The End of the Rope

Sandy Taylor recently received a ministry email from Wycliffe missionaries to Papua New Guinea, Jim and Cindi Farr. They ended with these thoughts written by Carol Jean Gallagher:

"I have always been one who could do almost anything I put my mind to
(except maybe sports). I got good grades, made it through SIL school, did
POC with a 4-month-old baby, learned a language, (helped) set up a
preschool curriculum for the Bariai people, did Scripture Use activities
for the Bariai and the PNG Branch, home schooled our kids at various times,kept our finances and life organized and made sure we had what we needed every time we traveled to the village. I was able to do it all.

"For the past few years, though, I have been finding it harder and harder to do it all - at least with peace and joy. Dealing with or avoiding stress
has been a big part of life. A few weeks ago (while on furlough, after a
move, but before I got sick with malaria and appendicitis), I cried out to God, 'I'm at the end of my rope.' Almost immediately I sensed God saying,
'You're not at the end of your rope. I'm your rope, and I have no end.' It
didn't change circumstances, but it gave me hope. I kept pondering that
thought over the next weeks.

"Then God built on it with the following thought, "If you're at the end of
your rope, you’re hanging onto the wrong rope." There really are two ropes. For years, I’ve been hanging onto the rope of "self." Being at the end of my rope is exactly where God wants me. I need to let go of that rope and hang onto God. I have the choice. I can either keep hanging onto my own efforts, or I can let go and hang onto God.

"Lately I'm realizing how worthless my own rope is. Who knows how many years I've been at the end of the rope and haven’t even known it. I've been counting on my grip on the knot on the end of the rope to keep me going. God has been unraveling that knot until there’s nothing to grip anymore. I'm starting to get a picture of God's rope. It's not just a rope to cling to, hoping I don't fall off. God is holding me on. Or rather, I'm actually wrapped inside the rope. It's a comforting place. I feel the rope swaying in the winds, but I don't need to fear; I'm wrapped in the rope. As I allow it, God works the fibers of the rope (himself) into my very being. I'm still learning. I know my trust in him will be tested and temptations to turn to myself will be many. There is a place for our efforts, but only through the power of Christ. Hopefully I'll put these things into practice in my life and learn to work them out in practical ways."

Hopefully, we will too.

Simpler Times

This entry is for many of us who, during Sunday's sermon, recognized the need to simplify our lives, and would like to pursue the challenge a bit further...

Suggested Scriptures for cultivating simplicity:
"Be still and know that I am God" Psalm 46:10
"Follow Me" Mark 2:14 (that cuts through the clutter, doesn't it?)
"I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation... I can do everything through him who gives me strength" Phil. 4:11-13
"The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it" Matt 13:45-46
"Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life" John 6:27

Additional resources for cultivating simplicity:
- Simpler Times by Thomas Kinkade - highly recommended!
- Freedom of Simplicity by Richard Foster - in-depth call to simplicity
- check out this Discipleship Journal article (copy into browser): http://www.navpress.com/EPubs/DisplayArticle/1/1.112.2.1.html
- go to: www.discipleshipjournal.com, click on "online archives" on the left, and type in "simplicity" for more great online reading

Suggested "first steps" for cultivating simplicity:
- take a personal retreat (a morning, a day, a 24-hour getaway), just you and the Lord.
- if you aren't already, begin a daily quiet time with God and His Word.
- use your lunch half-hour or hour to seek God's realignment in your life
- step by step, begin to uncomplicate your lifestyle - from your menu to your schedule. Don't say it can't be done. Just do it!

And in the process may we learn the secret sung by the simple Shaker people:
"Tis a gift to be simple, tis a gift to be free
Tis a gift to come down where we ought to be
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
Twill be in the valley of love and delight..."

Scars and Stripes

“O beautiful for spacious skies,” many will sing this week, as Americans celebrate freedom, and the stars and stripes wave proudly nearby. “How beautiful is the body of Christ,” Rachel sang to us Sunday as we celebrated freedom in Jesus through the scars and stripes that He bore for us. And the bridge of that song challenged me afresh:

“And as He laid down His life, we offer this sacrifice, that we will live just as He died”

How did He die? Scarred and striped. The way His followers will live. The apostle Paul wrote, “I bear on my body the marks of Jesus” (Galatians 6:17). Because of his persistent witness to Jesus, he’d been hunted down and flogged and stoned - and he wore the evidences to prove it.

