Christian Living
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Driving to the office, when I’ve not eaten yet, is never a good idea. Not that I’ll pass out or anything, but rather than to feel hunger pains like most people, I tend to know that I’m hungry, when I start to get grumpy and hurried. And this was the case recently. Fortunately, I was listening to the radio ministry of J. Vernon McGee. And as I was muttering under my breath (okay, it was out loud) at the turtle driving in front of me, who “made me” get stuck at the 5th red light of my journey, I could hear brother McGee saying something like:
“Don’t give Jesus your heart!” That got my attention. He went on: “Why do people talk about ‘giving Jesus their heart?’ What would the Lord want with a wicked thing like your heart; so full of malice and strive, and every kind of evil. The heart is wicked and deceitful above all things! Why would you want to bring Jesus something like that?”
Given the state of my muttering heart at the moment, I had to both snap out of it, and praise the Lord. Certainly, I knew what brother McGee was getting at, but I couldn’t help but picture him telling this to a sweet little girl whose daisy had just wilted. I’m sure he was directing this teaching to grown ups. But I had to laugh.
“The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?”
Jeremiah 17:9
“For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man unclean.”
Mark 7:21-23
Of course, brother McGee goes on to explain, that the reason is, that God is not just out to improve us. We are to come broken and contrite, realizing that what Jesus did, was not to cure our old hearts; but to die with us, so that we could be raised anew, with brand new hearts. We don’t come to God saying, “Yippee, I’m a sinner, and Jesus is going to make my evil heart good.” We come to Him broken, knowing our sin, hating it now that we’ve gotten a glimpse of it, and wanting a completely new life. Repentant, we cry out to Him for new life.
“I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.”
Ezekiel 11:19
I wonder if much of Christian troubles, are due to faulty understanding of what a Christian life is. To hear some talk, you’d think that one just “becomes a Christian.” Jesus didn’t say that. Paul didn’t say that. Peter didn’t say that. Jesus said, “follow me.” Paul and Peter talk about serving the Lord, following the Lord. The becoming part is taken for granted, and yet people tend to get stuck in “becoming mode.”
Jesus told people all along his three-year journey in ministry, “Follow me.” He said it to the fishermen, to Matthew, to the rich young ruler, to those who tried to make excuses. He even went so far as to warn about looking back, rather than looking at Him as we follow. When someone offered to follow Him, Jesus warned:
“No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”
Luke 9:62
It makes sense to initially, when born again, be satisfied just to be changed. When I came to Christ, the summer before my senior year of college, I was inwardly a mess. People would ask me why I was majoring in psychology, and I would tell them my plans to become a therapist. But truth be told, my choosing that major had more to do with my wanting to find out why I was so screwed up, hoping to find help, rather than desiring to help others. And the night God came in, teaching “my heart to fear,” as the hymn tells, by showing me my utter and lifelong selfishness; and then Him again, gloriously “my fears relieve”ing; I was born again. What He did with my old heart, I don’t know, but He sure changed my hopes, and dreams.
Of course, old habits die hard! I had grown accustomed to coping. I made plans, and had ordered my steps, or so I’d thought, all my life. “Following,” was something I was going to have to learn. For a while, I just basked in His love and goodness. I was so full of joy, that if He never did anything special for me again, I would grow old and die a happy man in Christ. But Christ didn’t tell anyone to just sit there. And you can’t follow someone who isn’t moving. Jesus takes us places, if we will follow. I didn’t know it at the time, but I hadn’t just entered a place of healing. I had also entered a great adventure. Following Jesus reminds me of the psalmist who writes of the life of a follower of God:
“They go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion.”
Psalm 84:7
When I think of the life Jesus has called us to, I think of an adventure, where He leads, we wouldn’t have chosen to go ourselves, but instead of being overwhelmed, I find it so as Nehemiah said, “The joy of the Lord is your strength” (Nehemiah 8:10) I remember being so happy to just “be” a Christian, that I wanted to tell all my family and friends. (Boy was I annoying!) And as much as my heart was for my friends, I wasn’t following anyone but my own desires. Sure, I wanted what I believed, and believed truly that it was and is best for all; but it took me many months before I realized that God had plans for me, and as soon as I stopped spinning my wheels, I would start to look around, find Jesus, and then I could start to follow Him.
One of my plans, after graduation, was to get a job. The Lord had done such a fast work in my heart, and was still doing so much, that I thought I should not pursue psychology at the time. It might just slow things down. He was changing so much in me, so fast, and I was enjoying the change. I went to my parents house and started putting out resumes. I had 100 printed up, determined that I would choose from the many responses I was sure to get. I got zero responses. Nobody seemed to want me to head up their personnel departments. Imagine that? And there I was with a BA in psychology and everything. Go figure!
Not able to do nothing, I got a job in a factory, slipping tab A into slot B about 1,500 times a night. The job allowed me to wear headphones and I could listen to tapes. A new world of music and teaching had been opened to me, and so for four months I took in, and took in, truth about my new Lord, through song and teaching. It was important for me to be there; but I wanted more. Still getting no response from my resumes, I began to wonder where God was in all of this. Why wasn’t He blessing my plans? Finally, I got a Sunday paper and cut out any and every job ad for jobs that I believed I could do. Never mind what I wanted to do. I just cut out ads that I thought I could do. And there were about a dozen. I didn’t do anything with them at the moment, but to cut them out and put them in an envelope. It made me relax a bit just to know that there were jobs out there that I might be able to do.
