Wins and Losses

For over a hundred years a baseball pitcher’s effectiveness has been determined (largely) by one overarching statistic: wins. It seems logical enough. At the end of the day, what matters more than whether a team was victorious or not? And who affects that more than the starting pitcher? Salaries, bonuses, and accolades are awarded based on the number(s) in the Win column. In fact, the highest award a pitcher can achieve is named after Cy Young, who is most remembered for accumulating 511 wins over the course of his career, the most in league history.

However, recent observers of the game have suggested that this stat is not a true measure of a pitcher’s worth. What about the starting pitcher who allows no runs but is replaced by relief pitchers who blow their team’s lead and thus deny the starter with a win? Many say that once the ball is put in play, the outcome is out of the pitcher’s hands and thus he should not be punished for being on a team of less than excellent defenders. These fans and statisticians have created new metrics such as WhiP (walks + hits / innings pitched), FiP (fielding independent pitching), and WAR (wins above a hypothetical league average player). The key theme in all these is that perhaps the outcome of the game (of which a pitcher’s performance is merely one factor) is not a proper metric for measuring a pitcher’s success. Perhaps winning, after all, isn’t everything.

Many of us (and when I write ‘us’, I mean ‘me’) have a tendency to view life in a similar regard. What is more quantifiable than results? At the end of the day, are we not judged by what we have accomplished? Modern logic would confirm this.

Perhaps though, there is more to life than cut and dry results. Perhaps unintended outcomes pulse with just as much opportunity and potential as desired ones.

My father and I set out to hike the Manistee River Trail this weekend. We’ve had it planned for a couple of months. I bought the maps and planned the hike. We calculated our days and divided our snacks. When the day arrived, we drove the four hours north to Mesick, Michigan. The hiking was warm and humid and we were glad to finally set our packs down in a gorgeous meadow beside the Manistee River to watch the swallows dart joyously in the air above our heads. At about 8:30 that evening we were forced to retreat into our tent by the arrival of a rain shower.

 At 8:30am, it was still raining. At 9:00am it was still raining. While we took down our tent it was still raining. When I put on my raincoat it was still raining. I noticed that the rapidly falling water seemed to seep right through what I thought was a waterproof coat, soaking my skin. We had a brief conference about the now-waterlogged coat. The temperature was to drop into the mid-thirties that night. We made the decision to not risk a 30 degree night in wet clothes (and hypothermia) and instead return the four miles we had hiked and drive home.

My first thought as I led the way back over the slippery roots and muddy soil was this: ‘What a failure.’

Hiking has a funny way of eroding and shaping your thoughts over the long haul of a day’s walking.

My mind turned back to baseball (as it often does) and upon wins and losses. We attribute wins and losses in life based upon our expectations of what a desirable outcome would be. To be sure, there are times when we all need the motivation and accountability that this type of thinking brings but it also smacks of hubris and defeatism. Where we might not accomplish a particular goal or outcome, we may at the same time, achieve another desirable result. When our desire for success robs us of noticing other positive outcomes, it becomes a hindrance that we must either shed or use as fuel. We must never drag it behind us like an anchor.

Beyond that, our goals are driven by a severe ignorance of the larger picture. In light of an omniscient God, who lays the plans of this world (and our lives) out before Him in His hand, our personal goals must be held lightly and with the greatest humility. We don’t really know what we need. We only know our personal preferences and desires. We must always be quick to defer to the One who holds our life and knows our needs. These are not excuses for inaction but rather assurances that His plan for those who love Him is far beyond our meager imaginations.

At the end of the day, I spent a day and a half hiking with my father, a fact to which few can joyfully claim. We sat beside a marvelous river in the amber rays of sunset. We marveled at the beauty of a created world; the grasses, the rocks, the hills. We heard the symphony of falling water amid the boughs of silent pines. We spent hours together of a life on this earth that is far too brief to be taken lightly.

We may not have gotten the win, but perhaps we gained something greater.

All I Am To Do

This morning I was afforded the opportunity to stand beside my friends Josh, Andrew, Krystal, Alyssa, and James as our church recognized their graduations from high school. In addition, my friends Tyler and Nate were recognized for graduating college. Over the years I’ve spent a lot of time with each of these people and it meant a lot to be able to watch them be recognized in this way. Being up there with my friends informed me to two things:

1)      It made me feel very old

2)      It made me understand what it means to serve the Lord

This should have been obvious to me but I could see it today with clarity. You see I’ve spent many years working with students and have considered it a service to the Lord and perhaps it was, but what I saw today showed me that serving the Lord really is as simple as three elements.

