Journey of the Talmid

Every day there is a ring on the fourth finger of my left hand. It is not a decoration. It is a declaration of the commitment I made to an amazing woman, and the experiences we have shared together for the last 30 years.

This band of gold started out shiny, unblemished, and beautiful. However, through the ups and downs of life it was bent out of shape many times. Twice it was soldered to repair a crack. I have worn my wedding ring through garden weeding, home remodeling projects, cleaning out diapers, and auto repairs. My wedding ring has had a challenging “life”. Through the skillful work of a jeweler what looked dull and worn became new again.

Once the ring was stolen off my finger after a motorcycle accident overseas. When we returned to the US for a furlough we went to a jewelry store to look for a replacement. Cathy found one with diamonds to replace the plain band I had previously. As she placed it on my finger like on our wedding day she shared her thanks that I was still among the living.

My relationship with my wife is a treasure, but it has not always been shiny and glistening…just like my wedding ring. There have been times when it has experienced dirty jobs, bends and breaks. Through these experiences the God that joined us together has taken the eternal values of love, grace, and commitment to take what looks worn and tired, and make it shine like it’s first day.

As my wedding ring “speaks” of my marriage, it also reflects on my relationship with God. There have been times when my Christian faith has been bent out of shape through my struggles with sin. At times it has seriously fractured. The shine is sometimes diminished through suffering and trials. There have been moments when I thought I had lost it in the dark night of depression. But, our God is a amazing craftsman when it comes to our lives. He understands how to take something that is bent, broken, and looks like junk, and transform it into a thing of beauty.

My ring is priceless to me. It’s value is not based on the current price of precious metals or gems. It is a treasure because it represents two journeys that have shaped my life; my marriage and my faith. The ring is a testimony of a faithful God that can take the challenging experiences of my life and transform them into something glistening and beautiful.

My youngest son started something new this year. His second favorite sport, after football, is summer baseball. He usually plays third base. This year he added the position of pitcher to his resume. While watching his games I recalled the wisdom that my father gave me during my little league years. When pitching his advice was always about “focus”, that where your eyes were focused is where you would throw the ball.

This idea of “focus” applies to many areas of my life; where I focus is where I tend to go. A lack of focus affects my driving, like drifting off the road while trying to read a sign. When I am fixated on the negative aspects of a relationship I tend to see only the faults in another. When I am discouraged life appears hopeless. What I focus on will rule the moment. This even applies to my spiritual life.

I am “a sinner saved by grace”. This is my history. I was forever separated from God, trapped by the sinful nature that is an inheritance from those that have gone before me. But contrary to what my life should have been I received Christ’s gift of grace, mercy, and redemption, transforming me into a saint. This is what characterizes my life now.

I continue to fall short of what God calls me to, which emphasizes the “sinner” part of my past. However, if this is my focus that is what I will constantly see. If I am destined to focus on my failures I will continue to be drawn to that path and will continue to struggle with overcoming my sin. I am discovering that my focus needs to be on Jesus. If I truly want to cooperate with God’s transformation process I need to shift my focus from my history of sinfulness to my progress toward sainthood.

If my life is consumed with walking in the direction I need to go my faults from the past have less control and influence. I should learn from my past but not allow it to direct the focus of my future.

“I may not be the man I want to be; I may not be the man I ought to be; I may not be the man I could be; I may not be the man I truly can be; but praise God, I’m not the man I once was.” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

For the first month at our new home we observed an interesting phenomenon. Multiple times every day a sparrow would come, sit on our car door, and begin to attack the vehicle’s side mirror. He would flap his wings and scratch at the image he saw. Over and over he would throw himself at the mirror until he was either exhausted or bored of the fight. He would leave, only to return later to fight again. The kids named him King George, choosing that name not because he had royal plumage but because they doubted his sanity.

King George was engaged in a battle that he could not win. He didn’t understand the other bird he saw was simply his reflection. In a sense this same conflict engages me some mornings. As I greet the day, to be a minster of God’s grace, mercy, and truth, I look in the bathroom mirror and battle with the image I see. This person in the mirror, the one with the Albert Einstein hair, has been selfish and hurt people that he cares deeply about. He regularly struggles with sin he thought he spiritually grew beyond. He is at times a hypocrite and double-minded in his faith. He is me when I am at my worst, and I wage war against him.

In this battle I have no winning strategy if I am only looking at my human efforts. Self-love will not win this conflict. Even if I tell myself how wonderful I am I will still see the imperfections that others don’t. Self imposed guilt and condemnation, or willing myself to do better, will not bring victory. Although I may be marginally successful in some small areas I will tend to fall short of all the self-improvement that is needed. Both of these approaches fall outside of my ability or the truth that frames my life. Victory will only come in this battle with the image in the mirror when I see myself from the viewpoint of my Maker.