The next night my friends took me to a prayer meeting in the neighboring town of Winchester, Massachusetts. During the meeting, the leadership invited up for prayer, “someone in the room who has been active in looking for a job recently.” God wanted to bless me it seemed. Well, apparently He wanted to bless me and about 30 other folk! We all went forward, and the ministry team there prayed over us. When someone put their hands on my forehead, I immediately, and word for word, saw one of the ads that I had quickly cut out of the paper just the day before. And I just knew that that was my next job. God was showing me my next step!
The problem was, I didn’t want that job. It wasn’t in personnel. It wasn’t in business at all. It was a job as a resident counselor at a group home for emotionally disturbed teenagers. This was not at all what I had studied psychology for. The job wanted someone with a master degree, but would consider applicants with experience. I’d spent 3 summers as a camp counselor, though I’d never worked with emotionally disturbed people. I never really thought about it, but I guess I’d gone through college thinking I would end up giving therapy to people who were just fine.
But this was what Jesus meant by following. The Spirit would guide, and I would follow. I could complain all I wanted that I wasn’t enough, wasn’t ready, or just plain didn’t want this direction. But being a follower doesn’t really give one that much say in the matter. Jesus did everything for me; and He was now telling me to follow. So I sent in my resume, hoping He was “just testing me.” (I’m not sure where people get that notion from; that God is often just testing us.)
Soon I’d gotten the dreaded call. It was “dreaded” because I knew I was going to get that job, and the more I thought about it, the less I wanted it! I’d have to move into a home with teenagers who sometimes get violent, and who were certainly were unpredictable in their behavior.
The adventure began, when I got in my car. I talked with God the whole 45-minute ride out to Gloucester. “Are you sure, Lord?” “Can’t you just get me a position in Lexington?” “You know I never wanted to do this kind of work.” Silence. I was just to go and get the job.
I went in, and right away met one of the “children.” He was as tall as me, and confidentially told me what color socks he was wearing. I then heard one of the staff, leading another teen into a kind of time out area, where they could relax. That “child” was non-verbal and had been hitting himself. Before my interview, I was invited to sit in on the day’s art lesson.
During the lesson, I sat next to one of the staff, who would explained the situation of each of the kids in the class to me. This was totally uncomfortable for me. Carla, a tall skinny girl at the side, began making odd noises, as if she were being poked and didn’t like it. Then when asked if she wanted to draw, she got violent and had to be restrained by 3 men and two mattresses. She was flailing and yelling and it took all they had strength-wise, to get her to the floor and under the mattress. She then began cursing in a man’s voice; and then soon her girl’s voice returned, wanting to be let up. They did this very slowly, and I don’t remember much after that. The staff member next to me was telling me about multiple personalities. I would have none of it. I’d seen the exorcist, and besides, I’ve known hundreds of “personalities” in my day, and none were like this one. I wanted to run! This reminded me more of “the seven sons of Sceva” from the book of Acts, chapter 19.
But there I sat, and then I was next to be interviewed. The director and the staff member, who’d been sitting with me, brought me the upstairs, to the apartment which was where I would be living if I got the job. It was an apartment carved out of an attic of this old three-story Victorian-style house. It was nice enough, but I knew that below me were going to be 8 teens, and I’d be there when the other staff went home each night. They asked me, “Do you think you’d be at all afraid to be living here with all these kids?” And immediately and most emphatically I answered, “Well, yeah-eh!!!” I was not going to make this easy for God! If He really wanted me having this job, He’d have to get it for me, despite me.
Later, after I got the job and had been working there for a couple of months, I was told that of the 100 plus applicants for the job, there were many who were more qualified on paper than me, but that I was the only one to admit that I’d be afraid in that situation. God has a sense of humor. The very thing I’d used to try and get out of the job, my honesty, landed me the job.
The story doesn’t end there. For me, this was my first step in following the Lord. From that one step, God led me to Haiti, to Chicago, into marriage with Ann, then us to Pennsylvania, and to Scotland for more training, then to Soviet Central Asia, and on to China, then back to New York, then back to China, then to Charlotte, where we are at this time. One day we will “appear before God in Zion.” Meanwhile, we follow Jesus, keeping our eyes fixed upon Him. We go from joy to joy in the meantime, and it isn’t easy. Following by faith starts with hearing what God is saying, saying “Yes, Lord!” (To say ‘No Lord’ is absurd. It means one doesn’t know the meaning of “Lord.”)
What I didn’t know when getting that first step in following the Lord into the group home position, was that I would absolutely love that job! Within two weeks of working at the group home, I was so happy there! I loved the staff, the kids were great, and though it was always a challenge, hopefully being a help to them, I was so very blessed there. There are many steps in following Christ that I would never have taken so easily, if God hadn’t shown me with that first one, that He knows what I desire deep down, better than I know myself. He knows us better than we know ourselves.
He also loves us better than we love ourselves. I’m going to make this sound a lot more fun than it is; because following Jesus has a cost. There are trials all along the way; and for many that has led them to martyrdom and suffering. We follow an eternal God and we don’t always understand our present sufferings. He promised suffering, but for those who follow Jesus, it is suffering with hope. Everyone in the world suffers; believers or not. But we in Christ, get to suffer with hope. And if we will follow Him, He will lead us into the greenest of pastures. He will make our cups run over with His mercy and goodness. And if we follow always the voice of the Lord, His mercies will follow us, all the days of our lives.
Following Jesus has been life to me. It has been the death of many of my hopes and plans. But in laying them down, and following Him, He has given me a life worth living. I would and hopefully do, encourage all so inclined to follow Jesus.
“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all of the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
Psalm 23:6
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