1)      Be willing – this is where we begin, where we live, and where we die. Willingness really means submitting to the will of the Lord as we understand it. More often than not, this submission comes tentatively and begrudgingly like leading a contentious mule. We approach service with only the barest notion of what it entails or what is required. At its core, willingness requires humility that the Lord, omniscient and omnipotent, knows the path. In faith we step into service, whatever it may be, in ignorance.

2)      Observe what the Lord does – our meager act of submission is the seed which the Lord, through His Holy Spirit chooses to use (despite our ignobility and doubts) to fulfill His plans. We submit. He works. Abraham believed and the Lord gave him a son. Moses yielded to the Lord and the Lord brought His people out of Israel. Jonah relented in his disobedience and the Lord saved Nineveh. Our contributions (as we see them) of knowledge, skill, or even passion are of little account in the Lord’s work. In my years of service to the Lord (such as it is) I have come to the conclusion that I am less of an active combatant and more of an observer. I have been given the opportunity to see the Lord move in the lives of my friends who stood with me today and many others.

3)      Praise Him for what He has done – we are not only observers to the Lord’s work, we are also His correspondents. “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the ends of the earth,” Jesus declared. Since our only contribution to the Lord’s work is our willing submission, we have no claim to its success or failure. Our role then is to praise the Lord for what He has done.

My life is nothing more than these. There is nothing about me or anything that I’ve done to justify standing beside my friends and celebrating the Lord’s work in their lives. They are testaments to the Lord’s love and power. All I am on this earth to do is submit myself to the Lord, to watch Him do amazing things, and my obligation becomes to thank Him for the wondrous things He does.

Thank you indeed.

Tree: a poem

A tree moves,
ripples,
in breezes;
undulates
like a school of sardines.
Aquatic.
Its scales shed in autumn.

A tree moves;
sways
as one;
shivers,
a solitary soldier,
one
among many; a forest; an ocean.

A tree moves;
creaks,
its bones,
ancient,
speak forgotten songs
of reeds
and riverbeds, magnificently sculpted.

The Next Time You Fall Asleep at Church ...

The boy Samuel ministered before the Lord under Eli. In those days the word of the Lord was rare; there were not many visions.

 One night Eli, whose eyes were becoming so weak that he could barely see,was lying down in his usual place.  The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the house of the Lord, where the ark of God was. Then the Lord called Samuel.

Samuel answered, “Here I am.”  And he ran to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.”

But Eli said, “I did not call; go back and lie down.” So he went and lay down.

 Again the Lord called, “Samuel!” And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.”

“My son,” Eli said, “I did not call; go back and lie down.”

 Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord: The word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.

 A third time the Lord called, “Samuel!” And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.”

Then Eli realized that the Lord was calling the boy.  So Eli told Samuel, “Go and lie down, and if he calls you, say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’” So Samuel went and lay down in his place.

 The Lord came and stood there, calling as at the other times, “Samuel! Samuel!”

Then Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”

 And the Lord said to Samuel: “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of everyone who hears about it tingle.  At that time I will carry out against Eli everything I spoke against his family—from beginning to end.  For I told him that I would judge his family forever because of the sin he knew about; his sons blasphemed God, and he failed to restrain them. Therefore I swore to the house of Eli, ‘The guilt of Eli’s house will never be atoned for by sacrifice or offering.’”

 Samuel lay down until morning and then opened the doors of the house of the Lord. He was afraid to tell Eli the vision,  but Eli called him and said, “Samuel, my son.”

Samuel answered, “Here I am.”

 “What was it he said to you?” Eli asked. “Do not hide it from me. May God deal with you, be it ever so severely, if you hide from me anything he told you.”  So Samuel told him everything, hiding nothing from him. Then Eli said, “He is the Lord; let him do what is good in his eyes.”

