REPOSITIONED RESPONSIBILITY

Baked by the afternoon sun streaming in through the living room window, my son temporarily closed his eyes to the football action on the TV screen, rolled over on the recliner and thought about taking a nap. The discomfort of lying on his stomach on the not-quite-flat sofa soon chased any thoughts of slumber from his mind. He opened his eyelids to find himself staring squarely at a very grimy and smudged living room wall. His disgusted comment, "This wall is a mess…" reached my ears in the kitchen where I was preparing the Sunday afternoon meal. Half in jest I reminded him of the message we'd heard preached in church just two weeks prior - that if God makes a need apparent to you, it then becomes your responsibility to take care of it.

Expecting him to laugh, roll back over and return to his game, I was therefore astonished when he instead came into the kitchen in search of a sponge with which to clean the wall! Quickly I placed the tools he needed in his hands and he returned to the living room and began to scrub. Soon he was the one who was amazed as he began to see the difference his actions made. Greasy fingerprints and dark smudges disappeared as he worked across the expanse. Encouraged by what he saw he reached up higher and bent down lower until he had washed down the entire wall. His mother bestowed praise on his efforts from the kitchen; his brother joked about again being able to see the color of the paint under all the dirt. And when he was done, the entire room was brightened physically as well as emotionally by his efforts.

And it was all brought about by a little repositioning… a change in the physical realm that felt awkward and uncomfortable but which caused him to see the world around him from a different viewpoint. Dirt on a wall that had been unnoticed by him for ages suddenly became visible to him. And yet it wasn't just the realization of a need but rather his determination to do something about it himself that made our living quarters a more pleasant place for the whole family to spend their time.

Oh, that we would catch this concept in the spiritual realm the way my son realized its truth in the physical one! God repositions us regularly in life, and we rebel at the discomfort of the situation instead of focusing our eyes on the everyday situations He wants us to see in a new way. When we do see a work that needs to be done we are more likely to wonder who's going to take care of the matter than to seriously consider handling it ourselves. We let inconsequential attitudes such as fear or pride keep us sitting firmly in the comfortable spots we've made for ourselves instead of following the urge to use the gifts God's placed within us and put them to work.

Fortunately there are those among us who are beginning to not just hear this message but to act upon it. How thrilling it was when one member of our congregation recently saw a microphone sitting unused on the platform and decided to fill it with song! Others are moving to fill an empty seat behind a drum set… teach a class that's been waiting for a teacher… type a bulletin in the absence of a church secretary or simply tidy a messy corner of the church that they happen to regularly walk by. Some are little actions; others require a greater expenditure of time and effort. Yet they all count the same in the sight of the God Who's placed these tasks before us and looks to see if we're willing to do what needs to be done.

We've sat in the Son and watched the work of the ministry go on from our seats of comfort on the sidelines for far too long. Our number's been called and the Coach is telling us it's time now to get our hands on the ball and get into the game.

"Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it - he will be blessed in what he does."
(James 1:22-26 NIV)

A Pot of Petunias

I planted a pot of petunias today. Just one. I’ve learned that that’s all I can handle.

Death and destruction have pretty much followed my gardening attempts in years past. One year I enthusiastically planted flowers along the fence of our Texas home, dreaming of bright blooms bobbing their heads at me whenever I looked out the window. When the weeds grew bigger than the desired plants I resolutely began the process of pulling them, only to be chased inside by the bite of the fire ants, the persistence of the bees and the suffocating summer heat. I decided the flowers would simply have to fend for themselves. When they did not, and what was supposed to be a fence line eye-catcher became a backyard eyesore, my husband mercifully employed the lawn mower to erase my mistake. Since then I’ve left any outdoor gardening to his more capable hands.

I likewise have a long history of killing houseplants. In my single days I was determined to have greenery of some sort in my apartment, yet soon noted that I was buying a plant a week to replace one that had died in the preceding seven days. My budget couldn’t stand the strain. More recently I’ve been banned from indoor watering chores because of a tendency to either water too heavily or withhold the same till the brown and brittle foliage indicated that a once-thirsty plant had gasped its last. I was beginning to believe that the “green thumb” I thought I was born with was instead as black as could be.

That all changed quite by accident some years ago. A son’s graduation party coincided with Memorial Day weekend that year, and my mother-in-law bought a pot of red, white and blue-ish petunias to help decorate our back deck. It looked fabulous…until that first round of blooms faded. There was no second round of flowers to follow. Our back deck was overshadowed by the trees on the property and the plants simply didn’t receive enough light to thrive in that location. On a whim I set the pot on the front step which was normally bathed in afternoon sunshine. The flowers returned in abundance.

And suddenly I remembered how I had always wanted flowers on the front step, that it was something I noticed about the town when we first visited it with the thought of moving here so many years ago now. While my husband had pondered the practical considerations of driving distances to work, locations of freeways, churches and restaurants, all I seemed to see were white plaster flowerpots on porches all over town. The place seemed to be thick with them. I vowed that if we moved here we’d have flowers on our front step, too.

