Naked Lobster

Ever thought about how a lobster grows?  Because of its rigid shell, the larger it gets, the more uncomfortable the lobster becomes.  Eventually, it has to shed its old shell in order to grow a new, roomier model.  This process is repeated multiple times (as many as 25 times over the first 5-7 years of its life) until it reaches its maximum size.

During the 48 hours or so that the lobster is shell-less, it’s in grave danger.  One hungry tourist with a cup of melted butter….  Or…the lobster could be eaten by any of its other natural predators.  For the lobster, there is no growth without risk.

I see two lessons for us in the story of the naked lobster:

·        You won’t grow without taking some risks.
·        You won’t grow without leaving something familiar behind.

But where the lobster operates on instinct to shed his shell, we have to operate on courage.  Unfortunately, many of us struggle to face up to hard changes.  It’s difficult to leave our comfort zone for the scary unknown.  Success is not assured.  Failure is likely.  Why would we want to leave what’s been working for us for so long?

And the truth is, we don’t always have to.  Sometimes, business as usual (BAU) will get us by.  But that’s all it usually does.  If we want to grow…  If we want to do great things for God… We are going to have to leave the familiar for something better.  We can’t continue to stay in our cramped, little shell convincing ourselves that it isn’t so uncomfortable after all.  We’ve got to feel the pinch and make the move.

How Do Your Walls Look?

If you have accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior, you (like the Jews who had lived their lives in the foreign land of Egypt) have been freed from the captivity of the Enemy.  Specifically, I’m talking about being free from the slavery of Satan’s temptations here on earth and from hell and eternal darkness in eternity.  Your temple (your heart) has been rebuilt – made new!

 

And yet, many of us still have little to no defenses against the attacks of the Enemy.  We are like the Jews during the time of Nehemiah.  They had a new temple, but there were no walls around the city to protect it.  Likewise, our spiritual walls, which represent our relationship with Christ, are broken down, and our gates (ears and eyes) are open for whatever the Enemy brings our way.  He assaults us with images and sounds, which we shouldn’t let into our minds, but we are weak without our walls.  He can walk freely through our minds, because we have no way to keep him out.

 

God intended for us to be a light to all we meet.  He intended for us to reflect His glory.  But instead of shining, we’ve been sinning.  Because of what we’ve allowed into our minds, they are full of darkness.  Our mouth gates don’t send out wisdom; they send out perversity.  We laugh at all kinds of sinfulness.  We celebrate it along with all the unsaved people around us.  They can’t tell that we are God’s people, because we look just like them.

 

If we are truly saved, this should cause us as great a distress as Nehemiah experienced when he first heard about the broken walls of Jerusalem. We will never rebuild our spiritual walls until we first weep over the ruins.  In other words, we need to reach a place of repentance for the mess we have made of what God gave us.  God warns that if we continue to be unfaithful, He will give us over to our sins just as he scattered the Jews to the nations.  But if we return and obey, He will restore us to relationship with Him.  Even those of us who have gone to the farthest reaches of sin.  Even those of us who think we’ve gone far beyond what God will forgive.  He will bring us back.

The Amazing Chinese Bamboo Plant

The Chinese Bamboo plant starts from a tiny seed. You plant the seed in the dirt, and you water the seed. Very little seems to happen the first year. Despite your efforts, only a tiny shoot pokes out of the ground.

So…..the second year you water and fertilize and protect the seed…..Nothing happens.

So…..the third year you water and fertilize and protect the seed…..Nothing happens.

So…..the fourth year you water and fertilize and protect the seed…..Nothing happens.

So…..the fifth year you water and fertilize and protect the seed.….Finally, during the fifth year, the Chinese Bamboo plant begins to grow. In fact, it grows 90 feet tall in just 6 weeks!

The question is, did it grow 90 feet in six weeks or in five years? The answer, of course, is that it grew 90 feet in five years. It took five years to grow the root system that would one day support a 90-foot plant.

People are often like the Chinese Bamboo plant. We invest hours and hours trying to develop ourselves or others, and nothing happens.  We spend years discipling our children to follow the Lord, but…..nothing happens.   We hold countless meetings with our staff members to coach them in the development of their strengths and developmental areas, but…….nothing happens. We redouble our efforts to help a friend make better decisions, but…….nothing happens.

If you’re like most people, you will be tempted to give up. Don’t do it! If you give up, the seeds you planted will die. But if you continue to care for the seeds, one day (when you least expect it) the results of your labor will seem to magically appear overnight!

