Coming Out of Nowhere: Faithfulness, Part 3

Character is formed in the crucible of faithfulness and refined through the gauntlet of perseverance. The shape of our character is the shape of our futures.

We tend to seek wisdom only when we face an overwhelming crisis, and thus we miss an important truth: there is wisdom in the small things, the small choices. The seemingly minor decisions require wisdom just as much as the seemingly monumental ones. In fact, we find ourselves in so many crises precisely because we fail to seek wisdom sooner rather than later. Whatever we are entrusted with, whether great or small, it is never inconsequential. The implications of faithfulness cannot be overestimated and must never be underestimated.

When we work hard, our talents begin to be harnessed. Sometimes we will be called to serve outside of our most significant abilities, but even then the effect can be both positive and substantial. Developing our talents is critical to maximizing our life impact; yet more important than this is the development of our character. Faithfulness is about making significant those tasks entrusted to us that further the common good. How we handle small decisions today will be the same way we'll act in our greatest moments of decision.

Perseverance is the fruit of faithfulness. Faithfulness accelerates wisdom. Whenever we are faithful with little, when we are trustworthy in the small matters, we accelerate our journey to wisdom. Faithfulness by its very essence implies time. Faith we can have in a moment; faithfulness takes a bit longer.

Jesus doesn't say we need to have more faith; He tells us we just need to have some [Matthew 17:20]. It is not our faith in an event that is critical, but our faith in God Himself. It is not about believing in a miracle or believing for a miracle; it is about an unshakable confidence in the character of God.

When we consider Matthew 11:4-6, we wonder why anyone would be tempted to fall away from a God who works so miraculously? Because although God can do all that was described, He is also the God who calls us to the greatest levels of sacrifice. There are moments when our greatest act of faith is to simply remain faithful. Faith is not always a way out of a crisis -- in fact, it rarely is -- but faith gives us the strength and confidence to see every challenge and crisis through to the end. Faith is a confidence in God that results in faithfulness. That faithfulness gives us the power to persevere.

For Jesus, wisdom wasn't just downloaded from heaven. When He became a man, He didn't cheat. He gained wisdom through the same process that we are invited to employ. He knew what to say because morning by morning He opened His ears and heart and became a student. The wisdom of God comes to those who walk with God. And the path is neither easy nor safe. It is difficult to think of Jesus as having to gain wisdom. We tend to think of Jesus as always complete in every way. To see this clearly, we only need to remember that Jesus came into this world as a baby. He had to learn everything from scratch -- how to eat, how to walk, how to speak, how to read, how to live -- just as we do.

No one journeys the path to wisdom without significant obstacles and hardship. We will all face the temptation to rebel or perhaps draw back, yet if we hold fast we will find the light of day. Remember that God loves to entrust even more to those of us who are faithful with what we have.

Faithfulness keeps our character from going bad. While the small things do not seem so very important in the moment, they have incredible ramifications over the long haul. It is not usually the great challenges that cause successful leaders to fall, it is often carelessness in the small things. There are countless examples in recent history alone from the Oval Office where the President of the United States is alone with an intern, on down to the televangelist caught fleecing the flock or visiting houses of ill repute, and finally all the way down to the business on the corner where the controller is embezzling funds. The 24 hour cable news cycle is replete with such examples. When it comes to character the details really do matter. In our quest for honor, we really do have to sweat the small stuff. Great leaders in a very real way come out of nowhere. We must never underestimate the weightiness of small matters.

Coming Out of Nowhere: Faithfulness, Part 2

We were created for more than just existing. While we have redefined mediocrity as normal and far too often expect nothing more than that from ourselves, God will not accept it. He did not create us to be average but to be unique. Only God really knows the people we were intended to become. Only He can see the full measure of what is neglected or lost.

Sin is what happens when we have too much time on our hands and too little purpose in our lives. Sin fills a vacuum that is not supposed to be empty. To give our lives to the elimination of sin is like trying to fill a black hole. The Bible tells us that the reward for sin is death [Romans 6:23]. Sin and life cannot coexist. They are darkness and light.

Jesus reminds us that He came to give us life abundant [John 10:10]. When we begin to live, sin begins to fall off of us like pounds in a sauna. Some of the more difficult sins only come off when we run the treadmill, but as we truly begin to live, we become progressively less encumbered by sin. Not that we’ll ever fully achieve a sinless state this side of heaven, but the more we truly focus on His kingdom, the less time we have to devote to selfish pleasures and indulgences. We thus fill the vacuum with what is truly life. The outcome is stewardship, and all of us have gifts for which God demands our stewardship. None of us has been left empty-handed. To say we don’t have talent is to contradict God. We’re all unique in the contributions that we can make. All of us are complex and represent a composite of intelligence, passions, personality, skills and talents. The dynamic interaction of all of these are the material from which we draw our potential. Potential is a glimpse of what could be, yet there must be a shift from us merely having potential to us becoming potent!