That idea got lost in the busyness of moving and working and raising a family. My husband was content with flowers in the ground under the front window and in various places around the yard. He didn’t see a need for a pot on the porch, particularly. And I eventually forgot about it, as well. Yet amazingly, God didn’t forget! How incredible that our Father loves us so much that He doesn’t forget the unspoken desires of our hearts, even those that matter so little in the grand scheme of things. Yet because we matter to Him, He makes them a reality in our lives in a way that draws our hearts to His more closely than perhaps if the wish had been granted when first expressed.

I’ve had flowers on my front step in one form or another every year since then. Their bright beauty does more than merely welcome me home from wherever I’ve been each day. They’re a reminder of my search to find the spot in God’s Kingdom where I was meant to bloom. We each have one, you know - a place of service where the gifts and talents God’s placed within us function at their best to accomplish His purposes. Finding that perfect spot, however, is the challenge, and too many of us give up before we do. I remember how frustrating my own search was, the many ministry opportunities I experimented with, only to seemingly discover one position after another that was not where I was meant to be. Then one day a simple request by a program director opened a door to an option I had never before considered, and suddenly joy and peace bloomed in abundance. I quickly cleared my plate of other commitments so I could concentrate my efforts on that which I finally realized I’d been called to do. When I looked back I realized that I had carried the makings of my ministry from birth. I hadn’t considered before that I was created to enjoy certain things that God later intended to use in His employ!

Once we’re born again there’s a longing in each of our hearts to serve God in some capacity. Too often we listen to the whispers of the enemy who says we’re not qualified to do so because of what’s in our past, our seeming lack of ability or time in the present, and our doubts about our commitment in the future. What changed things for me spiritually was illustrated for me physically. I simply moved my potted plant from the shady backyard to the front step where the sun shines. We likewise need to find that spot in our lives on which the Son is shining, and center our efforts on what is blossoming there.

“The desert and the parched land will be glad, the wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Like he crocus, it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy...”

(Isaiah 35:1-2 NIV)

People - Problem or Purpose?

My first visit to the woods for the year was a time of great rejoicing, so ready was I to be done with winter and celebrate the warmer months of the year once more. With one of the snowiest Februarys on record now behind me, my trip had a purpose beyond merely searching for violets in bloom and wandering the woodland trails once more. I had come specifically to return my leaf to God.

As the trees were shedding their foliage last fall, making a golden carpet beneath my feet, I was mourning the end of pleasant weather and dreading the onset of the snowy season of the year. That morning God dropped a leaf from a nearby tree directly into my hands, whispering His promise that He would always be near me in the dark times of my life and to carry this simple token of His presence with me through the dreary winter days to come, marking their eventual end by returning it to Him once I'd made it through another winter and was celebrating that fact once more (see Woodland Wonder). And so, folded inside a slip of wax paper, it traveled with me though the pages of my journal as I documented the details of God's presence in my days. Now I was ready to welcome spring by bringing it back at last.

The leaf seemed as excited as I was, anxious to break free, the springtime breezes threatening to blow it away before I could lay it down at God's feet. Once done, however, the action made me wonder what other things God had given me that He perhaps desired me to return to Him. Love, for sure. Talents and giftings, most definitely. Time. Money. Fellowship. I rapidly scribbled the list in my journal as the ideas came to me, finally setting it aside when the flow stopped, knowing it to be still somehow incomplete.

Hungry for some "alone" time, I was distracted by the noise around me, my usual sanctuary a busy place that morning as fishermen returned in droves to the banks of the lake I sat beside, drawn as I was by warm temperatures and brilliant sunshine. Too near me to be ignored, a group of them discussed in loud detail everything from what fish were biting to which bait was best to where to find a cheap motorboat to what one might cost. Just as their conversation ended when the group with the boat finally put out from shore, another man accosted me, asking if I'd seen anybody resembling his fishing buddies, whom he then described in great detail. I looked up from my again interrupted quiet time in some irritation, yet tried hard to listen to him. I think I may even have smiled. But inside I was a seething bundle of nerves, all of which were trembling with the desire to scream at them all to please just leave me be!

Desperate for some solitude, I got up to go for a walk in the woods. I rejoiced in the early wildflowers and the sight of a passing butterfly, when particular birdcall near me caused me to wonder if the majestic pileated woodpecker was nearby. Just as that thought occurred to me, one did fly by, passing incredibly close to me before landing on a nearby tree. Fascinated, I stopped and watched him work his way up towards the sky, his brilliant red crest visible fist on one side of the trunk, then the other, until he was high in the treetop. Suddenly startled, he flew to another tree nearby and then deep into the woods where he was quickly out of sight. That's when I saw a couple heading towards me on the path. Although we greeted each other in a friendly enough manner, it was clear that each of us was a little peeved with the other, silently blaming them for scaring away the bird we'd both been watching as we continued hiking in opposite directions down the trail. I laughed to myself that people were clearly posing a problem for me that day, anxious as I was to simply get away from them all and concentrate on God.

And that's when it hit me that it was the people I'd been so busy running away from all morning that I was actually there to see! "People" was the missing entry on my list of things to be returned to God!