If the Chinese Bamboo plant immediately shot up 90 feet in the first year, one strong wind would blow it down. By growing deep before it grows tall, it gains the strength it needs to withstand the force of heavy winds. Similarly, lasting growth starts on the inside of people. It’s difficult to see that change is taking place, but this is a necessary process. The growing they do on the inside creates strength of character and conviction.

Don’t give up hope! Your efforts will be rewarded!  Once the root system is established, your growth or the growth of those you are coaching will spring up seemingly overnight!

Prayer Radar

Though most of the world doesn’t know it, we are in a spiritual war. Good battles Evil every day in the unseen realm to claim the territory of men’s and women’s hearts. Angels take their orders from the Almighty General, who, despite His unlimited strength and wisdom, often waits for our prayers to determine where to attack. Those prayers signal to the General what we think are the prime targets in the fight.

If you are a Christian, you’ve been dropped behind enemy lines. Your mission: to save as many prisoners of war as possible before the war ends. But before you get discouraged by the immensity of the mission you’ve been assigned, know that God doesn’t expect you to save them all yourself. He has a plan, and you have been strategically placed to execute your part.

Your primary weapon is prayer, but you can’t effectively pray for everyone you meet. God has placed certain people in your life – both Christians and non-Christians – and those are the ones God expects you to pray for. These people are on your Prayer Radar.

Take out a pencil and a sheet of paper, and draw four concentric circles like the ones shown below. This will give you three donuts and a donut hole. Label these as shown with the words “Family,” “Friends,” “Associates,” and “Others.”

Now, write names of these people inside each of the appropriate circles.  “Family” and “Friends” are probably self-explanatory.  “Associates” might be people that you work with, your neighbors or just people that you come in contact with on a regular or semi-regular basis.  “Others” are people that you don’t come in contact with regularly but whom God has placed on your heart for some reason.  They could include leaders, politicians, entertainers, missionaries, church leaders or world figures (to name a few).

Continue to ask God to bring names to mind of people He has placed on your Prayer Radar. There are no accidents when it comes to the people around you. God put you in their midst for a reason. You were either sent to cover their six (watch their backs if they are already Christians in the battle), or you were sent to rescue them from the Enemy.

Pray for those on your Prayer Radar every day, or select a particular group to focus on each day of the week.  Then watch to see how God works in their lives.  It will be transformational for them and for you.

 

I Hate Perfect People

Okay, that’s a little harsh, I know. I don’t actually hate them, but that’s mostly because they don’t exist. By my count, there have been only three to ever walk the face of the earth, and the first two caved under the pressure. What I actually hate is people pretending to be perfect, and they are legion.

Perfect people have it all together. They spend three hours a day in personal devotions, chair every church committee, have immaculate houses and trim physiques. They walk with the Lord every moment of every day, and all their kids play musical instruments…superbly well!

Why do I hate them? Same reason most of us do, I think. They are walking condemnations of who we are and what we do. When we spend time with them, we come away feeling inferior and discouraged. We want to crawl under a rock or wallow in self-pity. “Why can’t I be like them? Why is my family so messed up? There’s no hope for me if that’s the standard!”

But aside from my personal issues, I hate the impact they have on the Body of Christ. Their “perfectness” creates a wall – both for the non-believer and the believer. Perfect people are unapproachable. They don’t have problems like I have. They don’t struggle like I struggle. How could I ever open up to them about my sin or my pain? They wouldn’t understand, and they would probably judge me for it.

I attended a Christian men’s conference a few years ago, and the speaker asked us to talk at our tables about our struggles as men. I knew how hard it is to get men to open up to other men, so I thought I would prime the pump.

“I struggle with sexual purity. I was exposed to some pornography when I was about seven years old, and over the years, I developed an addiction.  When I became a Christian I realized that I had to deal with this sin in my life. I’m winning some battles, but it still has a strong pull on my heart.”

Silence. Nothing for about thirty excruciating seconds, and then the other seven guys at the table all said basically the same thing: “Well, I haven’t struggled with that, but I feel for you. No, my problem is…” and they began to rattle off some pretty mundane transgressions. All very safe stuff. I felt like a leper.

But as they shared, I realized something I had missed before. They were all from the same church – the one where the event was held. I was the only one from out of town. I suspected that many of them actually did struggle with sexual purity on some level (my experience is that it’s fairly universal for men – if not with pornography, then with eye control and impure thoughts), but they felt it was unsafe to share with each other. My suspicions were confirmed when one of the men approached me privately after the conference and confessed a deep-rooted battle with porn.

Why was it unsafe for those men to share with each other? Because they feared being judged. They feared what would change in their relationships. They feared that their secret might get out. Only faux weaknesses were safe enough to share.

