Monday, July 21, 2014

The ups and downs of life

God says in the Psalms (78), "My people, hear my teaching: listen to the words of my mouth. ... I will utter hidden things, things from old -- things we have heard and known, things our ancestors have told us."

I prayed and prayed that we would cross the 50-person barrier at our new church yesterday, and with great sunshine and wonderfully temped weather, we went backwards, with 36 persons -- a low for the four weeks we've been operating. Of those 36, however, 15 are new (counting the staff).

What does it all mean?

Nearly as I can figure it means this church planting business is a hard row to hoe. There is no straight upward kind of projection. None. God is in charge, and as it says somewhere the heck other, his ways our not our ways. I would add his plans for adding folks are his plans for adding folks.

The Psalmist goes on: "The men of Ephraim, though armed with bows, turned back on the day of battle; they did not keep God's covenant and refused to live by his law. They forgot what he had done, the wonders he had shown them."

Sounds fairly maudlin, doesn't it? The Psalmist says the folks who had most reason to celebrate -- being God's chose and all -- forgot about it.

I suspect they forgot when things didn't go exactly as they had planned, when life took a bad turn. When life was, well, life. When life wasn't a straight line straight into heaven.

It seems to me  that life is kind of like that chart of church growth. Oh, but that it were a line that continually rose. You start out at the bottom (birth), and from there it is a chart that shows continual growth. We listen and learn in school. We graduate, get a great job, marry, have a great wife, great kids, great salary that continues to grow, and we die, happy, happy, happy.

That's not my experience.

Noah saved the world, and got drunk and cursed his son.
Abraham fearfully lied about Sarah being his wife.
Abraham nearly had to sacrifice Isaac, his son.
Samson threw away a career as a judge for a woman who lied about her affection.
Joseph's brothers sold him into slavery out of jealousy.
The prophets are threatened, some killed.
Daniel was thrown in a lion's den.
Amos (was) from the land of Tekoa. The priest of Bethel tortured him and afterwards killed him.
Habakkuk (was) of the tribe of Simeon, and from the land of Zoar.  The Jews stoned him in Jerusalem.
The Jews stoned Jeremiah the son of Hilkiah in Egypt, because he rebuked them for worshipping idols; and the Egyptians buried him by the side of Pharaoh's palace. 
 Zechariah the son of Berachiah, the priest, was from Jerusalem. Joash the king killed this (prophet) between the steps3 and the altar, and sprinkled his blood upon the horns of the altar, and the priests buried him. 
Manessah the son of Hezekiah killed Isaiah with a wooden saw.
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednigo were thrown into a fiery furnace.

You tell me if that sounds like the church chart we want, if this church planting business in the Old testament was straight into the clouds. Sounds to me like anyone planting churches needs to increase the insurance they have, quickly.

No, life is a series of ups and downs and the weak made strong (with the help of the very willing
Holy Spirit) survive. I expect that times will be lean before they are wonderful, unless during the lean times we all learn to be patient and wait upon the Lord. Or perhaps turn, turn, turn toward the one who can lead us into the desert and gracefully out again.

The Psalmist then turned his thoughts outward, instead of inward. "I will exalt you, my God and King; I will praise your name for ever and ever. Every day I will praise you and extol your name for ever and ever. Great is the Lord and most worth of praise; his greatness no one can fathom. One generation commends your works to another; they tell of your mighty acts."

Life goes back up. There's a song by a band named Casting Crowns that says this: Lord, I give my life, a living sacrifice, to reach a word in need, to be your hands and feet. So may the words I say and the things I do make my life song sing, bring a smile to you."

Our life songs are more about how we handle, with the power of the Holy Spirit, those times when life does head downward. I would love to say that one falls in love with Jesus and things are instantly wonderful. But no matter what those prosperity guys say, it simply doesn't work that way.

Jesus, as a toddler, has to be taken to Egypt because a king is killing two-year-old children.
Jesus is hated by his own religious leaders, is executed on a cross.
Oh, the church is formed, and all its original apostles save one are executed as martyrs for the cause.

Lots of things have happened to me in this life of ministry. So far, that's not one of them. There is, however time.

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