Fascinated, I turned the thought over in my mind a little more. Jesus had seemed to be as desperate for some "alone" time as I was. Over and over in the Bible he withdrew from the crowds to a solitary place (Matthew 14:13) or headed up into the hills to pray (Matthew 14:23). And yet again and again He was interrupted by people coming to Him for help with their needs. But Jesus never looked at dealing with people as a problem. Rather, spending time with them was simply the joy of his life, the passion of His heart, His sole (soul!) reason for coming in the first place. He simply loved them and wanted to be with them, both now and forever.

Perhaps the singular purpose of His attempted "alone" times was to give Him the resources He needed to deal with them more effectively. In one of His last times with His disciples before His arrest and eventual death, He talked to His Father about this mission he was about to complete, saying that He had made the Father known to the people God had given to Him, and that none had been lost except the "one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled" (John 17:12 NIV). In short, He was returning a full roster to the One Who had sent Him to rescue mankind from their sin.

We've been given a similar agenda. God has surrounded each of us with people - family, friends, neighbors and coworkers...even total strangers who cross our paths seemingly by chance, but who are actually strategically placed by God to be ministered to in some way by contact with us. Our alone times are meant not to escape from these people but to equip us to help them in whatever ways we can, to make the Father known to them and introduce them to a relationship with His Son, that they might one day be returned to Him and live in eternal glory.

While we can't make their choices for them, we are able to have a positive impact on their lives during our short stay on this planet. And if for whatever reasons we're finding that difficult to do, we truly need to ask God to touch us anew with His love for the people He sends our way every day.

"I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world..."
(John 17:6 NIV)

Package Deal

Many years ago when my husband, Jim, and I were newly married and living in Washington state, we worked in separate divisions of the same company, he as a computer analyst, and me as a field forester who spent her days in the woods. Then one day came the announcement that the computer department was going to relocate to the company’s central office headquarters in Dallas, and Jim was asked to make the move. Excited as he was about the new opportunities that awaited him there, he realized that the job possibilities for foresters in that busy metropolis were slim at best. Our company had no land holdings in the area, hence no need for timber management professionals. Jim told those in charge of the relocation that he could not transfer unless they provided a job for his wife in the company office, as well. We were a package deal. So, because they needed Jim’s computer ability and management experience, I soon found myself behind a desk in a nice office, learning how all the field data that I used to spend my days collecting fit into the company’s forestry computer models. While it was nothing I’d ever done before, the work was interesting and good experience for whatever would come next for me in my career.

In the middle of our four-year stay in Dallas, Jim switched jobs and went to work for another paper company in the area. Soon came the news that he was again to be transferred, this time to Ohio. Once again he instituted the “package deal” concept in his employment negotiations, insisting that a job would have to be provided for his wife, as well, before he could agree to relocate. Amazingly, the company complied and I soon found myself employed as a computer programmer of forestry systems.

Gratified as I was by my new employer’s generosity, there was yet one huge problem in this scenario, that being my complete lack of training in computer science! My once programming class in college was little help as it wasn’t even a computer language the company was using. It was one thing to plug numbers into a computer model that was already written, as I did in Dallas, and another thing entirely to write the computer program behind the model. I felt absolutely lost at sea and managed to keep the job only with the help of a crash course in programming, fervent prayer, and a total reliance on God to supply the wisdom I lacked. Again and again He came through for me until I was eventually laid off when the economy forced widespread cutbacks in the paper industry.

Lately the enemy’s been reminding me of the days when I was part of a package deal in Jim’s job situations, highlighting the fact that I brought little to lay on the table myself in those scenarios, and was hired only so that the companies involved could acquire my husband’s computer expertise. What the devil mocks in my job situations he likewise scorns in my ministry efforts for the Lord, whispering that I only have the opportunities to serve that I do because I’m a “package deal” with my more spiritually effective husband.

I’m not alone in receiving his accusations. In recent years I’ve met many spouses in ministry teams who, while never verbalizing their thoughts, have believed him when he’s intimated that they hold the positions they do solely on the basis of who they are yoked to in marriage. We feel unqualified, unappreciated, and , worse yet, unnecessary to the work of the Lord.

And we couldn’t be more wrong. God wonders why we listen to such lies, when He’s written in His Word repeatedly that we all have received a measure of faith, (Romans 12:3), that we all have gifts and callings (Romans 12:6, 1 Corinthians 12:7), and that in the latter days He will pour His spirit out on all flesh (Joel 2:28). Each of us has a work that we were specifically created and anointed to do, and God will hold us personally accountable if we allow the devil’s lies to keep us inactive and unfruitful.

Getting what you need on the basis of somebody else’s qualifications is not always a bad thing. Just as I found myself without the resources I needed to accomplish the programming tasks I was assigned, I’m even more unqualified to work my way into Heaven. I simply haven’t got the sinless life and absolute purity that God requires in His Word. Once again the solution to my predicament is found in prayer. Jesus comes alongside me in response to my request for help and provides what I cannot - a perfect sacrifice in payment for my sins. And He makes me a promise… that someday when we stand together at Heaven’s Gate, the door will be opened and a welcome provided… only because He smiles with His arm around me and proclaims, “We’re a package deal.”

“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.”
(Ephesians 2:8,9 NKJV)