Godgrown

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  Mark 11:12 am on April 3, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

  Things We all Know 

  Babies are amazing.  They teach us so much about our relationship with God.

  Take for instance, the bonding between a new-born infant and her mother.  A new born’s eyes are not fully developed when they’re first born; they can only see clearly about 12 inches away – everything else is blurry.  Interestingly, that is the distance an infant is away from her mother during breastfeeding.  There is an eye-to-eye connection - a deep love with the one person she can see clearly. This, combined with rooting, an instinct that connects the baby with the one person who can provide for her. Sounds a lot like prayer! Sounds a lot like what God wants for us in our intimate relationship with him, yes?

  It gets even more interesting.

  Babies, within just an hour from birth, already have latent in them the ability to walk. YES – walk.  Hold them up and lightly brush their feet across a flat surface, and they’ll begin to stride forward.  (Funny, they lose the ability to make this movement at about 6 months because of weight and muscle development, but if you half-submerge them in water, they’ll walk just the same.)  We are born as the only bi-pedal mammals; making us much more efficient for long journeys.  God created our bodies for a journey. Our movements are always moving us forward (our knees don’t bend sideways or backwards).

  Mission…journey…intimacy…these things are built right into the fabric of what it means to be human.

  God created us to find him.  We are specifically designed from Day 1 to give us as many chances to connect as possible.  ”Seek the Lord while he can be found.” Isaiah 55:6

  And for those of us who are no longer able to claim the “new born” restaurant discount let this be a lesson for us.  May the instincts and impulses integrated into the fabric of a baby be our instincts with God. An infant, who know nothing of this strange new world he finds himself in – still knows the sound of his mother’s voice, knows who to trust, knows when to cry and who alone can silence his fears.  May this be a moment when we remember that “our feet were made for walking…” – and like a sheep after our shepherd, “…that’s just what they’ll do!”

  
   

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  Mark 9:46 am on March 21, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

  Stupid Faith 

  Hutz-pah is the Hebrew notion of “guts.”  It means that you’ve got the gumption to do the unthinkable.  Though related, it is more than bravery – it is bravery mixed with foolishness, with just a dash of genius.

  Abraham had this sort of hutzpah when he came before God and began negotiating with him in Genesis 18:22-33.  The fear…the absolute penetrating fear of standing before the Living God and questioning him!  And yet, God was pleased with this kind of faith – in fact, we call Abraham “the father” of our faith.  It is in large part because he had real hutzpah.

  Jesus too mentions the notion of hutzpah, this wild, brazen gall – promising those that “seek and keep on seeking will find; those that knock and keep on knocking, will have the door opened…”

  He tells a story of someone banging on the door of his friend’s house in the middle of the night, demanding the friend get up and get him what he wants.  It isn’t necessarily out of kindness, but out of sheer exhaustion that the friend will do exactly as he asks.  It is this strength-in-persistence that Jesus says qualifies as real, healthy faith.

  What might a hutzpah faith look like today?

  • It is praying…without ceasing.
  • It is this borderline STUPID insistence that God cares enough to respond to your requests.
  • It is begging that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven, then going about in God’s power, being the answer to your own prayers.
  • Want to see heaven on earth?  Then put your whole life on the line to see justice accomplished, to see salvation for the oppressed, sight for the blind…
  • Pray desperately for more workers in God’s harvest fields, as there is so few workers and so much work to be done.  These are things that God wants far more than you ever will, so go ahead and pray boldly – then go about seeing it done!

  Don’t forget, when a child asks for bread, his father will not give him a stone…and how much more wonderful is God?  When we pray with hutzpah; when we ride the line between audacity and reverence in our prayers…we can see the boundaries of hell pushed back - and God comes rushing to our aid.

  

  Rbfuzzyqjones845, Mark W, and Greg are discussing. Toggle Comments

   
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    Greg 4:00 pm on March 21, 2011 Permalink

    Interesting post. Would love to have you explain this part of it a bit though: “It is begging that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven, then going about in God’s power, being the answer to your own prayers.”

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    Mark W 12:55 pm on April 2, 2011 Permalink

    “Being the answer to our own prayers” sounds a bit counter-intuitive, but I believe one (not the only) reason why we pray is to seek how God wants us to live. When we beg God for workers in his harvest field (Lk 10:2) then we get up off our knees and get to work…we in essence are saying “Here am I, send me!” You can see this in Luke 10 when Jesus asks his disciples to pray for workers, and then he sends them out 2 by 2 to be the workers they just prayed for. There is a HUGE danger in simply praying, and not doing. We need “contemplative activists” in our churches.

    Great to “see ya” Greg! How is everything?

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    Rbfuzzyqjones845 2:37 am on April 28, 2011 Permalink

    Great article mark…… Street ministry here in Detroit in the month of July. We’re working on it know……
    Fuzzyqjones845

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  Mark 3:49 pm on January 29, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

  Functional Saviors 

  Know anyone who takes out a double policy of insurance?  That’s when you have insurance on something, then you wrap it in another blanket of insurance.  What’s up with that?

  It just means the first insurance you bought wasn’t good enough.

  We do the same thing with God – if God is our ultimate trust – more than just an insurance policy, but the largest thing we can hold onto in our lives, and we toss in some “functional saviors” (coined so perfectly by pastor Tim Keller) are we really content with the power of God?

  What are your “functional saviors?”

  For the Jews, it was all the things they couldn’t have under the Law of Yahweh.  According to the Law, they couldn’t eat pork, so what’s the first thing you go for when life turns sour?  You got it – a greasy bag of pork rinds!

  God laments in Isaiah 65:

  65:3 All day long they insult me to my face

  by worshiping idols in their sacred gardens.

  They burn incense on pagan altars.

  4 At night they go out among the graves,

  worshiping the dead.

  They eat the flesh of pigs

  and make stews with other forbidden foods.

  11b …you have prepared feasts to honor the god of Fate

  and have offered mixed wine to the god of Destiny…

  Do you have to realize you’re dividing up your trust among idols – considering God “not-enough?”  No – I think there are lots of things that become our functional savior that we don’t even realize.  Let these questions from Darrin Patrick help expose the ‘other gods’ in your life:

  • What do I worry most about?
  • What, if I failed or lost it, would cause me to feel that I did not even want to live?
  • What do I use to comfort myself when things get bad, or difficult?
  • What do I do to cope?  What are my release valves?  What do I do to feel better?
  • What preoccupies me?  What do I daydream about?
  • What makes me feel the most self-worth?  Of what am I the proudest?  For what do I want to be known?
  • What do I lead with in conversations?
  • Early on, what do I want to make sure people know about me?
  • What prayer, unanswered, would make me seriously think about turning away from God?
  • What do I really want and expect out of life?  What would really make me happy?
  • What is my hope for the future?

  God is interested in being your only trust – your only investment – your only insurance.  Give it a try – throw off the other “blankets” that wrap around your trust in God – it is amazing how light the burden will become.