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The book of Judges concludes by illustrating an era of supreme depravity in Israel’s history so disturbing that it rivals the description of mankind at the time of Noah. After the passing of Joshua, a leadership vacuum leads to an era of declining morality with no unifying divinely appointed prophet or king the successes and failures of Israel rested upon a series of tribal leaders who, though gifted by the Lord, often had questionable morality. It was truly a dark era in redemptive history in which the nation that was to be the conduit of the Lord’s presence on earth became an occasion for scorn. Not only were Israel’s civic leaders poor representations of the Lord but also were its priests, Hophni and Phinehas, Eli’s sons, who abused their power and disrespected the Lord they claimed to serve.

Enter into this climate a young boy already a miracle at his birth. After years without a word from the Lord, He would reveal Himself to this young novice.

Samuel’s story paints us an intimate and profound picture of what it means to hear from and respond to the Lord when He reveals Himself to us. This is of importance to us because the Lord’s plan for our lives is one of radical dependence a call and response faith in which the Lord speaks and we respond. Paul calls us to “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.”

Surely if the Lord wants us to do His will, He will not leave us in the dark.

If only we would learn how to listen.

I’ve been learning a lot about listening lately. It has come to my attention that I am not the best listener. So I went to a friend who I consider the best listener I know. How do you listen and care about others so much, I asked. His first answer did not surprise me: you have to really listen to what they’re saying (or not saying). His next response caused me to think a little deeper: you have to initially agree with everything they are saying. By this he meant that we must first start from a place of agreement. I found my friend’s response particularly interesting as I was considering this incident from Samuel’s life. When we say that we want to hear from the Lord, how are we approaching the answer? Are we going in with our own preconceptions or desires?

We must learn then how to hear the Lord.

And how to respond to Him.

We put ourselves in a position to hear the Lord when we are in the place we should be.

Samuel was where He should be. Of course in his case, this was a physical location. Samuel was in the temple. We might take this for granted since he was serving there, but consider that we hear no mention of where Eli’s sons were. Samuel took his calling seriously enough to put Himself where He knew the Lord was. I cannot help but hear Jesus’ words to His parents as he talked with the priests: “Did you not know that I had to be in My Father’s house?”

Not only was Samuel physically in the place that he was supposed to be, he was also in the place spiritually that he was supposed to be. The rebellious sons of Eli had taken a cynical and manipulative attitude to their ‘service’ to the Lord. Samuel though was humble enough to sleep in the temple, unwilling even to depart for a moment from the presence of the Lord.

What about us? How can we put ourselves in a place to hear the voice of the Lord?

First, we must concern ourselves with the things of the Lord. We must be about the things that the Lord was about. Samuel valued the presence of God so much that he slept in the temple. Do we value the revealed Word of God? What value do we place on it in our lives practically? Does it occupy our thoughts? Does it consistently influence our thoughts and actions? By focusing in on the Word of God we put ourselves into a place where the Lord has the chance to speak through it.

Secondly, are we seeking a relationship with the Lord? Are we asking Him to speak to us? Many of us desire to have our future’s laid plain before us but have little patience for cultivating a relationship with the One whose plan it is. If we are not deeply investing in speaking (and listening) to the Lord, we will never be open enough to hear what He has to say.

Thirdly, who are we surrounding ourselves with? Are we surrounding ourselves with men and women who are striving hard after the Lord? Since the Lord often speaks through those who are living lives of radical dependence on Him, we too must surround ourselves with those friends and leaders who seek the Lord’s wisdom for their decisions. We naturally become like those who we surround ourselves with. Therefor we must guard zealously our integrity and the influence that others have on us, not because we are afraid of what ‘they’ might do to us, as if sin were some inescapable infection, but simply from a practical standpoint of like minds attracting each other. If we seek to know the Lord, we must surround ourselves with people who do likewise.

We plow the soil of our lives in preparation for the word of the Lord when we live lives that cultivate godly behaviors and thought patterns.

Perhaps as important as or more important than seeking the voice of the Lord is what we do once we receive it.

When the Lord speaks to us, we are obligated to respond, no matter the circumstance.

For Samuel, the message he received from the Lord wasn’t one that was pleasant or easy to deliver. The Lord’s condemnation of Eli and his sons was not one that was likely to be met with a great amount of enthusiasm. Eli was, after all, his elder, priest, and spiritual authority. To deliver a message of condemnation against him would ensure at least a little acrimony towards Samuel. Yet the message was from the Lord and Samuel proved faithful in the telling.

