Plastic Plants

Waiting is difficult. Waiting can be very, very difficult. Our natural tendency is to speed along the process. We get tired of waiting on God. We think we can short-circuit the system. We assume we can speed things up a bit by doing life our own way. That's the exact moment that things begin to go really wrong. I once read "the longest possible distance between two points is called a short-cut."

 

Think of it as if you want to grow a nice, beautiful plant to decorate your room or office. Instead of working through the process of planting, nurturing, and caring, you go out and you buy plastic plants.

 

Instead of embracing the uncertain, yet totally invigorating process of growth, you try a short-cut. Plastic plants are cheap imitations of the real thing. Plastic plants are never what they appear to be. Neither are plastic Christians.

Renewal

I've been thinking about the importance of my own spiritual renewal. I'll not be preaching to you blog-folk, just expressing my own heart and feelings.

If Jesus had to go away and spend some alone time in devotion, meditation, prayer, renewal, whatever term works here for you . . . how much more do we need to do the same? I know, I know, you've heard this before. So have I. My question is: why don't I do this more often? Why do I (as Mark Batterson said) do ministry out of memory? Why don't I treasure time spent with the Timeless One more than I do? Bill Hybels wrote an entire book about being too busy NOT to pray. Where am I on this spectrum of busyness?

I'm not saying that I need to spend 12 hours a day in prayer, but I am saying I need to spend some amount of time in prayer every day. Dr. Jeffers once leveled me with this question, "Are you so busy doing the work of the Lord that you have forgotten the Lord of the work?"

I'm not casting stones at anyone. I'm publicly asking myself about my renewal time. I'll privately answer.

Starbucks and Greyhounds

I was recently reading an online post and the writing led me to think about how to get people to say "yes"; or more importantly how marketers are placing opportunities that make it easier to say "yes". Have you ever noticed how there are no Starbucks in bus stations or in the welfare office? Ever noticed that Nordstrom's doesn't build new stores in flea market arenas? More often than not, you'll see Starbucks on the way to Nordstrom's.

Not long ago I did a very small amount of work with the homeless and noticed that there was a liquor store right across the street from the shelter. Did the liquor store guys know what they were doing or what?!?!

What are you trying to get people to say "yes" to and how are you going about it?

Relationships

Since this is my public think tank, I decided I would share something that's been on my heart the last few days - relationships. The older I get the more I am learning to appreciate true friendships. I am about to complete a bible study I'm creating for The General Youth Division and today, I'll spend about 4 hours with a friend of mine to fine tune the bible study and he'll give me his opinion. He doesn't have to, he just will. Last night I had a great phone conversation with one of my best friends, he's halfway across the country, yet he called to chat. He didn't have to, he just did.

That free will is what makes relationships so amazing; true friends act from the heart, not from obligation. Life would be just horrible without the opportunity to share it with other human beings.

Authenticity

I can't get away from the ever growing hunger for authenticity in our world. People are hungry for realness; they crave someone who is comfortable with being themselves. Rare is the person who is comfortable being themselves anymore. In The Message (Matthew 23) Eugene Peterson says some live their lives as "perpetual fashion shows". I don't want to walk the runway of life in full-fake-apparel; I want to walk "naked" before God each day, robed in authenticity. It's cliché, but I still want to live my life for an audience of One. How He measures up my garment of authenticity is the only measurement that truly matters.

Ideas

"Ideas that spread, win". That is according to Seth Godin, a marketing guru that I read from time to time. He speaks of marketing from the critical angle of getting people to "talk" about products which in turn lead people to "buy" the products. He simply says, "Ideas that spread, win".

You know where I'm going, don't you? Imagine a culture of Christianity that operated in this same manner. I'm not suggesting that we turn our churches into marketing machines, but what if we used some similar strategies? What if we got people talking and that led to people acting and that led to people being led to Jesus Christ? "Ideas that spread, win".

The Wiring & The Will

I've been thinking a lot lately about how a human being is wired together – like skill sets, personality traits, etc. We are all wired so different, yet so similar. We are all so unique, yet we are all like-creatures. In teaching a series to our college age students, I've come up with a theory. When you find the wiring, you find the will.

All of Christianity at one point or the other struggle with finding God's perfect will for their lives. His will is extremely important to us as we pursue Him, yet it seems His will is sometimes so elusive and hard to grasp. I might be wrong (I have been wrong at least 173,456,459 other times in my life), but I think once we discover our internal wiring, we are very close to discovering His will.

He won't send a country boy to NYC to plant a church. He won't send a city boy to Pinetree, Louisiana. He won't send someone with ill-fitting giftings to an environment they'll fail in. God gave us our skill sets for a reason; He gave us our personalities for a purpose. If we will be so bold as to discover ourselves, then we just might get to know His will for ourselves. When you find the wiring, you find the will.