Availability

Availability is a big issue among us humans. You see it in lots of society’s little dramas:

The teenage girl who’s trying to decide whether to say yes to the offer of one prom date or hold out for an offer from someone higher on the popularity food chain.

The young man struggling with “commitment issues” who can’t make up his mind whether to marry the one girl or stay available for the many.

In sports, the high school coach who is “totally committed” to his team… until the right offer comes from the right college.

We all deal with issues of availability all the time. Should Dad be available for his kid’s soccer game or should he be available to his boss after hours, hoping to get that promotion that will enable him to buy his family a better home or pay for his kid’s college education?

Office politics is all about who’s available to whom and for what. Our whole economic system, in one way of looking at it, is aimed at sorting out who and what will be available to whom.

Why is availability such a big deal? Maybe it’s because availability is about our limitations. I can only be in one place at one time, so I’m forced to choose. If I’m available for one thing, I’m not available for other things. Jesus taught this principle in the simple expression, “No one can serve two masters.”

There’s a pivotal passage of scripture that’s all about availability. In fact, this passage shows that the concept of availability is at the heart of all true Christian living. When we come to Christ, we enter into a life of radical availability to God.

The text is Romans 12:1-2:

1. Therefore, I urge you brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a sacrifice, living, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.
2. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

I think this text says three things about Availability:

1) Radical Availability to God is the essence of the Christian life.

2) Radical Availability to God makes us unavailable to the world’s influence.

3) Radical Availability to God is the only path to full-fledged, image-bearing humanity.

Over the next few days, I’ll be developing each of these three points. Feel free to comment along the way.

 

All Style, No Substance

During my recent convalescence, I spent a day with this book about the beliefs of five pastors of “emerging” churches. For some time, I’ve been interested in the relationship between the Christian faith and things “postmodern,” and that is what the emerging church claims to be working on. What this book clarified for me was that the distinction between beliefs (doctrine) and the way in which beliefs are communicated and practiced (style) is an extremely important distinction, and one which is mostly lost on the practitioners of the emerging church.

With the sole exception of Mark Driscoll, the contributors don’t really want to answer the question, “what do you believe?” Several of them, in fact, criticized Driscoll for being dogmatic. It would seem that they don’t regard any fixed doctrine to be the essential feature of the Christian faith. They would rather envision the faith as a participation in an ongoing personal narrative or conversation that never arrives at any solid conclusions. The result is a variety of expressions of pragmatism. Church is about how we do things more than about what things we hold to be true.

To the extent these writers do reveal their doctrinal positions, they also reveal that there is no doctrinal unity within the emerging church. Their beliefs range from conservative evangelical to mainline liberal. What this tells us is that the movement is a style movement, not a substance movement–the latest in a long line of Church growth strategies.

The problem with this is that the heart of Christianity is a bit of news–an actual truth claim that the eternal Son of God was incarnated, died for the sins of his people, rose from the dead, ascended to heaven, and will return. To be a Christian, one must hold these things to be true. Certainly that’s not all there is to being a Christian, but that’s the centerpiece. “If Christ be not raised, then our preaching is vain, and our faith also is vain.” The assigned mission of the Church is the proclamation of this message in words and deeds. It has been shown repeatedly in the history of the Church that when we focus our attention on style, we start to forget the substance. This book shows that it’s happened again in the emerging church.

 

Ouch!

As most of the readers of this blog would know already, I found myself three weeks ago in need of the services of a surgeon. I had to call my brother at four in the morning on a Sunday (Feb. 3) to get a ride to the emergency room. By that time, I’d been in excruciating pain for about 5 hours. What I thought was some kind of bad gas turned out to be a bad gall bladder. It took a while for the doctors to figure out the exact nature of my problem, so I didn’t actually get the surgery until mid-day Monday.

This picture shows the two ways they do gall bladder surgery these days. The method on the left is the method you want. The method on the right is the method they use when Plan A won’t work. That is what happened to me. The right-hand picture here shows the place and the size of my incision pretty much exactly. Afterwards, the surgeon told me that my gall bladder was one of the worst he’d ever seen. They let me out of the hospital that Friday, and I’ve been recovering at Sheldon & Stephanie’s house since then.

Though I haven’t had a lot of personal experience with pain, I have taken it on faith for some time that suffering has two beneficial effects in the life of a believer in and follower of Christ. The first of these is: pain is purifying. Suffering of just about any kind is an opportunity to build up our holiness of character. James wrote, “Consider it all joy, brethren, when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

Of course, it’s too early to tell whether this painful experience has enhanced my character much, but I can observe one such effect. I believe that in the future, I will be far more sympathetic toward others who are dealing with various physical ailments and pains. This is not only because I now know something of what they’re going through, but also because of the multitude of expressions of care and sympathy I have received in the last few days and the amazing way in which these cards, letters, e-mails, visits, conversations, and prayers—not to mention Sheldon and Stephanie’s unblinking hospitality—have been a true encouragement. Having experienced the comfort of this ministry firsthand, I can’t see myself passing up the opportunity to provide it anymore.