Jesus could have lived a pristine life and died a respectable death, I suppose. No blood. No violence. Nothing invasive. Just a quiet leave-taking and a returning to His Father. Paul could have retreated from persecution to a safe place, to write for future generations that might better appreciate what he had to say. But I needed the incredible plan of the Father that means my salvation. I needed Paul’s example of radical discipleship. I needed the blood and the scars and the stripes – and you do, too. They are beautiful to us, aren’t they?

Similarly, you and I could live self-contained lives and die respectably and without much mess or fuss - but would that be living “just as He died”? Might somebody near us need to see what real discipleship looks like? How will they, if we never take off the self-protective armor and embrace the specific plan that God has for our lives, however invasive and messy that might get? (There are scars and stripes that are not worn on the outside, you know). Besides, if we’ve paid no price and bear no marks, inward or outward, that identify us with Christ, might we one day hear, “Sorry, I never knew you”?

Some say that on that day Christ will bear no scars to remind us of our sin and shame. Yet in his vision of the yet-to-come, John saw a Lamb “looking like it had been slain” (Rev. 5:6). A Christ who had been crucified. I don’t want to show up on that scene looking like I’ve just come from a stroll in the park. I want to be willing to pay the price – whatever it means in my life – to join Jesus and His beautiful Body, the Church, in the Fellowship of the Scars and Stripes forever.

On Empty

That’s just about where the gas gauge in my sons’ car is right now – a fact which made me a little nervous as I drove it this morning. I’ve decided that I will visit the nearby gas station before heading out to do errands this afternoon. Unless, that is, habit kicks in and I’m in Peach Jam, engine sputtering, before I remember my resolve...

Empty is scary. Not just in cars, but in everything from careers and finances to families and friendships – right down to the heart and soul. It puts us in situations we hadn’t anticipated and can’t control. Empty is needy – it doesn’t command the respect of others; rather, it puts us at their mercy. Empty is accusing – “Why didn’t I plan ahead?” It’s defeating – “Look around. No one else is sidelined like this.” And just unnerving: “You’ve got miles to go yet – and you’ve got nothing.”

It’s scary, that is, unless you do what Pastor Rick urged us to this past Sunday... bring the empty bucket to Jesus. And even then, we’re afraid of empty. Even with Jesus. It feels better to be busy with a ministry or planning a vacation or contemplating a job change – something to fill the void. Something we can hold up to Jesus and plead, “Lord, won’t You work with me on this?”

The woman who touched the hem of Jesus’ garment had an empty bucket. She’d spent all she had on physicians, and was still not healed. She had no more resources, likely no more alternatives. In the crowd surrounding the Master, she was the sputtering engine, the one sidelined, empty, frightened.

And she was the one who got the miracle.

Empty is no shame. After all, God can’t pour His riches into full hands! So let’s not try to deny it or hide it or substitute something – anything – to fill the void. Let’s let empty be a starting-place for Jesus, and for one long-awaited bucketful of miracle.

When Life Snarls

I was thinking, as I was praying one morning this week, about tangles. (Sounds like my mind was wandering a bit, doesn’t it!) I’ve had some experience with tangled things, and you have, too. Trying to run a hairbrush through a child’s long hair. Staring helplessly at the hopelessly intertwined strings of two downed kites. Sitting on the riverbank with two fishing poles - and one mass of snarled line...

But I was thinking of other kinds of tangles... the kind you really pray about. The sticky situation confronting your child, the strained relationship between two people you love very much, the decision that needs made when none of the options look promising - those kinds of tangles.

Does your life have any? I think most of ours do. In fact, sometimes the various tangles seem to pile up until we’ve got quite a collection going. And the question is, “What do we do with them?”

When I get to that point, I often do what any child would do... I picture myself picking up all the unsolvable conundrums and carrying them to my Father’s lap (I had a pretty good pile of them this week):

“I can’t fix these. I’m giving them to You. Can You take care of them, please?” He’s never been too busy. Never thought such work was beneath Him. He’s untangled everything I’ve ever brought Him.

Sometimes it takes awhile. In fact, He’s pleased when I go off and trust him to work on those problems, knowing He’ll call me back as He eventually works each one out. Not always the way I thought. Not always the way I’d hoped. But always for good.

