On the Church's faults

"Being inside the church we are probably as well aware of her faults as any person on the outside could possibly be. And we believe in her nevertheless wherever she manifests herself in a world of darkness and unbelief." -A.W. Tozer I have been thinking on the reality I don't really need to have people on the outside tell me about the faults with the church. I go there, ya know? I am on the inside. I know her faults more than you could even imagine.

Here's the difference. I believe in her. I love her, and while I know and am frustrated with her faults, I also see her going into dark and broken places. While each congregation has their ongoing faults to deal with as a community, it is all worth enduring as long as the Body of Christ continues to advance in to dark places of the world.

We need to deal with the weaknesses and the faults along the way, but don't give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing.

On hearing and understanding God

One of the reasons we do not hear God as we did in the Old Testament is because our sin has grown to do this to us. Humanity has been so sickened with sin that we have lost our hearing and we no longer even speak God's language enough to understand Him if we even could hear His voice.

Hearts have been so hardened over time that we are too incredibly foreign to God whose image is actually imprinted upon us. We who are in His very image are terribly foreign to Him because of our sin.

The good news is that God desires his imprinted people. He desires connection, contact, and conversation once again. The silence we hate is as hurtful to God.

He had to speak a language we would finally be able to understand. Jesus is that language. "Jesus is God spelling Himself out," wrote SD Gordon.

Jesus is God Himself. Jesus is God Himself speaking a language our foreign sin-soaked hearts can finally understand.

That intimacy we once knew in Eden is possible now only in Jesus.

Price of stubbornness

There are so many times in scripture where we see God "turn them over to their own stubbornness" or "remove his hand from them" or "allowed them to walk in their own devices." This happens over and over again, and it is striking to realize this characteristic in God the Father. He will as often in Scripture say things like "Oh that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways."

This is not the "Old Testament God", as if God goes away to summer camp between testaments to really work on Himself. This is Almighty unchanging God we see here. Jesus does give us an access to God and His grace we could never give to ourselves, but let us realize God's action toward our stubbornness has not changed.

There come times when we choose to disobey God enough times that He will just let us go down that road to experience the pain and the brokenness He would have protected us from if we had only listened and obeyed him in the first place.

This is sobering to our hearts that are prone to wander. We must intentionally keep our hearts focused, open, and obeying, or we may very well see God remove his hand from our stubborn hearts.

Prone to wander

Our hearts are truly and terribly wicked. THey need to ALWAYS be focused and disciplined to obey, follow, and love God above all else. But because of the fact that our hearts just really are so so wicked (depraved) there simply is no room for comfortable apathy in this life. Every day my heart is drawn toward its own wickedness, and I have to intentionally focus my heart each and every day on Jesus Christ and the God who demands that I follow Him and obey Him.

My heart is so easily turned away; like terribly easy to be turned away. This depravity and wickedness angers me. I hate that my heart is aligned toward sin and terrible choices, but over and over again I see this in my life.

O God, my heart is so wicked and prone to wander, I am truly prone to leave the God I love and turn from you.

Here is my heart, LORD, take and seal it for thy courts above. Seal and cap my heart for you and your alone. O God, my heart is prone to wander. It is so easily turned from you. Seal my heart. I hate my wickedness. I hate that I am always turning from you if I am not remembering the grace you have given me in Christ. I desire to follow you and lead your people with a fear of you, but heart pulls me.

My heart is depraved and wicked. While I have been redeemed in the blood of Christ on the cross, I still feel prone to wander and leave the path of the God I love. I hate and despise that feeling.

I also realize if I am not intentionally focusing my wandering heart, I will be too easily turned. So seal my heart. Draw me close to you and I will obey you. I will follow you and honor you.

With Psalm 80 I pray, "O God, restore me, and cause your face to shine upon me and I will be saved."

My heat is truly wicked and prone to wander from you. When I do wander, I find brokenness at every turn. So I pray for restoration, and I pray this on a consistent repeat.

Restoration is a return to an original condition before wear and tear and brokenness began to set in.