Potential and productivity are not the same. You’re not supposed to die with your potential. A life well-lived recruits all the potential placed within and does something with it. When our potential is harnessed, we become potent. Potential, when it becomes potent, always produces results. We are born with potential, but we are called to live productive lives. The fool squanders his potential. He is not faithful with what God has given him.

Those who are most faithful with the most resources will find expanding roles in God’s kingdom. If God can help more people by entrusting you with far more than He gives to me, He will. It’s not about how much you or I get; it’s about what we will do with what we have [Luke 19].

When we are unfaithful, we are a bad investment. We may find ourselves blaming others for our failures, but in the end it’s all on us. When we are trustworthy, we can be entrusted with power. When we are faithful, our influence in the lives of others will naturally expand. Talent without character is a dangerous thing. Talent fueled by character is a gift from God.

-- To be continued --

Coming Out of Nowhere: Faithfulness, Part 1

“Be joyful because you have hope. Be patient when trouble comes, and pray at all times.” Romans 12:12 NCV

God desires for us to become faithful, trustworthy people. Perseverance is the ability to remain faithful for the duration.

The quest for enlightenment leads us to the wisdom of God. Wisdom is forged through the crucible of perseverance. If Rome wasn’t built in a day, neither is character formed in one moment. There is a process in our becoming all that God created us to be. This is the human side of divine change. Transformation is both the miracle of God and the stewardship of man. Godliness is the result of both divine activity and human action. God promises to do what we cannot do for ourselves, and He commands us to do that which He will not do for us. There is both miracle and responsibility in play. God entrusts us with His resources, and then He holds us accountable for what we do with them.

It isn’t very difficult to see that we are not all the same. Some people seem to have gotten an overload when God was handing out talents; others seem less gifted. But be assured there is divine talent in each of us. It is both waiting to be unleashed and depending on us to be faithful stewards of what we’ve been entrusted with. While we may not be able to perceive it, the great things of God typically come out of our small acts of faithfulness. When He finds that we can be trusted with small things, we then are given responsibility over bigger things. How we serve tends to expose how we would lead.

When we are faithful, we are trustworthy. The person who is unfaithful cannot be trusted. These two characteristics are inseparable. If we do not achieve our God-given potential, although we might consider it a tragedy, we would never think of it as wickedness. But perhaps we should. After all, the servant in the parable of the talents was declared wicked when what he could have done was measured against what he did [Matthew 25:14-30].

-- To be continued --

Gratitude: Creating Out of the Pieces

Forgiveness unlocks gratitude, and gratitude unleashes love. Forgiveness and gratitude are inseparable. When we receive forgiveness, we grow in gratefulness. Our ability to receive forgiveness is directly related to our willingness to give it [Colossians 3:13-14]. When we are grateful, we forgive freely. When we are grateful, we are not bound to grudges or vengeance. Gratitude enables us to be generous with love.

In the same way that gratitude is intertwined with forgiveness, a crushed spirit is often perpetuated by bitterness. We cannot remain embittered and find wholeness [Ephesians 4:31-32]. When someone desires forgiveness, it our gift to give out of the generosity of our spirits. Even if someone does not desire our forgiveness, it is critical for us to be free from the bitterness that will ultimately enslave us.

Gratitude and forgiveness are inseparable, as are ungratefulness and bitterness. When we are grateful, we experience our lives with a healthy optimism. When we lack gratitude, we move toward pessimism. An ungrateful heart always sees what's wrong with life. The longer we live without gratitude, the more embittered we become. Bitterness creates an illusion of control and power. It is an attempt to hold someone prisoner to an experience or action in the past, but the reality is that our bitterness traps no one but ourselves.

Gratitude fuels optimism and inspires hope. The quality of hope can only exist in relationship to the future [Romans 8:24-25]. When hope is directed toward the past, it becomes despair. This is one reason why embittered people ultimately cannot be encouraged into a new frame of thinking. Until we are willing to let go of the past, we are not ready to take hold of the future.

Grace both receives and gives forgiveness without measure. To receive the grace of God and yet treat others ungraciously is an act of wickedness. God's expectation is that we get rid of all bitterness, rage, brawling, slander and malice and "be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave us" [Ephesians 4:32].

Bitterness always feels justified. Yet instead of bitterness, Jesus chose forgiveness. He calls us to do the same not only for the sake of others, but also for the salvation of our own souls. When we are free from bitterness, we are free to pursue the lives God dreams for us.

"Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to defile many" [Hebrews 12:14-15]. When we embrace bitterness we reject grace. Bitterness destroys our relationships, impairs our judgment, skews our perspective and distorts our memories.

Gratitude generates optimism. The grace of God not only frees us from sin but also from pessimism. When we trust God with our futures, hope naturally abounds. Gratitude changes our perspectives about life. We see the future, experience the present and remember the past in dramatically different ways. Remember the good and the good will grow.

When we realize that life is a gift and we are overwhelmed with a sense of gratitude, when we fill every moment with praise for God's goodness and thanks for His generosity .... we then will find wholeness and our hearts will increase in their capacity to experience and give love.

When We Are Grateful, We Are Most Fully Alive

"And you will joyfully give thanks to the Father who has made you able to have a share in all that He has prepared for His people in the kingdom of light." Colossians 1:12

The opposite of greed is not poverty but rather generosity. While it is no small challenge to learn how to live without, it is an even greater challenge to learn how to live with. The pursuit of poverty is an abdication of responsibility. Although we must not live just for ourselves, at the same time, we must not be afraid to enjoy what God has given us. God entrusts people with resources not so we will hoard or ignore them, but so we will use them for the good and enjoyment of others. Too many of us neglect the good we could do to avoid the evil we might do. The solution is not to stop doing good in order to ensure that we don't do evil. God frees us from sin not to leave us empty but to fill us with life. His goal is not to replace sin with inaction. We don't fill a vacuum with a vacuum. We overcome selfishness with servanthood and greed with generosity.

As tempting as it may be to live detached from the world around us, it is not in keeping with the heart of God. It is so easy to confuse Christianity with Buddhism in this way. We know that greed corrupts and destroys, so we erroneously conclude that the only way to be free is to detach ourselves from all human desire. So much so, that we can even withdraw ourselves from the world in which we live. Jesus, on the other hand, clearly enjoyed the life He lived. He was chastised by the religious leaders of His day for not living a monastic existence. Jesus was having way too much fun for the Pharisees and Sadducees who watched His every movement. When we replace greed with generosity, we basically exchange a black hole for a virtual wellspring. The goal is not to have less, but to give more. Generosity is the result of a life in continuous overflow!

God is the ultimate expression of wholeness. The dilemma in our pursuit of wholeness is that brokenness is often laced with ingratitude. Nothing will heal us if we are ungrateful. Gratitude is central to the entire experience of the Christian faith. Of course, 'gratitude' and 'grace' both share the same Greek root word 'charis.' A life of gratitude makes us whole, overwhelms us with love, and moves us to live generous lives.

Humility: The God Attractant

God is not impressed with talent nearly as much as He is with character. Humility, gratitude, and faithfulness are the critical triad if we are to walk in the steps of Jesus. Moses was exactly what Pharaoh was not. By choosing the path of humility, Moses began a divine odyssey that forever would mark human history. God's purpose must always be fulfilled in line with God's character. How do you move toward humility without losing it in the pursuit? Humility begins with self-awareness, and that must be followed with selflessness. If God gives grace to the humble, then that's where I want to be.

God in His nature IS humble. Without humility, a God of infinite power would use His resources to impress rather than to transform. Without humility, God would find no value in us, nor would He be concerned for our well-being. The realization that God, in all of His power and knowledge and wonder, is more humble than any of us is virtually beyond comprehension!

"Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped; but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and become obedient to death -- even death on a cross!" Philippians 2:5-8 [NIV]

Had Jesus come with power and royalty, wealth and prestige, it would have approved all the things that we lust after. Had He chosen the path that pointed to the highest treasures of men, it would have led us away from the treasures of God. Instead, Jesus was most honored because He was most humble. He has been exalted to the highest place for He, alone, was willing to go to the lowest place. God is holy and in His holiness He chooses to dwell among the humble.

Humility brings us to God not out of obligation but out of gratitude. When we humble ourselves we choose the place of least honor and allow God to call us to any role of servanthood that He might desire. Humility begins with emptying ourselves so that we can receive from God all that we need for the journey.

I find it somewhat ironic that we are never called anywhere in Scripture to pray for humility. Instead, we are commanded to be humble. There are some things that God does and some things that God requires. While humility is a divine attribute, it is placed squarely on our shoulders to choose this path. When we refuse to humble ourselves and God has to insist on it, the experience becomes more than humbling and is often even humiliating.

We cannot enter into a genuine relationship with God without coming to Him in humility. Repentance requires humility, and humility is most practically expressed in submission. When we submit ourselves to God, we are placing our lives under His mission. Submission is not so much about powerlessness but more about meekness. To be meek is to have controlled strength. Like the Roman centurion we see in Scripture [Matthew 8:5-13] we must become a people both of authority and under authority.