The second beneficial effect of suffering is this: Suffering is, in and of itself, a point of fellowship with Christ, and fellowship with Christ is the prize of life. Paul writes of this in Philippians 3 when he mentions his desire to know “the fellowship of His sufferings.” In this pain, I found myself thinking about this concept and, after lots of simple-minded begging for miraculous relief, asking the Lord for something of this “fellowship of suffering”—some new nearness of God.

This led to some interesting comparisons. From my perspective, my pain was pretty severe. When they asked me the scale of 1 to 10 question, I was answering, “Eight.” It was bad, but it could have been a little worse. But as I imagine the pains of Christ, I don’t think mine even get on the same scale. My pain, of course, was just the accidental consequence of living in a dying body; I did not and would not choose to have it. Jesus’ pain was something he took on intentionally and for the sake of others. While I was in pain, I never once feared for my life. Jesus, of course, knew that all his pain was to end in death. My pain involved no estrangement from God (or anyone else for that matter). Jesus endured the pain of the Cross utterly alone. Finally, of course, Jesus in his holiness, had to bear the imputed guilt of the sins of the world as he was unjustly executed on the cross.

Given the stark contrast here, one might well wonder, where’s the fellowship? None of us will ever suffer in a way that compares to Christ. Compared to his, my pain is hardly worthy of the label. In spite of that, though, I see two points of fellowship. The first is the simple human experience of pain, something which Jesus Christ also experienced, something he shares with us. The second is an extension of that. I mentioned earlier that this experience has created in me an ability I didn’t have before to sympathize with others. Because I know that Jesus’ suffering was human like mine but also vastly more extensive than mine, I also know that he can understand (by experience) any suffering I may be called to endure.

So my looking for the fellowship of his sufferings was kind of aimed in the wrong direction. I was looking for this pain to lead me to a deeper understanding of Christ. Instead, it was an opportunity for me to realize a bit more of his deep understanding of me. I’m reminded of the words of Corrie Ten Boom, someone who suffered much for Christ. She said, “There is no pit so deep that God’s love is not deeper still.” This experience has helped me to see a tiny bit more of the depth of God’s love in Christ, and for that I am thankful.

 

A Picture of Godliness

While I was in Bangladesh, my Grandmother, Concordia Munro Searle, passed away. She was 94, and though her mind was sharp, her body was tired. As one of my cousins put it, from where Grandma Connie stood, it was a short walk to heaven. I’m very happy for her. She was always a person who was full of wonder—always spotting something interesting in life—kind of a smart girlish inquisitive quality. I can see her wandering around heaven, enjoying a nice surpise every minute and delighting in the company of all those interesting people—especially the Lord himself, of course.

So I’m happy for Grandma Connie. But I find that whenever I think of her, and I’m thinking of her a lot these days, a very deep sadness comes over me. Without her, the world is a little harder, a little more mechanical, a little more cynical and heartless and strained. I feel like everyone needs to find a good coat.

I have two authoritative sources for understanding the fruit of the Spirit. First there’s Paul’s letter to the Galatians, chapter 5, vs. 22 & 23: “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”My second source is the Christlike personality of my Grandma Connie. She truly personified all of these qualities. And I’m not saying this because she was my Grandma and was always nice to me. I honestly think she was just as nice to total strangers as she was to me. No, she had the kind of Christlikeness that goes way beyond nice. Real kindness is always better than niceness.

You see, the thing is, Grandma Connie lived in such a way that there was no doubt that her life was rooted in the grace of God. She loved because He first loved. Her life is how I know He’s real.

Driving me home from the ranch one Sunday night when I was 10 years old, Grandma took ten minutes to share with me the struggle she had to depend on the Lord rather than on her own strength, like starting over every day. That casual conversation has haunted and sustained me ever since.

It was hard to be so far away when Grandma died, but it was comforting to me to know that she would have loved what I was doing—seeing a new and interesting place, meeting new and interesting people, and talking to them about the love of God in Christ.

 

Skittles & Koosh Balls - Fun in Any Language

Stephanie writes:

Friday, September 28

Today, the ladies helped with a children’s program. A lovely young lady named ——- told the children several Bible stories. She also led them in worship songs. Even though we couldn’t understand the words, we knew when they sang “The Wise Man Built His House Upon the Rock” because of the hand motions. It was a delight to see the joy on their faces and to hear their sweet voices praising the Lord.

After stories and singing we gave them coloring pages with verses and pictures. Bengali children love to color because it is a rare treat for them. To help them learn the verses, we played a VBS game. They divided into boy and girl teams, tossed a koosh ball into a basket and pulled out a word from the verse. Both times, the girls were the first to get their verse in order. They all had a blast playing the game.

To encourage them to learn the verses we told them they could have a piece of candy from my treat bag if they would recite the verse. The children stood around the edges of the room quietly saying their verses over and over to learn them. Older children helped the younger children. Even the shyest, quietest children said their verses loudly and clearly and then got candy out of the bag with a big grin on their faces. We even had a few dads say the verses so they could have a piece of candy.

When the program concluded we enjoyed the Bengali version of fast food called box lunches. Everyone gets a small cardboard box with rice, curried vegetables, spicy chicken, a slice of lime and three cucumber slices. We ate with our hands (except me!) while seated on straw mats on the floor.