The Festering Question

This Blog is long in coming and after allowing it to mill around my thoughts for over a month I still do not know how to start. But as reluctantly my fingers move across the keys I pray that the Lord would take this and use it in the lives of others and in my own life. For quite some time now I have been bothered. The thing that as been my incessant nuisance is myself, and more specifically my fear in sharing my faith. This fear takes many forms and often transforming itself into wondrous rationalizations as to why I need not open my mouth, as to why perhaps it would be better to say less, as to why now would not be the best time, the sad list goes on.

I’ve known I should write about this since an evening service sometime last month when the speaker made mention of rights in our nation and the current state of affairs, alluding to the reality that believers right to biblically practice their faiths is already being infringed upon and could very really be made illegal, punishable in the highest degree. These comments were met with the typical responses of agreement throughout the small group present at the time. I began to agree and be frustrated with the wrongs of other, as sadly I too often do, when from out of somewhere (I don’t know where but I can venture a guess) came a clear convicting thought. It passed through my mind and I could not and cannot escape. “Why are you so bothered by this right being taken, you don’t really use it do you? Perhaps once in a great while you may share your faith with those who don’t already know, but even less of those times is with the desire to proselytize* them.”

I don’t know that those questions are in the exact words they were that night (for I don’t often think in such syntax… nor do I normally use words like syntax, but something happens when I begin to type and my vocabulary morphs) but those are the best words I can offer to represent the progression my thoughts took that night. And it bothered me… and it’s still bothering me. For if it were to become illegal for me to share my faith with the hope of converting another, a crime punishable by imprisonment but somehow I was left ignorant of this law, how long would I live a free man? I fear it would perhaps be a shamefully long time. And that bothers me.

Again tonight at my church the same conviction strikes and it bothers me. However, it does no good to be bothered; it does no good to be convicted if it does not lead to repentance. My feeling of conviction won’t save anyone from Hell.

Scripture says:

Romans 10:14 - “How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?”

I work in a public school and I pray often almost daily for God to help me shine His light, for His love to show, 'Love take me over", that they would see Jesus in me, and the like. There are days I better allow God to do this through me than others, but even if these prayers are answered and they see it and I live it perfectly, if I never open my mouth and say, “this is why”, “Let me tell you the best news ever”, “Let me tell you why I am different”, if I never speak the name by which they must be saved and tell them how they may know him, it is all for not. For they won't even know what it is they are looking at.

At some point I must open my mouth. At some point I must stop being ashamed of the gospel I must stop fearing being counted as a fool for Christ sake.

And it can’t be later…

I know where this is supposed to start for me (with one individual in particular) I ask that you pray for me. I invite you to ask yourself some of the same questions that have been bothering me, and may we both act, in God’s speed.

*Proselytize - To convert a person from one belief, doctrine, cause, or faith to another.

A Page Turn

 I recently had the displeasure of finishing the last erring episode of a T.V. show I had been following for quite some time. It was a show that loved plot twists the first season ended with the hero finally destroying the main villain, but in doing so released an even greater one sending him on another quest to save the earth. So when the second season ended I shouldn’t have been surprised when just on the brink of finishing this epic quest they had been on for 6 months to save the world that *poof*… huge plot twist and everything is in jeopardy again and… “to be continued” comes across the otherwise black screen. Of course they never made a third season so I will never know whether the world was destroyed or not, oh well.

At times I feel like the adventure of life is similarly full of plot twists. Thankfully my show won’t be discontinued before the story is finished as He intended. But sometimes I feel a similar frustration in life just as I finish one chapter feeling that I barely survived it my life gets shaken like a classic boggle game and there is an all new quest on which to embark.

This is my life now, a page turn.  Standing on this side of my bachelors looking back at my schooling journey: being swept off white knuckled by the reigns of first year from my home, to trudging through the swamps of language acquisition and at times despair in Argentina, followed by two years of juggling far too many things whilst walking the tightrope of ministry over the pit of burn out, and all the way barely escaping the grasp of debt disillusionment and doubt. Looking at the mountains crossed, I know there must have been many times I was carried solely on the wings of miracles of grace.

