Moving On

My life has been tumultuous over the last two weeks. I was set up with a potential girlfriend, had a great first date, but things fizzled from there and ended last night. My landlords moved back and announced that they're not renewing our lease. Then I found a new place that's even better than this one. A few days after that, I found out I had only been looking at one region for my book sales, so what I thought was 1600 downloads in the last six weeks was really over 1900. I finished a query letter proposal for this book and did one round of editing on the proposal so now all that remains is a second round of editing and then researching agents and publishing companies. Then today, the woman I volunteer for at the church bookstore let slip a secret she had promised to keep, which led to several unpleasant conversations with a couple other parties, one of whom wasn't even involved. Lastly, it came out that I'm going to another church, so the boss of this bookstore manager fired me. That's an awful lot in two weeks. And now comes the part that I've been most looking forward to and least looking forward to: returning to Virginia, which I still think of as home. I'm looking forward to it because I'll see my friends again, some of whom are like family to me. There will be hugs aplenty, which I get maybe once a week around here if I'm lucky. There will be laughs and deep conversations and lots of catching up. But then comes the part that makes me not look forward to it: leaving. It's not just that I will have to say goodbye again to these people; it's that when I say goodbye this time, I don't know when I'll see them again. One friend has already moved away and another is moving in a couple of weeks, so it's actually likely I'll never see them again after this weekend. It's almost like in the winter when you've been out in the cold for a while, knowing that there's a merry fire crackling in the fireplace. You were there once, but had to leave to shovel snow. You're invited back in, but it's almost worse to go in again because you're finally used to the cold, so getting warm and then going back out again makes it that much worse. Yet I need the warmth. I need the friendship and love that I've been almost entirely without for the last seven months. I know God is in control. The way He handled my future living accommodations is amazing and how the book has been selling is encouraging as well. For the other situations, I may not understand why they happened, but there's a reason somewhere. There's not really a Christian point to all of this. If anything, it's that I'm growing in my trust in God. Through everything that's happened this past couple of weeks, I've remained calm and my faith in God hasn't wavered. All I have to do is trust in Him to not let me fall, and then do what He bids me to do. Much easier and more productive than kicking and flailing and fighting Him every step of the way... :)

Scar Tissue

Hundreds of years ago, princes had whipping boys to take their punishment for them. They messed up in school, the whipping boy would get hit. They lashed out at the servants, the whipping boy got the belt. They talked back to their parents, it was the whipping boy who got stripes. No matter what the young prince did, he was pretty much immune to being punished himself, at least as far as corporal punishment. One result of this was that princes had few scars. Oh, they might get some from sword practice or from any rough-housing they may have started with siblings, and perhaps one from clumsily tripping on the stairs or falling off a horse, but their sins weren't punished. This meant that not only did they not feel the pain of what they did wrong, but they didn't bear the marks of it, either. We have a volunteer whipping boy, who has already taken the punishment for our sins. His name is Jesus. We may still face correction from God or the results of our actions from the world, but the penalty for our sins has been paid already. The stripes have been taken by someone else. This means that we shouldn't be bearing the scars of our sins. So many of us, however, bare our scars to the world, almost proudly. We talk about our past, not just when it will help bring people to God, but anytime a related topic is brought up. We mention them not just with the hurt that our sins caused us and how far they took us from God, but with a certain longing for those good times that we left behind. Some of us, on the other hand, are so ashamed of our past that we don't bring it up to anyone. We act as though our past can never be erased, like we are tarnished for all time. If you do either of these, I'm not judging. I have been guilty of both myself, especially the latter. What I'm saying is that God doesn't want you to live this way. He doesn't want you wearing the scars, whether you show them to the world or keep them hidden. He wants you to remember where you came from, but not to live as though the past is your future. You don't have to bear the pain from what you did because He already bore it for you. To continue to claim those scars is to say that His blood isn't good enough, that it can't wash away your past. God the King made you His adopted prince or princess, and then Jesus volunteered to be your whipping boy so you could be presented without scar or blemish before God. To do this, though, you have to let go of your past, forgiving yourself for it, whatever you've done, and walking away from it. No more shame or berating yourself and no more boasting of all that you did and got away with. You have to let it all go, or you take only half the gift that Jesus offers you.