I am a man who has much to improve on in the flesh, but I am desperately loved and valued by the God who made me. It is both of these viewpoints that allows me to live life in victory. God will push me to sanctify my life like any loving father would. But, my actions do not determine my value in God’s sight, for Jesus took care of the judgment that I rightfully deserve. I am accepted and loved by the God of the universe regardless of the sin that besets the image in the mirror.

I have learned that both of these viewpoints are a gift from God. He allows me to see who I am without Him. He also allows me to sense His love and acceptance, both in areas of weakness and strength. I am learning to not despise the image in the mirror. I am learning to rejoice that I am loved despite what I see, and striving to bring glory to God today by becoming more like Jesus.

 

“Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them.” Mark 11:23

“Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’” 2 Corinthians 12:7-9

There are things in my life that feel like mountains. Some of them appear as difficult situations and circumstances that life presents to me. Things my body deals with, like disease and physical defects, are mountains at times. There are troubling events in my history that I did not cause or create but were pushed into my life. These mountain-like objects are unwelcome and bring challenges. They make the path of life steep when it could be flat, and rough when it could be smooth. They appear to be immovable.

What do I do when there is an immovable object, a mountain, in my life? I can’t move it, and God hasn’t “thrown it into the sea” at my request. When the mountain stays in my life…I accept it. When I cannot change my circumstances of life I allow my circumstances to change me. I begin to ask myself, “What can I learn from this mountain” rather than wish it were gone. I have no alternative but to let it change me.

This approach may seem unconventional. I can’t deny that the mountain is there. If I do I may begin to question my ability to determine what is real and imaginary in my life. I can’t continue to nurture anger concerning its presence. Bitterness will soon follow. Screaming at it may make me feel better for a moment, but it won’t make it go away (screaming at problems seems to simply encourages me to scream at life). None of these responses will help me deal with my mountains. My only productive option seems to be acceptance: trusting that the God who loves me has allowed this into my life to help mature me. There is no dancing or rejoicing over my mountains, but it is not an enemy.

The Book of Mark states that God could move a mountain in my life. A lack of courage or faith, the presence of sin, or simply not asking God to move it may create a home for something that should be gone. But, if my heart is right and God allows it in my life I have to trust that there may be a purpose to it. God does move mountains. He also allows them to stay put. My goal is to allow Him to grow me and give me peace in His presence regardless of the terrain.

Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. Psalm 23:4

I am a sheep. According to Psalm 100 and John 10 God describes me as such and that He is my shepherd. God cares for His sheep. He feeds and waters them. He makes sure they are safe from predators and seeks them out when they are lost. He heals their wounds and loves them as His own. God is a good shepherd.

As a sheep, I like much of what I find in Psalm 23. The idea of my Lord leading me to green pastures and quiet waters sounds very appealing. I am encouraged by His desire to “restore my soul”.  I take comfort in His presence during dark and evil times. It is the portion afterward, in verse four, which causes me to wonder.

If I properly interpret David’s poetic song I should be comforted by my shepherd bearing the “rod and staff”. When I first think of a shepherd (God) using a rod and staff with his sheep (me) I do not think of comfort. I think of discipline, that I need my “sheep-ness” to be trained. Sheep get poked, prodded, and pulled with the “rod and staff”. My flesh might rewrite verse four: “your rod and your staff, they teach me lessons for my own good and keep me out of trouble”. However, I am learning to not trust my human response to God working in my life.

Sheep need a shepherd that uses a rod and staff. Sheep need to be prodded in the right direction. They need to be pulled out of dangerous places. Sometimes sheep need to feel a little pain from authority to avoid a much bigger pain down the road. I need these things as well. I need someone doing some pushing and pulling in my life to keep me out of danger and on the right path. This can be a comforting thought.

I am reminded of a teenager I worked with years ago. She shared how angry she was with her parents’ permissive parenting, allowing her to do whatever she wanted. Although the hurts that she experienced came from her poor decisions she felt her parents could have kept her from much of the pain in her life. “I felt like I was on a bridge without any guardrails. I just wanted someone to keep me safe”. If I love my kids well I am always looking to protect them from fatal decisions that may inflict a lifetime of serious pain, whether or not they understand my unreasonable parenting actions at the time. The same is true with God.