Our obligation in receiving a message from the Lord is to carry it out unconditionally. Too often we long to hear a message from the Lord only to balk at fulfilling it out of fear or pride.

While we all desire to hear the Lord directly address our situation, we often ignore the very words He has recorded and sustained for us. The Bible is, at its core, a collection of stories and commands that the Lord wanted us to know. He raised up individuals to create and preserve this message throughout the generations. These words are the things He wanted to communicate to us. We want to know the Lord’s plan for our lives and the Lord is saying: ‘I already told you: Love the Lord your God will all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself.’ When we disregard the Bible we prove ourselves to be hypocrites who cry for a new meal when we don’t like the one we’ve been offered to us. It’s not that inquiring of the Lord is a bad thing, far from it, but when we fail to act upon what has already been revealed to us, we show our diffidence to the One we claim to follow. I would even go so far to say that when we demand the Lord reveal His plan for us yet ignore what He has already told us, we prove that we are not honoring God but rather ourselves and our own selfish desires. I believe the Lord is more interested in how we respond to that which He already told us than He is in us seeking new messages.

That is not to say that the Lord does not speak to us. He certainly does, giving personal application through the Bible, through other humans, through the personal insight of the Holy Spirit, and yes, even audibly. However, I believe we should concern ourselves less with seeking continual revelation and more on being fruitful with that which has already been given to us.

As Jesus taught in a parable, we are given talents according to the Father’s wisdom and will be judged based upon what we did with the great (or little) we were given. When the Lord reveals something to us, our obligation is to respond.

I remember a time in college when I lay awake on my bunk pleading with the Lord to know who I was to marry and what I was to do. Despite my zeal to know His future plans for me, I was largely indifferent to several unaddressed sins in my life.

Some of us are inordinately interested in hearing “a word” from the Lord but not nearly as entranced by obeying what has been entrusted to us already.

If we claim to follow the Lord with our lives then the focus of our lives should be worshipping Him and obeying all that He has commanded us. “If you love me, you will keep my commandments,” John relates to us. We need to live lives of radical expectation, preparing ourselves to hear and discern the Lord’s will by living according to what has been revealed.

We, like Samuel, are novices in this life with God. However, it is often the passionate inexperienced who are most apt to hear from the Lord. They lack the cynicism, biases, and traditions that sometimes cause us to question or (God forbid) ignore the Spirit’s leading. We need the passion of the young and the humility of the mature to hear and respond to the Lord’s call. Let us pray for a word from the Lord, be actively expecting Him to speak and, most importantly, the strength and courage to act the moment He speaks.

The 90/10 Problem

There are many things in this world that make me angry. There many things that should and often do incite a righteous indignation in me. However, there is nothing that makes me more irate than when my cats wake me up moments before my alarm is to go off. I’m serious. If WMDs were stored on my nightstand I tremble at how I might respond in the moment. There is many a morning that finds me still seething as I drive myself to work yearning for the morning that I can evict my feline aggressors and sleep until my heart’s content. I, like many people, find myself longing for the weekend. To do so on Friday is one thing, but when it’s Tuesday morning…

I find that this yearning for a weekend’s respite is hardly a remote behavior. I am surely not alone. I hear the desire from my coworkers and friends as well. ‘Only two more days.’ ‘Only six more hours.’

We spend 90% of our time wishing we were living in the other 10%.

Something is wrong with the way we are viewing work.

Before I go on I want to say a few things.

1     I understand that I speak from a position of privilege living in a society in which I even get days off. Still, I believe that we all need to reevaluate how we consider our vocations.

2     Part of the curse delivered to Adam and all his kind (us) ensures that our work will always be just that--- work.

With those caveats out of the way, let me continue.

Something is wrong with the way we are viewing work. We operate under the faulty assumption that if we could only get that job; if we could only win the lottery; if we could only marry that person who would allow us to stay home, then our lives would be infinitely better. Even the best of us spend many of our working hours fantasizing about what we’ll be doing come five o’clock Friday. If you are a bit more controlling like me, you make lists of what you’ll do when you get the time. Much of the time, I don’t even have anything in particular to do on the weekend yet still I yearn for it. Is this really the way that the Lord wants us to live? Constantly desiring some future event while despising the present? Creating idols out of weekends and time off as if they were the day of glory? Surely not.

