Carl’s teaching for Sunday, March 14 is now available. Download it now.
I finished reading Donald Miller’s book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, and am feeling inspired. I heard him teach on this at a conference a couple years ago and it radically affected my life.
He talks about how a strange thing happened when he became a respected, published and successful writer…he didn’t die. His life wasn’t over. He had to keep on going and find out what to do with the rest of his life.
Donald got this idea to think of our lives as a movie, since some people were trying to make a movie about his life, but decided they needed to add some excitement to it because his life wasn’t really exciting enough to keep an audience engaged.
One of my favorite illustrations that he gave was about what we are living for. He said that if a movie was made about a guy who graduates from college, works hard at his job and saves his money…to buy a Volvo, that would not be a good story. A Volvo is a great car, but it just wouldn’t be satisfying to sit through a whole movie watching a guy work and sacrifice and prepare, just to see him drive off into the sunset in his new Volvo before the credits roll. That’s a terrible movie. We’d want our money back.
If we look at our own lives in these terms, things become much more clear, our priorities are illuminated and whether we are living for something worthwhile is suddenly apparent.
I want a Jeep. I’ve always wanted a Jeep. In all honesty, I think the movie would be much cooler if it were a girl driving off into the sunset with her dog in a Jeep.
But, there is no way I am going to live my life to get that Jeep. It would still be a terrible story, kinda fun, but terrible.
In his book, Don talks about people, real people that are friends of his, that attempt insane things – writing to heads of state all around the world (with his kids) and essentially inviting them for a sleep over so they can learn more about each other (many said yes and they began developing friendships), or to give a rebellious teenage daughter a sense of purpose, one father decided that his family would spearhead the building of a much needed orphanage in a third world country – raise crazy amounts of money, find people to build it, take care of those kids.
These are huge things.
We don’t all need to attempt such global pursuits. But what I love about Donald’s book, is that he points out that we do need to attempt things that matter, things that are much bigger than us, things that terrify us, things that make us cling to God and beg him to come through for us.
Only then will we feel fully alive.
Only then will we be living a story with an ending that will satisfy.
Carl’s teaching for Sunday, March 14 is now available. Download it now.
Carl’s teaching for Sunday, March 14 is now available. Download it now.
Neil’s teaching for Sunday, February 14 is now available. Download it now.
A few weeks ago at church we were talking about the all sufficiency of Jesus and the Gospel. How everything hangs on these. How these are all that we need. How these are at the very center, the very core of our faith and should be the focus and aim of our lives: To know Jesus and to experience and reflect forth the Gospel message.
I agree with all of this (here it comes) but I think it frankly leaves me wanting. Maybe it’s because of how I define my terms or because of my narrow mindedness, which is all fine, but it still is an interesting idea to wrestle with and try to work out.
At any rate, in our small group we began discussing all this, which was really an excellent time, did a great job of filling out the picture and addressing some of these issues of semantics, etc. But in the midst of all this I had one of those personal “AHA moments.” Now maybe this isn’t as profound for anyone but me, but I feel like I was able to draw some very meaningful connections with some different sections of scripture that I had always somewhat glanced over and never really engaged with.
In Matthew 13:31,32, Jesus tells the parable of the mustard seed. It is nestled in the midst of quite a few other parables and is connected to them to be sure, but it is really interesting, and quite simple. 2 sentences.
“He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches.”
So Jesus uses this simple image of a mustard seed to discuss the kingdom of Heaven. This is where the light bulb came on for me. You know the image presented in the parable: teenie, tiny, itsy, bitsy little seed. (They really are too if you ever look at one.) Small. So anyways, out of this little, teenie seed comes this humungus tree-like plant that birds can come and perch in the branches. In other words what seems small, simple, obscure, easy to look over or to get quickly bored with is the origin and birthplace of this disproportionately large and amazing plant.
And like I said this is where the lights came on for me. Jesus and the Gospel is central, absolute, the core. But sometimes (and again words/meaning and how I understand those terms) it can seem like that’s pretty limiting to God. Aren’t we called to love and serve our neighbors? Aren’t we called to serve the widows and orphans? Aren’t we called to love our enemies and pray for those that persecute us? To love God with all our mind, soul, strength? To carry one another’s burdens? To be generous? To love our husbands/wives/children? To live lives of faith? To view ourselves as aliens and strangers….. You get the point, I could go on and on.
But if we think about the central/core/basic focus of our faith being the Kingdom of Heaven, and if we understand the Kingdom of Heaven to be this all expansive / encompassing invitation into this grand journey and story in which God is drawing all of his lost children to himself, and then loving them and sustaining them, and helping them go and invite others into that kingdom through innumerable, myriad ways, THEN for me that makes room for what I see in the scriptures as this exciting, multifaceted adventure that God has called us into, where we’re all made in his likeness, and yet unique, specially gifted and called to be a part of that Kingdom right where we are, and as who we are.
It’s sort of like in Men In Black I. You remember that? Good show, anyways, that cat had that little marble on it’s neck chain. And apparently inside that marble were many “galaxies.” If you looked inside there or could crawl inside there, you would find endless exploration, galaxies, planets, moons, space….
Or imagine someone handing you a small wooden box (also from some sci-fi experience) and you open the simple small wooden box to find that you could somehow crawl inside that itsy, bitsy box and there were other worlds in there: countries, mountains, oceans, lakes, streams, forests, cities to explore. (I guess this is ala Narnia, I have no shame)
So that’s where I’ll leave this. For me it is thrilling to know that I am invited into this thing Jesus calls the Kingdom of Heaven (which can also be made to sound simple or trite), which is a multifaceted adventure story that I’m invited into, right now where I stand, by a great God who loves his creation deeply and who has started on this amazing plan to rescue as many as will have him.
- mark rohlfing
Carl’s teaching for Sunday, February 7 is now available. Download it now.
Neil’s teaching for Sunday, January 31 is now available. Download it now.
Neil’s teaching for Sunday, January 10 is now available. Download it now.
Frustration. Do you ever feel that way? What do you do with it?
Usually I blog/write in a journal only when I have good things to say. I know that’s opposite of most people but that’s how I roll.
It’s hard for me to trust and believe the best about people sometime. Do you know what I mean? To believe that what has happened is not someone intentionally out to get me, harm me, oppose me, or whatever. I feel this way toward God sometimes too.
Honestly, I’m a bit of a control freak at heart. Coupled with my intense desire to pack in as much living as I can into each day and I end up with a pretty hectic schedule. The thing is that I love all the things I get to do. I love the people I meet with, the relationships that grow,the ministry I am blessed to be in, the work I do, and so on. I just want more of it.
So today when my scheduled plans got thwarted (good word – overly emotional for the situation) it was my first reaction to blow things out of proportion and then immediately wonder why I was feeling such extreme things. My next thought jumped to “God is trying to humble me.” Usually though, this chain of thinking is followed by “God wants to bring me down a notch.” Thankfully (and this is why I am writing) today my thought immediately following “God is trying to humble me” was “In love.”
“In love.” God loves me. The gym where my running shoes are kept was closed today. I can’t go run. Maybe He wants me to do something different than I planned. He has my best interest at heart. He is still loving me, in spite of my frustration and my desire to control my own life. He knows what is profitable for me.
So this afternoon I am not going to do what I planned…may I have the time of my life doing what God would have for me instead. I hope you can do that too.
Happy Sunday,
James