If not now, when? Yesterday (make sure you read part 1 before reading this post-click back) we talked about this grand adventure and big mission that God has hand-picked His followers to be on and we asked what could be more valuable and worth more energy, effort and time than that? Today we look at other side of the picture: the world/ community around us.
I’m not sure who was the originator of the quote, but I heard it from one of my teammates, Chris Thomson. He asked, “if not now, when?” I thought about it a lot. How many times do I put something off because…. well I don’t really know why. At the moment, it sounds good in my head to push off something that I’d rather not to, or to justify doing other stuff that I’m involved in. Let’s face it, our world has lots of shiny things to distract us. There’s not a day that goes by where I’m not drawn to check my Facebook because I’m sure someone wrote something witty as their status and if I miss it, my day will not be complete. I’m continually looking for the most recent email, the YouTube video of the day or wanting to join in that interesting conversation in the hallway. And that’s just my work day. The rest of my life could easily be distracted with a million things to do at the house, conversations to had, games to played, snacks to eat. None of it is really bad, but before I know it, my life is over flowing with plenty of things to do and often it’s the important things that I never seem to get around to.
Here’s a clip from the end of the sermon on Psalm 84 which spoke about longing for God and being on a journey towards God instead of “settling”. Enjoy…
This Sunday, I’m preparing to share some of my heart and the anticipation/ expectation for this fall season at Grace. In reading, listening and thinking, I came across this section from Charles Haddon Spurgeon who is often called the “prince of preachers” and I even heard him referred to by several as the best preacher to ever live (except for Jesus)! What I find fascinating is this quote comes from a sermon preached in 1873, I think in London. But, wow! powerful and personal and direct words this pastor shares. Would you agree with his statement? what keeps us from being mobilized on the mission of God?
One of the amazing things about the Psalms is their gut-level honesty in good and bad times. It’s also so cool to see how “theo-centric” so many of the authors are. (Theocentric means God is central, it’s the opposite of God being one compartment in an otherwise busy life full of others priorities.) So I got to wondering, how honest are we really when we relate with God? How often do we play games, pretending God doesn’t know what’s really going on inside of us? And since we know God knows us, what makes us not tell Him how we honestly feel? I’ve got doubts, I’ve got frustrations with God’s seemingly absent/non-involvement in things I think He should do! And I’m learning to now tell Him those things. I’m finding that if I start with honesty, then God can really work in me. If I try to relate to God from some image of myself that’s in my head but not real, then how can I expect God to transform me and grow me?
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