Yet I am here, more aware of my inadequacies than ever before, yet all the more confident in His ability. But now as that page of life lands firmly in the past and more plot is revealed on this new page, here I stand on the brink of another journey I don’t yet fully understand… Adulthood.

What does it look like to be a Christian man in the St. Joseph County Michigan? How does one not digress to the life known before in such a familiar atmosphere? Life? Love? Work? Taxes? How does it all work? This is what my life consists of now, learning in the classroom of life. I invite you to join me again. I am dusting off the old blog (that is if blogs can collect dust… I suppose just about anything collects dust by sitting unused for 11 months). I do this, I hope, to be a help or encouragement to someone, but honestly I know this blog will probably never go viral, but it’s more for my sake I think. I like to write, it’s good for my soul. It helps me to refine my world view. To make sure I’m still thinking. I hope to write monthly. It seems more probable this chapter than the last but who knows what life will allow. However it would encourage me greatly if in some way these musings could be of use to someone. So please read, comment (it makes me feel good) and learn to live with me… or if you could teach me that would be great too!

Prayer

            In my seventeen years as a student this assignment to spend on hour in uninterrupted prayer has been my favorite assignment that I have received. It came in my Senior Seminar class close to the end of the bachelors studies and it was such a blessing to me I thought I would share it with you here in this forum that has been put off for some time, but I suppose better late than never. The assignment was this, simply spend an hour in uninterrupted prayer with the Lord and than write about your experience… this was my report.
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            It was incredibly refreshing to just spend time with Him. It wasn’t an hour on my knees talking the whole time. I went for a walk, and just talked to God and listened. About various things that came to my mind starting with asking the lord to help me reconcile how it works to pray without ceasing and to also heed the council of Ecclesiastes when it said let your words be few in the presence of God for He is in heave and you are on earth. But it was refreshing and intimate and wonderful. I have a lot of decisions in front of me right now and I am the kind of person that loves to talk things out, and I had been doing that with friends. It was as if the Lord said to me… why haven’t we talked about this Josiah? It felt as though he said it to me almost chuckling with a big smile on his face warmly inviting me to pour out my heart to him. So we walked and I chattered and he responded with the wind and the stars and peace… deep deep peace. It was me experiencing Him being the friend that sticks closer than a brother. The kind of intimacy I know He longs for in our relationship, the kind of intimacy I say I want but rarely take time seek with Him. It was gentle yet overwhelming, calming but made me want to sing and dance, and I might of. I like God. =]

            We also talked about the different paths on the table in from of me. I didn’t hear a voice from heaven or anything saying, do this or do that, but I had a different sort of peace about the decisions because I had talked them through with the most important someone.

            In my work as a Discipleship Coordinator and I met with many guys on a weekly basis and would sit with them for an hour or two and hash out life, build relationships with them, pray with them, and grow with them.  As I said to Him, “Lord I’ve missed you we really don’t do this enough”, God short of impressed on my heart, “well I am always available, and you meet with your guys regularly to show how you value them. So that they know they have you for those two hours and to show that you care. To just enjoy one another and grow the friendship, why don’t we do that?” So I want to start to have appointments or dates with God. These will be chunks of time I lay out to be with him that I treat seriously as appointments striving to honor them, when I am asked to do something to respond with a stern; sorry I am busy with a previous engagement.
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If I desire the reality of God in my life I need to treat Him as just that, a reality.  A real relationship in my life that really needs tending. I invite you to take my teacher’s challenge and if you do I would love to hear about it. I also would ask you to challenge me as you have opportunity and check and see if I am making priority of my appointments with Him. This is something I so struggle with and I would welcome challenges or even wisdom how to grow in that.