This is such a tragedy! None of those men were perfect. All of them had issues that needed to be shared at that table. But no one wanted to expose his heart to the other men. Instead, they played perfect with each other, and by doing so, they stepped into Satan’s net of isolation. One of his main strategies against us is divide and conquer. He knows that we are stronger together, and he will do whatever it takes to keep us from unity.

We’ve got to be more transparent with each other and with the world around us. Playing perfect only sets us up for a fall when the Enemy exposes our sin. Pretending that we don’t struggle doesn’t make Chrisianity more attractive; it makes it unreal and hypocritical and “holier than thou.”

What the hurting people around us need to see is that we are hurting, too, but that we have Someone to whom we can take those hurts. We struggle, but we have hope. We sin, but we have forgiveness. We fall, but we get up.  Then, they will know that it’s safe to confide in us, that we can relate and that we won’t judge.  And that magnet is much more powerful than anything the Enemy has in his arsenal.

The Bird’s Nest

When a young bird’s feathers and wing muscles are developed enough for flight, the bird’s parents will often push it out of the nest. With some species of bird, this can be a spectacular free fall from a dizzying height. With others, it’s not the fall they have to worry about but the predators that are waiting for them to leave the safety of the nest.

The danger outside the nest serves a purpose for the young fledgling. Its fear adds urgency to the need to develop new skills. If it learns to adapt to its new environment, it survives. With practice, it thrives. The fledgling gets stronger and develops the ability to fly, to find its own food and to raise its own young.  The whole process is ordained by God to make baby birds into fully functioning adult birds.

Putting the process into psychological terms, you could say that the bird’s nest is for the baby bird what our comfort zone is for us.  It’s a safe place, a comfortable place.  It’s what the young bird is familiar with.  But the bird can’t grow much in its first nest.  To grow and develop skills needed for survival, it has to leave the nest.  If the fledgling’s parents allowed it to stay, they wouldn’t be doing it any favors.

When we face a difficult and intimidating change in our lives, God is pushing us out of our nest.  He’s forcing us out of our comfort zone so that we can grow and develop new skills, knowledge and understanding.  While it may seem uncaring or even mean-spirited to force us to go through the change, you can be sure that God does it out of love.  He knows that the only way to prepare us for the ministry He has planned for us is to put us into a situation where it’s “fly” or “fall.”

Whatever the result (fly or fall), God can bring good out of it.  Romans 8:28 tells us that:

And we know that in ALL things God works for the good of those who love him, have been called according to his purpose. (emphasis mine)

Even when we land square on our faces (or on our backsides), God uses it.  He doesn’t waste anything.  He’ll keep pushing us out of the nest until we get it right.  Then, we get a bigger nest (a.k.a. our comfort zone).  But we shouldn’t get too comfortable, because the process repeats over and over throughout our lives.  Before long, God will push us out of that nest, too.

It’s true that God loves us exactly the way we are, but it’s also true that He loves us too much to leave us that way.

Mr. Miyagi’s Dojo

Five years ago, my wife and I felt God was calling us to leave Texas and move to Colorado.  While the move was fun and exciting, it was a little intimidating for us, because we had grown up in Texas and lived there for over thirty years.  Our friends were there.  Our family was there.  Our church was there.  We knew nothing and no one in Colorado.  Fast forward to today, and I can say that God blessed us through that move.  We met some of our dearest friends in Colorado and grew in our faith and love for God.

Three and a half years ago, I left a corporate job with a company I had been with for fifteen years.  It was a scary move for me, because I was leaving to become an independent consultant and originally didn’t have any idea where my income would “in-come” from.  All I knew was that I felt God was calling me to step out in faith and that I was already three months past the date I had originally committed to leaving.  Fast forward to today, and I now know that God grew me through that decision and the ones that followed.  He stretched my faith and showed me how He could and would provide for my family.

Five months ago, my wife and I felt again that God was calling us to move – this time to Thailand.  The other two challenges seem so easy compared to the changes this one has required us to make.  I/we had to re-enter the corporate environment (something I hoped I would never have to do again), sell or give away 90% of our stuff, say goodbye to family members and those dear friends we met in Colorado, leave behind ministries and leadership roles we loved, enter a new culture, where English is rarely spoken, and learn to live outside the margins of our comfort zones.

The whole experience feels like an accelerated learning program taught by Mr. Miyagi from the Karate Kid movies.  We’re waxing the car and sanding the floor and painting the fence, but we have no idea what any of these have to do with God’s call on our lives.  We would like to think we are learning spiritual karate, but all the activity seems extracurricular and in a different direction.

