I Must Confess, I Have Been Less Than Filled With A Spirit Of Courage Of Late...

In the last few months I have struggled with certain circumstances surrounding me, my family, and my place in God’s ministry.  To put the struggles in my life into perspective, I have learned to turn to Scripture.  And though there is so much contained in its pages, I particularly lean on (and sometimes read over and over again) the fourth chapter of Philippians.  It is a personal source of encouragement, and my reminder that faith is the only thing that can allow me peace in the hard times.  It speaks to my desires and their lower place of importance to my faithfulness.  It speaks to my firmly held belief that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.  But it also speaks with clarity when my situations seem murky.  It literally shifts my heart to a place that begins to align my desires with God’s.  It gives me clarity and renewed purpose.

When Paul says that he has learned to be abased and to abound, I have always taken this to mean simply that he could live with or without material things.  But in a society that looked upon poverty with disdain, to be abased was more than to be simply poor or lacking… it was to be dishonored, or degraded.  (Paul uses another word to describe being in need at the end of the verse, so I don’t think the use of “abased” was accidental.)  For Paul, there was an element of his service to Christ that allowed him to find peace even when he was being abased.  The realization that Paul’s sole source of joy was the Christ… that his sole fount of peace was the Spirit of God… that his only discernible strength was in God’s presence… for me speaks volumes about my own need to center myself in that all-encompassing faith.

At the end of the day, I am simply trying to live faithfully in my call to help others do the same
(live faithfully in their call that is).  For that is what being and building disciples is about… living the reality of lives transformed by the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  And I am reminded by my own wrongs, that I am dealing with people who are just as fallible and fallen as I am.  Faith alone saves me, and others (“not by works, lest anyone should boast.” Eph. 2:9)… so who am I to be less patient with people than Jesus was, and is, with me? 

I find peace in the realization that God often uses the worst, the most despised and lowly, in transformative ways.  When I find myself feeling abased, I have the reminder of His word to show me that if I am faithful it is reward enough because God is pleased.  I read about the murderous, greedy, prideful, and lecherous men and women God cleans up and uses in Scripture and know that complete transformation is possible and God’s purpose cannot be stopped by those who would oppose it.  Not even me in my own moments of pettiness and self-pity.

Faith, as C.S. Lewis puts it, “is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.”[1]  When it is active and moving it is powerful in its ability to restore hope in the face of changing circumstance.  In faith we are filled with the presence of the Christ who guards our hearts and minds, and strengthens us for accomplishing the impossible.

With this insight, I’m renewed for the journey of faith.  Like Paul I am able to trust the road ahead even when I don’t know where it will end.  I can realize that the fact that I think I am following God’s will, doesn’t always mean that I am actually doing so.  But I also know that my desire to follow Jesus does in fact please Him… and if I desire only to please Him in all that I do, He will lead me by the right road even when I don’t know which road I’m on.  

So I’ll continue to live out my faith as an active faith; a faith filled with verbs like love, pray, repent, serve, seek, learn, teach, confront, transform, lift, share, be, and live.  I’ll love, and I’ll experience heartbreak.  I’ll cry and I’ll laugh.  I’ll dance and I’ll leap, and I’ll stumble and I’ll fall.  I’ll make mistakes and I’ll beg forgiveness.  I’ll find mercy and then I’ll give it to others who don’t deserve it any more than I do because I have received it.  I won’t let fear paralyze me, for His promise is that He is always with me, and won’t leave me to face the perils alone.  Nor am I alone in the victories; for apart from Him I have none.  When I am abased in His service, I am comforted by His close presence and that makes me abound in spite of all other “lack”.  And I’ll do all of this through God who empowers me to do it abundantly. 

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[1] C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Macmillan, 1952), Book III, chapter 11, paragraph 5