We often hear Christians say, “I don’t know what I’d do without Jesus. I don’t know what other people do who don’t have Him.”

I think I can make one pretty good guess... without a Father’s lap nearby and a Father’s experienced hands reaching out, I’d say they spend a lot of time sitting among snarled things, picking helplessly at solutions, or trying to ignore the tangles altogether.

Makes you glad you have a Father, doesn’t it? You might want to recommend Him today to someone who doesn’t.

It Is What It Is

“It is what it is.”

That phrase has been popping up in recent weeks – during a phone conversation with my son, and in a committee meeting, and from another place or two I can’t remember... until my curiosity was piqued. Where was this new cliché coming from? Was it a line from a sitcom? A hit song? A celebrity one-liner?

I asked the internet. On USA Today’s website, writer Gary Mihoces, called it “The Sports Quote of 2004,” used “to sum up troubles of all sorts and send an instant message that it’s time to move on.” He says the origin of the phrase is uncertain, but it’s been around for years: John Barlow, former lyricist for the Grateful Dead, wrote a song by that title, and President Bush quoted it in response to discouraging early exit polls on the day he was re-elected. And it has been used to explain various losses and sudden reversals and even unexpected successes in the world of sports. “It is what it is.”

A Christian blog by Doy Moyer points out the wisdom in that phrase. “The solution is not denial. We should learn to admit reality, then work with it as it is.” I agree. The daydreaming I did as a kid didn’t change anything. Better to learn to work with reality, even when, as Pastor Ben said Sunday, the phone call comes from the doctor or the spouse leaves or the son looks you in the eye and rejects everything he has been taught. Best to say, “It is what it is”...

...as long as we truly recognize “what it is” (because reality for the Christian is far different than for the unbeliever): It’s something God’s got under control. Something He has a plan for. Something He’ll walk us through, offering us what we need when we need it. Something that won’t last forever. And something He’ll make more than worth our while.

Factor God into the biggest challenge facing you today. Recognize Him for Who He is and look long and hard at His power and His faithfulness and His grasp of every detail and His persistent love and His inexplicable mercy. When you sit down to worry about your problem, factor Him in. When you have a decision to make about it, factor Him in. When you’re talking to others about it, factor Him in. Make Him the biggest part of the reality you are struggling with (because He really is greater than it is). Factor Him in...

Then say, “It is what it is.”

Perfect Timing

Hmmm... What was that game... where you turned the crank that hit the shoe that kicked the bucket, sending a little metal ball rolling down rickety stairs and continuing down a curvy chute, to finally hit a spring that popped a yellow ball through a bathtub drain and onto a diving board, launching a poised plastic diver into a little tub and jarring the cage into a slow descent on your opponent’s little rodent?

Yep – has to be Mousetrap! And if you played Milton Bradley’s classic very many times, you soon discovered that all too often, something went wrong. You forgot to set the spring (a fact your opponent noted in silent glee), or the shoe kicked the bucket with such force that the metal ball jumped the stairs, or the diver somehow listed to the left and failed to jar the cage... and you could only vow through clenched teeth to set up a no-fail run at your next opportunity.

God never plays Mousetrap with His children. That is, He never sets things in motion and hopes they come out all right. He never sits with us beside the game board of life and wonders whether the timing will be right, whether a blessing will come too late to be of benefit, or a trial too early to be handled correctly.

At the age of twenty-eight, missionary Jim Elliot was murdered by the Auca Indians as he tried to bring them the gospel. From all appearances, something had gone terribly wrong. But that was first appearances. Jim’s wife, Elizabeth, returned to take the gospel to the Aucas, and many have since believed. In addition, many thousands, it is said, have gone to the mission fields as a result of Jim’s sacrificial example.

Somehow I think Jim would be pleased, but not shocked. He had already declared, “I am particularly conscious of the Christian’s right to expect events to be exactly timed for good” (Shadow of the Almighty).

That’s a comfort to me. I don’t have to worry about the timing of seemingly random happenings. Jesus was four days late at Lazarus’ tomb – but right on time for what He wanted to do. What He launches – or allows - in my life will be exactly timed for my good and His good purposes, too:

“We know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28 NKJV). It’s not just a cliché – it’s the truth.