God’s rod and staff have become sources of comfort for me. I don’t want to be knee deep in a mess constantly. I don’t enjoy receiving the consequences of my poor decisions. I do need someone to pull me back when I drift close to a cliff of sin. I should draw comfort from a God who is committed to keeping me on a good path because He loves me, desires good to come from my life, and deserves to be glorified through the life of one of His kids.

I have been the recipient of God’s amazing, overwhelming grace. How that has happened in my life is summed up in an often-told story.

A northern pastor stopped in for breakfast at a Waffle House in the south. His order of eggs, bacon, toast, and juice arrived with one addition. There was a white mass on his plate. He called the waitress over to his table. “Excuse me, ma’am, but what is this?” “Those are grits,” the waitress responded. Puzzled, the pastor responded, “I didn’t order these.” Her reply, “Oh, you don’t order grits. They just come”.

Grace is at work in me. I have never “ordered” grace. It has “just come,” over and over again.  God has poured out on me in abundance the measure of this blessing I did not deserve. He was looking to make me his adopted son before I even realized He was there. He transformed my selfishness into love and compassion for others. He brought friends into my life that I didn’t realize I needed. He gave me a loving family before I realized I needed to belong somewhere. God gave me purpose in my life so that I would be firmly anchored when the voices of discouragement tried to cast me adrift. All this and so much more God gave me by grace so that He might somehow be glorified through me.

I must accept Grace. This blessing I did not deserve is mine to receive. I must rejoice in it and seek to understand all that God has done through it in my life. I have to move past the root of pride and control that desires to earn everything I have. Grace cannot be earned; I have to learn to grasp and accept it. If I don’t I will never realize how great a gift Grace truly is. Without some understanding of Grace I will never have compassion for a fellow Christian trapped in sin. I will not begin to comprehend the plight of people are that are oblivious to God. I will never understand how lost they are unless I understand how far I was from God and how close He has brought me to Himself. I have to continue to wrestle with the idea of grace or I will not understand the nature of God and how much He humbled himself to come to this place and look for me. I can only understand the freedom that comes by grace when I truly understand how imprisoned those are that don’t have it.

There were times when I didn’t believe it was real. I rejected Grace and handicapped my faith. I acknowledged God’s presence but removed the path to draw near to Him. The pain of being so distant from my Heavenly Father made me desperate. I have stopped asking the question why God gave it to me and have accepted that is was His pleasure to give it. I accepted Grace.

Most people perceive a calling to be a special, spiritually ordained devotion to a profession, role, or project. People may feel called to be a pastor, mother, teacher, or to business. Some are called to eliminate poverty or injustice.

My calling from God is much more focused on a way of life and less on my occupation. In my adult life I have served God as a houseparent, a human resource director, a repairer and seller of kitchen cabinets, a school administrator, and now as the leader of a guest services team at a retreat and conference center (my career path has confused many of my friends and family members). In all these long and short term career positions I have continued to fulfill my calling. I am called to inspire others.

I realized this calling four or five years ago. Although I was not always aware of my calling I realized I had been fulfilling it regularly for much of my adult life. Inspiring people seems to take on many forms. I try to encourage people to live a more sincere and devoted Christian life. Other times I help point out others gifts and abilities, or simply listen to the people in which I come into contact. Hopefully I love others in such a way that they know that they have value and purpose.

People would assume that long before your fifties you would have figured out the calling God has put in your heart. I may be a bit late to the game. However, I am grateful to have discovered it later in my life. If I knew this as a younger man I am afraid I would not have had the maturity, humility, and spiritual sensitivity to allow God to make my calling what He wanted it to be.

This blog, I believe, is rooted in my calling to inspire. I certainly hope as you read about my spiritual journey you will be encouraged in your own Christian journey and realize God has a calling in your life, too.

I was sitting in the car in front of my house crying. For several days I had been thinking about a wedding our family had attended the previous weekend.  The wedding was such a testimony of God’s faithfulness to this bride and groom through multiple generations that I was moved to tears. Watching this ceremony had caused me to look at my past; the experiences, events, and life situations of my own doing and those that were thrust upon me. “God, why couldn’t I have had that life”?, was the question I had been dwelling on.

“Tony, you just don’t like scars”, was God’s response. I was stunned. He continued, “Look at your neighbor’s house”. Tom (not his real name) lived next door. We had been taking his kids to church with us for several years. Tom struggled with daily life. He was abused as a child and was raising young children as a single dad. His wife’s death to cancer many years before was a constant source of pain. Years of substance abuse and hard living had made Tom a hurt and angry man. He was destroying himself and his family. God continued, “What do you have to offer Tom if you have never had a struggle or difficulty to push through. The scars in your life are a testimony of my healing in you. You once were wounded and now you are whole. What do you have to offer Tom if your life had been perfect”?

