When Will It Be My Time?

Turning his head, Peter noticed the disciple Jesus loved following right behind. When Peter noticed him, he asked Jesus, “Master, what’s going to happen to him?”
Jesus said, “If I want him to live until I come again, what’s that to you? You—follow me.” (John 21:20-22, MSG)

“Lord, I’d really like it if you…”

“Not this time.”

“But, Lord, I’m better qualified…”

“Not you. Not this time.”

“I’ve sacrificed and been faithful. Why, Lord? I’ve paid my dues!”

“It’s not going to be you.”

Boy, I sure have felt the sock to the gut of those words in my time. My story is the classic ‘picked last in kickball as a kid’ tale. That may be slightly exaggerated, however; if I wasn’t picked first, it felt to me like I was picked last. I’d look at the guy chosen ahead of me and I’d think ‘I’m every bit as good as him.’ That may or may not have been true, but it was, as they say, what it was.

It’s really really hard hearing, “Not you. I choose so-and-so.”

To be overlooked for a promotion when you’re the most qualified, or seconded for a task you know is right in your wheelhouse, is a bitter pill. It can lead to a ‘what’s the use?’ fatalism or a ‘take my ball and play elsewhere’ pettiness.

Yeah, overlooked is the worst.

I’ve heard more than a few friends lament, “When’s it going to be my time?” and in a few of those cases I’ve discerned ‘you’re not ready’ or ‘you’ve yet to come to truth about yourself.’ At present I’m still languishing – and learning, and trying to thrive – in a season where my gifts, talents, and (here’s the kicker) faithfulness through experience, aren’t turning a lot of heads. These’re apparently not enough, so I gallantly wait for when it will (maybe) be my turn again.

Obvs I’m either:

Not ready for prime-time
Not seeing something I need to see, or
It’s quite possibly someone else’s time

Many years ago I wrote this down on a blank page in my Bible:

“God isn’t interested in your ability, but your availability, and when you prove your dependability, he’ll increase your capability.”

While that’s for the most part true, I know a lot of available, faithful saints who are still waiting. But for what? I guess that’s the question.

Their time?

Their turn?

Their shot?

Shot? At what exactly?

The big time? To turn heads? Get noticed? Forgive all the questions, but the heart of many of us out here still waiting is the matter that we just want to matter. It’s not so much getting noticed or spearheading a global ministry so much as it is (here it comes) getting rewarded for quality time served. It’s noble, but it may reveal something we’re not quite ready to face.

Take Peter, who whined, “What about us? Haven’t we left everything?” and even later opined, “Why do I get picked for grunt labor and tough times? WHAT ABOUT JOHN?!?” He makes my case for me. Jesus told him not to worry himself with John. You and I can insert names that cause us puzzlement and consternation…you know, the ones who get the sweet deals and free passes, that fair-haired “golden child” we ‘think’ we can run dizzying circles around. Why does John always get to waltz into glory? Jesus was clear with Peter that He has another use for John.

What’s it to you, Peter, how I pick and choose?

Peter already had a litany of accomplishments in the kingdom. He preached the sermon that started the worldwide church. He was the guy whose passing shadow healed the sick. God arranged a jail-break where he passed through gates and doors and guards like they weren’t even there. His siesta turned into a tsunami of evangelism to the Gentiles, sending gospel power to the world in glorious, relentless waves.

I know, I know. You’re reading this and saying, “that doesn’t apply to me at all. See? Peter got his shot at ‘the show’, and I’ve never even had tickets to a single-A game!” Pardon the baseball lingo there but I do feel ya. However, there’s something you’ve gotta see in this, and it’s probably already dawning on you. Peter had been front-and-center, yes, but it isn’t about position or placement, as great and grand and kingdom-moving as these things can be. It’s about God’s greatness and how we can best shine the Light on Him.

It’s about: being who you are, where(ever) you are, for as long as you are, to as many as you are, and leaving the itinerary and timing to the great I AM.

➡️By all means DON’T …

…manipulate circumstances to get noticed.

…leverage your talents to get noticed. Don’t self-promote. Don’t do it.

There’s trouble ahead when you live only for the approval of others, saying what flatters them, doing what indulges them. Popularity contests are not truth contests – look how many scoundrel preachers were approved by your ancestors! Your task is to be true, not popular.
Luke 6:26 (The Message Bible)

➡️You’d do well to remember…

…in God’s economy, to be “passed over” is sometimes His protection. So give thanks that you were possibly spared some unknown, potential grief.

…to approach your right-now role with the dignity and spark it deserves for nothing is too small or insignificant to Jesus. Even if it’s just a sack lunch at a mass picnic.¹

“If we believe in God only when he is doing great things for us, we are not really serving him; we are only using him.”

– Tim Keller, The Songs of Jesus, June 22.

When will it be your time?

When God says you’re r-e-a-d-y. Period. Not a minute before, not a nanosecond after.