As I was considering my own conflicted desires, I fell upon three ways we should change our views about work.

Vocation as service

We know that Paul tells his readers (specifically slaves and indentured servants) that “whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as if working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.” Zealous believers throughout history have noted the value of manual labor and vocation as an opportunity to serve the Lord. If our focus is on the Lord, every act, every muscle we move, and every word we type can be a service rendered to the Lord. So often we are blinded to this by the stress of expectations or our own grumbling. One way we can alter our course in regards to work is to actively seek to serve the Lord with every action, every movement, and every thought.

Vocation as mission

Our identity as Christians is a bit of a misnomer. We are not simply humans who happen to follow Jesus. We do not add “Christian” to our identification and then progress as before, reaping paltry consolation from God. As new creations in Christ we are not only given new life, we are also given a new mission. The two are inexorably linked. There is no option in which the two are separate. If we are born again in Christ Jesus, we ARE on mission for Him.

Jesus, of course, made this evidently clear in His instructions to His disciples (of which we are included): “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

We know these words. We have memorized these words, but we all know that there are many days (the majority of days?) in which we consider our jobs to be a necessary evil removed from the scope of our Christian identity. However, how would we view our work differently if we truly took to heart Jesus’ command? If instead of just ‘making it through’ the workday we viewed our time at work as a limited opportunity to speak into the lives of those with whom we interact?

For a short period in my life I was able to have a job without the need for the finances it provided. (Please, stifle your groans for a moment). During this time, the sole reason for my employment was to influence my coworkers toward Christ. The two and a half months I worked at that McDonald’s, I knew what I was there for. I surely had days in which investing in my fellow workers was the last thing I wanted to do, but I knew why I was employed. In the years since, as the responsibilities and bills have mounted, I have occasionally returned to that time and the clarity in which I saw the situation.

If we truly believe that the Lord will provide for us, what is keeping us from embracing this clarity? If we truly saw our time at work as a limited resource and the time with our coworkers as slivers of eternity, how might it change the way we approach the days?

Vocation as practice

There is a discipline that comes with completing a task. There are moments in which we see clearly that we do not possess the necessary strength/wisdom/intelligence to complete our tasks. These moments of humility (should) drive us close to the Source of all gifts. In this way, vocation can be an opportunity to practice the faith we so often preach. The heat of the moment is when our faith is tested. It is under trial that the fruits of the Spirit will be manifested. In the ebb and flow of the workday we are met with innumerable opportunities to give in to anxiety and sin or, conversely, draw near to the Lord.

A man who knew the potential for such situations was Brother Lawrence, a 17^th century Carmelite monk (born Nicholas Herman). Early in his life, Brother Lawrence was stricken with doubt and uncertainty about his spiritual state. This uncertainty led him to enter a monastery. There he was often tasked with monotonous kitchen duty. Yet it was during this service that Brother Lawrence came to develop a deep and profound understanding of how to draw near to the Lord in all situations. 

He confidently spoke from personal conviction of the need to maintain an open dialogue with the Lord throughout the day. He learned that even the lowliest task had the potential to draw him closer to Christ. “Nor is it needful that we should have great things to do… We can do little things for God; I turn the cake that is frying on the pan for love of Him, and that done, if there is nothing else to call me, I prostrate myself in worship before Him, who has given me the grace to work; afterwards I rise happier than a king. It is enough for me to pick up but a straw from the ground for the love of God.”

Through a friend, he advised: “Whatever we do, even if we are reading the Word or praying, we should stop for a few minutes—as often as possible—to praise God from the depths of our hearts, to enjoy Him there in secret. Since we believe that God is always with us, no matter what we may be doing, why shouldn’t we stop for awhile to adore Him to praise Him, to petition Him to offer Him our hearts, and to thank Him?”

How might such an understanding of the nearness of God change our attitude at work? Perhaps we might cease to view the workday as oppression to endure and instead view it as the means by which we might commune with the Lord and be transformed into His likeness.

In all these ways we can seek to transform a time of potential drudgery into moments of vivid and profound growth in our sanctification. Let us all prayerfully consider the motivations and attitudes as we serve our Lord here on earth.