We cannot expect to be entrusted with authority over others if we cannot be trusted to live under the authority of others. That's one reason why children who are never taught to honor and submit to their parents make such poor adults. Humility gives us the flexibility to adapt to whatever context we may encounter in our lives.

Anywhere God walks is not beneath us. When we abide in Jesus, we see the power of God unleashed to accomplish His greatest good when we are willing to walk in humility. To be humble allows us the possibility of being truly great.

Humility Is Coming to Grips With Our Humanity

Neither perspective nor attitude is formed in a vacuum. They are expressions of deeper realities within us. When a person has an attitude problem, what he or she really has is an arrogance problem. A bad attitude is evidence of a lack of humility. Attitude is an accurate monitor of where we fall on the spectrum of pride and humility. This is why two people can step into the same experience and respond to it so very differently. It's why sometimes we need an attitude adjustment. And violence is no more than arrogance when it doesn't get its way.

When we are most full of ourselves, we are most likely to make fools of ourselves. And when we are full of ourselves we leave no room for God to place in us the very things we need the most. Pride fills up the space where integrity needs to reside. Courage is the strength of heart born out of integrity.

A person of integrity is a person of truth. Yet truth itself is not what forms integrity; rather, it's what informs integrity. Only the teachable heart will embrace whatever truth is needed for the particular moment. If we are not teachable, there will be no transformation. If we are unwilling to listen, we are incapable of learning. That is why Jesus calls us to be disciples and to make disciples. It is the student of life who will learn how to live. And while intelligence, discipline, focus, and determination are all critical to the learning process, another characteristic is even more essential: humility.

Integrity is formed in the heart of the humble. The quest for honor leads us to courage through integrity and to integrity through humility. There is no other path. If you desire the kind of greatness that not only inspires the admiration of others but also leads to genuine friendships and true intimacy, then only the way of humility will do. If all you care about is yourself, then that's all you're going to have.

Make Your Hope Sure

We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, in order to make your hope sure. We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised [Hebrews 6:11-12].

Today's culture has very nearly come to making a religion of slothfulness. Carried to the ultimate extreme, slothfulness separates us from God because it erases caring. Humanly speaking, apart from the mysteries of God's sovereign workings, more souls perish from slothfulness than from outright disbelief.

In the Parable of the Talents, the master says to the servant who did nothing with his talent, "You wicked, lazy servant!" [Matthew 25:26]. Slothfulness is intrinsically wicked! The master goes on to pronounce a withering condemnation over him, "Take the talent from him and give it to the one who has ten talents. For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. And throw the worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." [vv. 28-30] From the very lips of Jesus, then, we have a linking of laziness and damnation. A lazy life can be an indication of a graceless life. True believers will persevere.

According to The Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute:

The USS Astoria was the first US cruiser to engage the Japanese during the Battle of Savo Island, a night of action fought from August 8-9, 1942. Although she scored two hits on the Imperial flagship Chokai, the Astoria was badly damaged and sank shortly after noon on August 9th.

About 0200 hours a young midwesterner, Signalman 3rd Class Elgin Staples, was swept overboard by the blast when the Astoria's number one eight inch gun turret exploded. Wounded in both legs by shrapnel and in semi-shock, he was kept afloat by a narrow lifebelt that he managed to activate with a simple trigger mechanism.

At around 0600 hours [after four hours floating in the sea], Staples was rescued by a passing destroyer and returned to the Astoria, whose captain was attempting to save the cruiser by beaching her. The effort failed, and Staples, still wearing the same lifebelt, found himself back in the water. It was lunchtime. Picked up again, this time by the USS President Jackson, he was one of 500 survivors of the battle who were evacuated to Noumea.

On board the transport, Staples, for the first time closely examined the lifebelt that had twice saved his life. It had been manufactured by Firestone Tire and Rubber Company of Akron, Ohio, and bore a registration number. Given home leave, Staples told his story and asked his mother, who worked for Firestone, about the purpose of the number on the belt. She replied that the company insisted on personal responsibility for the war effort, and that the number was unique and assigned to only one inspector. Staples remembered everything about the lifebelt, and quoted the number. It was his mother's personal code and affixed to every item she was responsible for approving.

Sixty-eight years ago, a mother's unheralded diligence in an anonymous wartime job made sure her soon-to-be shipwrecked son's hope of survival. But how much greater are the stakes in eternal matters, and how much greater is the challenge to diligence in eternal matters! Those who work at their faith, make their hope sure! The Bible is clear that no one can be saved by works, but it is also clear that saving faith works.