But here’s where we have one up on Ralph Macchio; we already know we can trust Mr. Miyagi.  We’ve been through His beginner’s course, and we know this is how He operates.  The small steps of faith prepared us for larger steps of faith.  His dojo isn’t a gymnasium or a room with mirrored walls; it’s life.  We learn spiritual karate as we live and experience challenges and loss and pain and joy and love and relationship.

That said, we are probably still going to worry and stress about things.  The problem for Ralph and the problem for us is that Mr. Miyagi doesn’t lay out the master plan for us.  He gives us the lessons we need when we need them; other than that, He leaves us guessing.  Sometimes, we are able to look back over the lessons and realize how it all worked for our good.  But at other times, it’s a mystery. 

Maybe God will reveal the incredible efficiency of His plan when we get to heaven, but maybe He won’t.  God is God.  His thoughts are higher than our thoughts.  His ways are higher than our ways.  And anyway, I think our desire to know what He’s doing misses the point.  God sometimes gives us seemingly bizarre, difficult and confusing tasks to do, because the tasks are tests. 

Do we love Him enough…do we trust Him enough to obey even when He doesn’t “make sense?”  Even when it hurts?  Even when it’s scary?  Even when it will cause us to suffer loss?  How we do on the beginner’s test determines if we get to take the intermediate test, and how we do on the intermediate test determines whether or not we get to take the advanced test.  White belt before yellow, yellow before orange, orange before green and so on…

You can trust Mr. Miyagi.  He has a plan.  Romans 8:28 tells us that He uses ALL things for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.  All the decisions, all the tasks, all the trials, all the challenges…everything.  Even our bad choices, our mistakes, our sins, our selfishness, our fear…everything.  As long as we keep showing up at His dojo and submitting to His instruction, He’s going to be steadily and mysteriously moving us toward our spiritual black belt.

The List

The List. It’s destructive. It’s offensive. It’s subjective, and it’s wrong.

I’m talking about the List that we create about which sins are okay and which sins are not. Almost all of us have a List. Even non-religious sorts. What’s funny about our individual List is that it usually allows the sins in which we are currently engaged but disallows the sins that other people are doing.

Small lies are okay. Swearing is okay if you do it on accident. Lingering over the Victoria Secret catalog is okay unless your wife catches you doing it. Then it’s very not okay. Telling gossip is okay. Having someone gossip about you is not okay. Speeding is okay, but cutting me off is not okay.

Every church I’ve ever attended has a List.  It’s not posted anywhere, but it’s communicated.  In one church my family attended, our Sunday School class had a heated argument about whether or not it was okay to wear shorts to church.  One side contended that we aren’t under the Law, and the other side countered that shorts could cause the older members of the church to stumble in their walk.  Good stuff.  Better than WWE, because these guys weren’t pulling their punches.  I think we could have split over the issue of manpris.

The List repels people from our churches.  They come to visit and realize that they are the only ones in the whole place who have a tattoo or a piercing or multi-colored hair or a second marriage or children out of wedlock or a smoking addiction, and they never want to come back again.  Or sometimes the pastor gives a sermon about “those” homosexuals or “those” liberals or “those” women who have had an abortion and reveals his bias and what will be inferred as the bias of the church.  What if “those” people are in the audience?  Or even, what if their friends or family are in the audience?  Are they going to feel like this church is a place where they can come for grace and healing?

Here’s the thing.  Sin is sin is sin is sin is sin.  From the momentary loss of temper to child molestation.  (Notice I’m revealing my own bias.)  All of it separates us from a holy God.  Our List deceives us into thinking that we’re okay where we are at…..that we don’t have that much work to do.  It gives us a smug satisfaction that at least we’re better than the guy nextdoor.  Our List is self-serving and leads to complacency in our walk, while at the same time making us unapproachable to those who are struggling.

It’s not that some sin isn’t worse that other sin.  (Child molestation IS worse than a temper flare-up.)  It’s that categorizing it doesn’t lead us or anyone else closer to God.  Let Him assign the point values.  Our arbitrary rating system doesn’t come from Him anyway.   

What would serve us and God better would be if we recognized that sin is the one thing that we all have in common.  When we meet the person who’s addicted to crystal meth, we should be able to identify, because we’ve been tricked by the Enemy, as well.  We’ve believed his lies and bought what he’s selling.  Maybe we’re not addicted to drugs, but we are addicted to our comfortable life or our pride or our money.  Ironically, the drug addict may be better off, because he at least knows what’s separating him from God.  We might be oblivious.