I looked down at my leg and recalled the surgery I had several years before. The long scar on my knee was a testimony that I once was wounded, but God had healed me. Torn ligaments were now whole so that I could play with my kids. The scar is ugly, but God’s healing is beautiful. I could choose to see beauty in that scar. I could also choose to allow God to help my neighbor through the testimony of His healing in my personal struggles.

How I choose to see my visible and hidden scars is a decision I have to make regularly. Do I wish I never had them, or do I view them as a testimony of God’s work of grace and mercy in my life?  I need to allow God to work through the scars of my life so that others may know He is the healer of our wounds.

I love stories. They have the power to convey truth in a deep and meaningful way, many times when we are least expecting it. One of my favorites conveys the need to publicly commit to live life as a Christian.

Stuart Briscoe, the former pastor of Elmbrook Church in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, tells a story from his growing-up years in Great Britain. I first heard the story “Nail Your Colors to the Mast” through a radio broadcast, although this summary comes from the website www.godhungry.org.

Briscoe was raised as a Christian and joined the Royal Marines at the age of 17. A career soldier and mentor of Briscoe’s, Captain H.C. May, provided him with some challenging advice as Briscoe was getting ready to begin his military service:

Briscoe writes “… he told me, ‘You must nail your colours to the mast.  Right away!’  As I had never heard the expression before, he explained that in the old days when a ship of the Royal Navy sailed into battle, the colours of the sovereign were hoisted to the top of the mast and remained there throughout the conflict unless they were defeated or surrendered.  Then, of course, the colours were replaced either with the white flag of surrender or the colours of the conquering sovereign.  But with that in mind, some naval captains would order the colours to be nailed to the mast so that defeat and surrender were shown to be out of the question; they would rather ‘go down with all flags flying.’ 

‘You must show your fellow marines right away whose you are and whom you serve, Stuart,’ my military hero explained forcefully.  Too forcefully for my liking. ‘Did you do that?’  I asked timidly. ‘Yes, I did,’ he replied.  ‘The first night in the barrack room I knelt by my bed and prayed.’ ‘What happened?’ I ventured. ‘They threw boots at me,’ he replied casually, as if this were an everyday occurrence. ‘What did you do?’ I queried, hardly daring to ask. Looking at me as if the answer was so obvious he was surprised I should ask, he replied, ‘I cleaned them and returned them, of course!’”

I am publicly committed to follow Jesus. I am compelled to live my life as a believer because of the truth of the gospel. Surrender cannot be an option in the battle for my faith.

Knowledge is learning things. Wisdom is effectively applying what you know. Good judgement, common sense, and discernment all fall in the realm of Wisdom. It is a simple process to learn something. Being wise is more complex and at times elusive.

I want to be wise. God wants me to be wise. I desire to be a person that properly applies His truth in my life. How can I more readily allow God to cultivate wisdom in my life? I think I have a simple perspective that helps me understand God’s process of developing wisdom in me.

Creating wisdom in your life is similar to creating “compost”. Compost will transform a garden. It starts with making a pile of manure, straw, leaves, and any organic waste available. When my kids were younger my source for my compost pile was usually slime and straw that we scraped up from the floor of our chicken coop. What a mess. We would place it in a large pile near the garden. Fruit and vegetable scraps were added from our kitchen, leaves from the yard, and other weeds and grass. With time, water, worms, bacteria, and other processes doing their thing, this pile of waste and garbage would become a nutrient-rich soil conditioner that transformed our clay garden dirt into a plant paradise.

While our compost looked like a pile of trash sitting on the ground a trained eye realized the treasure that it truly was. Gaining wisdom in my life was much the same. It has often come from the knowledge and truth I have learned from the hardships of life. Painful experiences, broken relationships, false promises, and all sorts of what I sometimes perceived as the “waste and garbage” of life provided the basis for God to build wisdom into me. With time, life experience, spiritual insights, and biblical truth, God transformed that pile of garbage-like experiences into a “fertilizer for my life” that blesses me and hopefully those around me. The wisdom God desires to instill in me is a treasure beyond value.

It takes all the components to transform organic garbage into compost. It takes all the experiences of life, viewed through the eyes of heaven, to bring about wisdom. Time is of critical importance. It takes time to transform manure into fertilizer. It takes time for God to transform hardships into wisdom. It is His desire to grow wisdom in me and in you. I encourage you to begin to see the hardships of life as the foundation of future wisdom that God will give you.

Some scriptures to consider: Proverbs 4:5-9, Proverbs 8