I wrote the word ‘ready’ that way in the previous paragraph to give you a head’s up for an acrostic alert, and, lo and behold, here it is. These five reminders are ‘can’t misses’ for God’s moving you from the linen closet to the great room.²

Recognition is not your primary or secondary pursuit, God’s glory is.

Enjoy and support the success of others when they get picked, even at your expense.

Approach even menial tasks with a grateful heart and exuberant spirit.

Delay usually points to correction, preparation, or further growth in humility and submission to spiritual authority, so embrace this time as necessary.

Yearn to know Christ in all His depths and beauty in this season, relishing intimacy with Christ more desirable than personal posterity.

Hard, hard, hard, hard, yes hard. Yet doable when you’re finished with the fretting³ and moving on to the letting (of Christ in you be Christ for you).

Abraham Lincoln famously intoned, “for now I will study and prepare myself, and someday my chance will come.” We all know how that worked out, yeah? So get ready, beloved, because your time’s coming.

Oh and don’t worry. Spoiler alert, Peter got his shot again in a big, big way (as did John)…but it got him crucified. Which is the other thing about getting your turn: while it might cost you everything, you’ll find the price tag well worth it – if you’re doing it for Him.

¹John 6:5-13

²Prov 18:16

³Psalm 37:1-11

Before You Walk Away From Church For Good

Pew Research says the Church in America is dying.¹

Barna, in an earlier research project, says kids (and what demographic adds more life to the church?) are leaving the church in droves, starting at age 15.²

Lifeway Research says they’re not leaving for good, but they’re definitely on hiatus.³

Rachel Held Evans’ best-seller, Searching For Sunday, gives a millennial voice to an entire generation of young church-leavers.⁴

I’ve read RHE’s book and found it fascinating, actually. So much in it resonated with me. Before I ever knew Rachel’s story I was already in the mode of moving from contemporary-for-the-sake-of-relevance liturgy to a more ancient or apostolic liturgy. The symbols of the sacraments were no longer just that to my seeking heart. They have become a deeper reality, a more meaningful expression of community worship. They are alive and effectual. Churches I’ve grown up in treated baptism and the Lord’s Table with the same passion as a quarterly church business meeting – which is the frequency by which they were observed, sadly. No, I’m not looking for robes and mitres and censers. But I’d like less emphasis on the band, the preacher’s hipness, the synchronized lights and (in some cases) the fog machine.

Don’t get me wrong. This isn’t a diatribe against contemporariness (if that’s a word; auto-correct doesn’t think so). I’m just aching for something closer to the root of our apostolic faith, not dangling out on the end of some flimsy branch.

Barely a chapter in, I was already tweeting Rachel and thanked her for her reverent treatment of the sacrament of baptism. I verbalized that she and I might differ on some other matters (which we do, most assuredly), but she’s my sister and I celebrate her. This may be neither here nor there, but she replied to my tweet. Graciously. And she has at other times too. It speaks well of a well-known personality that they would respond to a lesser-known nobody like me. I’ve found it rare on social media.

But, I’m off topic. We’re talking about you, not me.

So you’re fed up with church. You’re moving dangerously in the direction of thinking you can get on without her. Think again.

Oh, I get your angst. I know when you do the whole church, steeple, open the doors and wiggle your fingers thing, everything up to the fingers is okay. It’s the people that stop you in your tracks. Yes, churches contain mean people, judgmental people, hypocrisy and opulence at the expense of your community’s poor. No argument here.

Modern church experience can be akin to the “before” picture of a weight-loss ad. Nothing to get excited about there; more to be disgusted with to be sure. But give it time. If your only church experience has been a “before” picture, switch magazines – or gyms! But you yourself need the running track, the ellipticals, the Zumba class, and the stair master too.

Why? Because you’re a walking “before” advertisement also.

Don’t leave the church. For all her faults, she is still the receptacle and conduit of hope and truth to the fallen world. For the love of all that’s good and holy, find a thriving community of faith and cleave to it, whatever expression. Just make sure the sacraments and elements of Acts 2:42 (and baptism!) are in play there.

Let me close out this post with some articulate thoughts from Barbara Brown Taylor which Rachel Held Evans uses to close out her highly readable book. Okay, okay, settle down. Easy now. I make no apologies for quoting from two progressively-inclined women in Christianity. They are my/our sisters (which makes me happy) and both make helpful points here. Barbara first:

Whether you are sick or well, lovely or irregular, there comes a time when it is vitally important to your spiritual health to drop your clothes, look in the mirror, and say, ‘Here I am. This is the body-like-no-other that my life has shaped. I live here. This is my soul’s address. After you have taken a good look around, you may decide that there is a lot to be thankful for, all things considered. Bodies take real beatings. That they heal from most things is an underrated miracle. That they give birth is beyond reckoning.
When I do this, I generally decide that it is time to do a better job of wearing my skin with gratitude instead of loathing.⁵