But if we’ve got a hidden List, it’s impossible for us to connect with the addict and serve him with our whole heart.  While we may not say that we think we are better than he is, we’ll communicate it through the things we say, the things we don’t say, how we say what we say, how we listen, how we make eye contact, what we are willing to do for him and where we draw the line…  If we really want to help him, if we want to allow him his dignity, we’ve got to stop focusing on whose sin is worse and whose sin is better. 

Can we agree to throw out the List?  Can we stop trying to prioritize sin and recognize that this game is just another diversionary tactic from the Enemy?  If he can get us inspecting and judging, he keeps us from loving our neighbor.  Forget whatever sin our neighbor has done.  He’s our neighbor!  We are called to love him no matter what.  And besides, “there but for the grace of God…”

If you’re with me on this, mentally crumple up your List of prioritized sins and toss it into the fireplace.  It won’t stay gone, unfortunately.  I know from experience that the List is a powerful paradigm, and it influences so much of how I think and what I do.  I crumple it and throw it out only to later find it where I left it.  But be persistent.  Get to really know people who struggle with “those” sins, and you’ll find that your list gets shorter.  Look for what you have in common with them, and you’ll see that we’re not so different after all. 

Yes, No, What’s Your Hurry?

If you’re in the habit of treating God like a vending machine, you’ve probably beat on the glass a few times when the answer to your prayer got stuck in the dispenser. Me, too. I’ve beat the glass, kicked the side and tried to tump the whole thing over (you Texans understand what I’m sayin’ – “How ’bout them Cowboys!“).

Problem is, it’s no use. You can’t tump God. If He’s got ahold of the answer to your prayer, He’s not going to let it go until He’s ready. Doesn’t matter how many coins you put into the slot.

But it might help you to know that God ALWAYS answers prayer. It may not be the answer you were hoping for, but it will be an answer nonetheless. There are just three answers He gives: “Yes,” “No” and “What’s Your Hurry?”

Yes Answers
God gives “yes” answers whenever we ask something that is both in His will and in His time. Sometimes, this even includes parking spaces and lotto numbers, but I wouldn’t count on it. I’ve come to believe that God gives lots of “yes” answers to us early in our walk as a way of building our faith – even for silly stuff. But as we grow in Him, He makes us search Him out more, and this means we will get more…

No Answers
These are tough, but they are easier to accept when you trust the heart of God. If you know that “in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28), even the “no” answers are blessings. When Garth Brooks “thank(s) God for unanswered prayers,” he’s talking about the “no’s.”

God has a list of reasons why He sometimes says no. They include (but are not limited to):

• We have sin that we haven’t dealt with.
• We ask out of bad motives.
• We don’t even ask.
• God has something better in mind for us.
• God has something better in mind for His Kingdom.

When God tells you “no,” you can resist, resent or rejoice. (Hint: Only one of these ever works.)

What’s Your Hurry? Answers
Much of the time, what we confuse for “no” answers are really just “what’s your hurry?” answers. God loves to say “yes” to us, but sometimes it’s just too early. He wants to give us the blessing, but we couldn’t handle it yet. (Think about all the people who have been ruined by fame and fortune because they didn’t have the wisdom to manage it well. Now thank God that you’re not one of them.) When we’ve matured, or when the conditions are right, the blessing will come.

So, ask God for the desires of your heart. And keep asking until you feel you’ve gotten an answer. (Sometimes I think God gives us the “what’s your hurry?” answer just so we’ll keep talking to Him.) God loves us and always wants the best for us, and He’s in a much better position to know what that is.

No Waiting

What are we waiting for?  Some Christians treat Earth like it’s a waiting room for Heaven.  Too many of us are sitting around waiting for our name to be called.  We take comfort in the knowledge that the Great Physician knows we are here.  We think we just need to mind our own business and keep our heads down in our magazines until it’s time for our appointment.  But Earth isn’t a waiting room; it’s a clinic.

We are supposed to be engaged in the care and healing of the soul sick.  When all we are doing is waiting to be called home, we are taking up useful space.  If God didn’t intend for us to help others, He could have just taken us straight to heaven as soon as we gave our hearts to Him.  But He didn’t.  So He must have work left for us to do.

Being unqualified is not an excuse.  Of course we don’t know what we are doing.  God doesn’t call the qualified; He qualifies the called.  He gives us on-the-job training.  His strength is made perfect in our weakness, in our ignorance, in our inexperience…even in our mistakes.  Besides, we’re not responsible for the cure – only for the loving and unconditional care for the patient.  Some will respond, and some won’t.  The Doctor knows.

All we have to do is to show up ready to assist as the Great Physician prepares to do open heart surgery on a sick and hurting world.  We can’t help much from the waiting room, so let’s scrub up and join Him in His work.