Keeping the faith

One of the tenets of the faithful is sustainability. It is not enough to have acted in some particularly spiritual, particularly sacrificial way, nor is it enough to have retained and reinforced a paradigm of service - for when your works have caught up with you, as your age, so will you eventually wither and die. So clearly, the key to sustainability, as well as the opportunity to be counted faithful, require us to endorse a more permanently lasting endeavors.

Such an endeavor can be raising children - and I realize that a large part of raising children is to optimize the likelihood they will seek after the Lord's heart. Indeed, if we look to a person's heart as reflecting the teachings of that person's parents, their grandparents, and so on, we get a picture of the kind of framework God has always worked in, and where our part comes in.

This is appropriate to consider because it is one of the greatest trials any of us will ever face -

• Can you maintain for decades?


• Can you maintain long enough to teach others what you believe?


• Can you maintain long enough to be a resource of wisdom?


• Can you maintain in a position long enough to be of use to God?

I believe it is this point God is getting at when He wants us to focus on life eternal, when He has us seeking first the kingdom of God, when He has us being rewarded because were faithful to the end.

Our model for the best a people can expect, to my mind, has always been the children of Israel. I have always seen them as having the best of the best and the worst of the worst. Certainly not perfect, but they run the gamut of attributes.

In the first chapter of Judges you see the children of Israel have just started to really take on the promised land. They've already had their various lands allotted to them and they are flushing out locals - but not enough. And we can see the same thing in our own lives.

God called the children of Israel to get rid of all the locals - predominantly to stop them from worshipping false Gods; but, in city after city, they leave a little here, a little there, the result being that God finally sends an angel to confront them about it. They repent, certainly, but the damage is done - and within a generation, following the death of Joshua, the children of Israel had already forgotten God.

Will YOU forget God?

My call to action - sustain:

• Find a promise
  
  Spend ten minutes today in quiet solitude, asking God about a promise you've made. It doesn't matter how big or small, but ask Him to reveal a promise you've intended to keep but have forgotten about, one that you haven't forgotten but haven't gotten around to acting, or maybe one that you actually promised to keep but have set aside due to concerns of the day.


• Plan a promise
  
  You see how easy it is to forget promises to yourself, promises to others, and promises to God - the resolution is to PLAN on keeping the promise. Set aside some time today and plan out HOW to keep the promise.
  
  If you've promised to pray more, set aside time during the day to do so, while also making provision to not be distracted.
  
  If you've promised to eat better, find a way to remind yourself at every meal, as well as before each meal, so that during the meal itself you're not two spoonfuls away from completion and then realize you had forgotten completely.
  
  If you've promised to sleep better, plan it out that way, better organizing your responsibilities and resources so that it is POSSIBLE to sleep better.


• Keep a promise
  
  Record your exploits and share it with someone you trust and to whom you can be accountable. If you promised to exercise every day, keep a record of how much you jog, bike, hike, or how many push-ups you do, and share in your joys and defeats with that person. Also remember that YOU picked the person, so if they offer advice, and after prayer it seems wise, do your best to accommodate that advice.

Edifying Adaptation

One of the greatest strengths of humanity is our ability of adaptation. It has been the subject of countless novels and is implicit in our sin package. It is a double-edged sword. For the same adaptation that allows us to send men to outer space, send women to the deepest reaches of the ocean, and craft any number of variations on a single theme is also one of the easiest ways in which we can simply (and through subtlety) ignore or disregard God.

It comes down to something God has mentioned several times in the Bible, at the very least in Revelation and in Deuteronomy: DO NOT CHANGE MY WORD.

I mention this because one of the most destructive tendencies is for us to take a piece of information we get, put our own spin on it, assume the resulting spin is what the original message meant, and then act on our understanding of that spin. Think telephone game, played over all of creation, with everyone you've ever met.

It is easier to do with God's word than with nearly anything else. Simply put: God made it to be confusing to anyone who wasn't supposed to be reading it. That is why Jesus spoke in parables. He didn't want people getting the right information and abusing it, but instead to learn to trust God with the Holy Spirit, and then start to read the word. See - the Holy Spirit is where the lack of confusion, the unity, the singularity of purpose comes from. Because it's God. Without God, you will inevitably interpret scripture based on your own understanding, and likely without sufficient experience, perspective, or counsel. Which is tempting to do because it is so easy, and works for so many other things.

But it doesn't work that way with God's word.

One of the primary causes of this lack of connectivity with the true meaning of scripture is that people don't set aside enough time for daily prayer. There are some, to be sure, but the gross majority of people don't set aside time during their schedule to honor God with a little reverie, a little discourse, a little connection - and they are NOT blessed by it. Much like the old poem, where the speaker didn't have time to pray, their day was only hustle and bustle, and the result was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Such is how most of our lives are: we are the embodiment of our own decisions. And if we decide that we don't have enough time for prayer, then we're right.

I was told by a wise friend of mine that they thought, a whole lot of the time, that God was actively listening to our words and thoughts, and saying "... amen" the entire time.

Imagine this, if you will:

... You say "Man, I feel sick". God says "... amen". You feel even worse.

... You say "Man, I hate that guy". God says "... amen". You begin to seethe.

... You say "Man, I am cold". God says "... amen". You feel even colder.

I'm not saying those states aren't real. But I'm saying they're temporary, and describing them will often add far more permanence than their states deserve.

My call to action for you this morning is simple:

• Listen to everyone's words around you today. Find a way to record what you observe, whether as a mental note taker or a physical one, and write down every time you hear someone claim something other than a blessing from God or a description of a goal. Everything else will likely be a description of a temporary state. Examples include the above, as well as 'I feel lousy', 'My back hurts', 'I wish I weren't so lonely', and 'I feel depressed'. There are many, and language is notorious for having some phrases do double duty, so keep alert. Keep your journal for about two weeks, and pay attention to see how the lives of those who spoke those words have changed. Often you'll see them embody those very phrases and not even realize it. If you feel so led, share your list with them, and maybe the awareness of their actions might change their life and even bring them closer to God!


• Listen to your own words today. Write down every time you start a sentence with "I feel", or "I am" or "I wish I", and listen to what words you describe yourself, your day, and your perspective. Do this for two weeks. In those two weeks, you will likely pay more attention to your own speech patterns than you have ever before. Have you changed your speech patterns a great deal? Have you noticed yourself happier, healthier, or heartier?


• Choose a state you wish to experience. Pick something positive and constructive. Find about twenty or thirty different ways to express it, using short, three to five word phrases. Then, for the next two weeks, drop one or two of those means of expressing it in your own conversation, either with yourself or with those around you. Do it consistently, daily, and pay attention to your own state. How close to the desired state have you observed yourself?


• Choose an aspect of God's will that has always confused you, whether it’s a specific passage in the Bible, or an aspect of His character that has never been revealed to you or just your relationship with Him. Pick something specific. Then describe it, in as great a detail as possible, in a few sentences, a paragraph at most. Be as specific and focused as you can. Once you've got your sentences, you should put them somewhere that you'll read, whether it’s on a computer, on a mirror, or in your car, put it somewhere that you can comfortably review the material. Then, daily, for two weeks, read that phrase at least three times a day - before you do anything else, in the middle of your day, and at the end of the day. At the end of the first week, you should notice yourself a little closer to God. At the end of the second week, you should feel blessed to know that God loves you AND that you have some say in how close your relationship with him is.

May God bless you.