After which RHE flips the mirror:

This is the church. Here she is. Lovely, irregular, sometimes sick and sometimes well. This is the body-like-no-other that God has shaped and placed in the world. Jesus lives here; this is his soul’s address. There is a lot to be thankful for, all things considered. She has taken a beating, the church. Every day she meets the gates of hell and she prevails. Every day she serves, stumbles, injures, and repairs. That she has healed is an underrated miracle. That she gives birth is beyond reckoning. Maybe it’s time to make peace with her. Maybe its time to embrace her, flawed as she is.⁶

Let’s stem the tide of the recent exodus. Let’s quell the statistics. It’s the way of Jesus to give room, bear up with one another. Do I have stories? I was a pastor, remember?

I could tell you of the time an interracial couple left our church, loudly accusing my wife of racism because she didn’t give their son a solo in the children’s program – when he’d only joined weeks before (it was written, explained and understood by all that a child had to be a part of the choir for at least six months before getting an up-front part). Sandy went to their home to humble herself before them, but no matter. They saw only what they wanted to see and marred a gentle woman’s servant influence.

I could tell you of the woman who was healed of her cancer but through a series of misperceptions, left the church with a final curse of, “this church’ll close its doors a year after we’re gone.” That was years ago and the fellowship still faithfully gathers.

I could…no, I won’t. If I let it, these botherings would define the church for me. But I know different. These were the exceptions, not the standards. For every harsh punch-to-the-gut my wife and I have experienced, we are the undeserving recipients of exponential graces and blessings from our extended church family. Church is a family you choose, every week. Week after week. You put up with it, it puts up with you. And you both are better for it. Together.

So, friend, before you go for good, turn around and look again. You think it’s risky to stay? I tell you, it’s far more dangerous out there, on your own. Don’t go. You’re not alone. Stay and give beauty a chance to grow out of the ash pile.

¹http://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/

²https://www.barna.org/teens-next-gen-articles/528-six-reasons-young-christians-leave-church

³ http://www.christianitytoday.com/edstetzer/2014/may/dropouts-and-disciples-how-many-students-are-really-leaving.html

⁴ http://rachelheldevans.com/blog/searching-for-sunday-excerpt-body

⁵ An Altar In The World, Barbara Brown Taylor, pp37-8

⁶ Searching For Sunday, Rachel Held Evans, p168

An Amazing Thing Happened On The Way To Our Son’s Grave

Funny thing about rainbows, they’re actually circles, not half-arcs. Obviously they look like arches to us because of our limited perspective, seeing only half the story because the horizon kind of gets in the way.
My lovely spotted the colorful band stretched over the cemetery where our son’s body was laid to rest last Christmas as we made our approach. It was our thirty-first wedding anniversary and we wanted to share our celebration with our boy. Sandy often wants me to drive the long way around Mozley Gardens to pay respects to any of Graham’s new “neighbors” before we park at his marker, so I was poking along scanning the lawns out my driver’s side window when I heard her exclaim:
“Oh honey, look!”
I followed her graceful index finger as it stretched toward the windshield.
A bow of beauty.
The Sovereign had kissed our evening by finger-painting a swath of grace over our Gra-Gra.
Well, that’s all she wrote. We were undone. Verklempt. A wet mess.
In a good way.
“I know about the promise of God to not destroy the earth with floods,” my bride offered, “but what else do you think God is saying?”
I was already in that vein, the Bible teacher in me calling up the Revelator’s vision of God on His throne in His abode of heaven. Verse three says “around the throne” was a rainbow and a quick study suggests it’s a full circle, as rainbows tend to be.
A perfect circle.
No beginning, no end. No pause, no break. No altered course, but fulfillment and wholeness.
Eternality.
God said, “look up.”
We lifted our watery eyes.
“See My initials in sweeping, color-laden script?”
We indeed saw the stamp of Resurrection.
The “all things new” seal of Certainty.
We’re two still-grieving parents encased in the drama of loss, sighing at the memories and could-have-beens, making our repeated pilgrimage to the sacred stone…

BUT WE’RE

…gently carried all the while (yet again!) by everlasting Arms that scaffold our temporal home with rainbows to remind us
that Eternity awaits,
that these eyes only see half the picture,
that the Best is yet to be,
that the grace that pavilions us in these years of dust and ash,
will give way to Endless Dawn, forever illuminated by the Sun and Daystar of our souls, Jesus the Christ and Father of Lights.
That rainbow reminded us that His exhaustive archives of eternity and our place (and Graham’s!!!) in the Eternal Story is not a half-arc (half done), but a complete arc, and – my beloved fellow pilgrim – let it serve to tell you that God wastes none of your raw materials in preparing you for His Glory. All of it goes into the flourish of His finishing touches.
Just look up.
It’s there to remind you.