Planting, Watering, and Increase

One of Jesus' parables was about a wealthy man who entrusted three of his servants with some money and then went away on a trip. The first man received five talents, the second three, and the third got one. A talent is about 75lbs and, if it was silver (most translations don't specify that it was and gold, of course, would be over 50x more valuable), each talent comes to about $36,400 by today's valuation. It's a significant sum of money to leave to people. You probably know the story. The first servant went and bought and sold and doubled his master's money. The second servant bought and sold and doubled the money as well. The third hid the money and returned it to the master, who was very angry with him and gave his talent to the one who now had ten. Much is made of this last servant, but it is the first two I want to focus on. You see, the point of Jesus' story is that the real sin is not even trying to use what you're given for God's kingdom. Now, if he wanted to really show that this is the worst thing and not failure, you'd think he'd have one of the servants lose the money or try but not turn a profit. No, both of the first two servants double their initial capital. Why is that? I think it's because the master, an obvious representation of God, is the one they're working for, and He doesn't allow failure. I don't mean that you won't fail in serving Him. I mean that when you are serving, everything you do will work out in the end because He has willed it to. These first two servants, so long as they did their honest best to serve God, could not fail. Times may have been tough and the Gospel doesn't promise smooth sailing and fat wallets, but it does promise that your efforts for God are not in vain. In the early church, sects started rising with some people claiming to follow Paul's teaching, while others followed Apollos or another early pillar of the church. When Paul was asked about it, he replied, "What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe--as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow." 1 Corinthians 3:5-6. His point is that both he and Apollos had their missions and were performing them as well as they could, but after they had put forth their effort, it was God who was responsible for what happened, not them. When I was a co-leader of a young adults group in Virginia, I failed in large part because I was trying to put the pressure of providing an increase on myself and the other leaders. "If only we were trying harder," I reasoned, "if only we were doing something different that drew more people in. Is our teaching too soft? Is it boring? Are we unfriendly? (I know I was at times, but that's another story.) What are we doing wrong?" It turns out I was doing two things wrong. First, I was measuring success in numbers, rather than letting God define it however He wanted to. Only He knew what was going on in people's hearts. Only He knew the seeds that were being planted and the growth that was taking place. And I am sure that part of His plan was to prepare me for what He had next for me. God's more interested in hearts than in head counts. Second, I wasn't letting Him do His job because I was too busy trying to do both of our jobs. My place was to do His will, nothing more. Whatever results came of it would be on Him to produce. Think about that in terms of your life. Are you trying to measure your success based on something that God never intended for you to use? Are you hiding your talents because you are afraid that nothing will ever come of them or that you will fail somehow? Are you trying to both do what God has called you to do and provide whatever increase comes from your actions? If you're doing any of these things, stop! God has a plan and knows what's really happening, even if you don't. So you don't have to keep score; in fact, you shouldn't. If you're doing what God wants you to do, then you can't fail Him. Only He could fail because only He is responsible for what comes next. If you stay in His will, everything that comes from it is on Him...and because He can't fail, you can be absolutely certain it will work out to His will in the end. And if you're trying to do both jobs, relax. You only have one job to do here and it's the easier one. Use the gifts God has given you to serve Him in whatever way you can. You may never see the results you were expecting, but God sees them. One heart touched by a song, one decision made because of a point in a sermon, one relationship saved because of timely and caring advice...these are the things God uses to change a person...and it is these broken people God can use to change the world. Odds are you are not the next Billy Graham. You don't have to be. The master didn't demand that the servant who had three talents produce five talents like the first guy. He knew he'd given him less to start with and was just as happy with his increase. Besides, God can do whatever He pleases with or without you. He doesn't need you. Your service, therefore, doesn't matter in terms of whether you're benefiting Him; your service matters because it shows your devotion and love to Him. That's what God is really after. As you plant or water, it's not just the kingdom that grows; you grow as well.