After an amazing day in our new ecosystem, we watched the sun set on the Texas horizon, then lit a little campfire and watched the long shadows dance along the ground.  The ground was dry and flat where we were stationed, so we decided to ditch the tents and sleep under the stars.

…Ahhh… I stretch out and lay on top of my sleeping bag.  Totally exposed to the elements – and I won’t say it didn’t bother me that we had to take out a few scorpions before settling in for the night.

What we didn’t count on was all the animal sounds we’d hear throughout the night.  Even before the fire had gone out, we began to hear twigs breaking, rustling near the trees to the south of us, howls in the distance.

Maybe you’ve had the experience.  All of a sudden you sense your campfire has become like a billboard for a butcher shop, “Fresh meat!”  It also traps you – your eyes are not adjusted and able to see out into the darkness – but oh, the darkness can see you just fine.

There are two ways to walk through life:

1. Walk in the dark, but trusting and relying on God who will save you.
2. Light your own fires, seeking out whatever you can on your own.

God’s eyes are adjusted to the dark.  He can see things we’ll have no chance at seeing, and has a strength we’ll never have to keep us safe from harm.  But many of us want to do it our way; we want the warmth and comfort to come from something of ourselves – we build ourselves a fire.  In our pursuit of light and warmth we announce to the darkness “Fresh meat!” giving away our location.  The pursuit of life, wisdom, or meaning without God leading the way invites Pride, Contempt, and ultimately Destruction.

I’m asking you to learn as much as you can in this life, but do it while knowing the first and most basic thing of life – that you are created, you are loved, you are built for something important.  Starting from any other place is like setting off fireworks in guerrilla warfare.

10 Who among you fears the Lord

and obeys his servant?

If you are walking in darkness,

without a ray of light,

trust in the Lord

and rely on your God.

11 But watch out, you who live in your own light

and warm yourselves by your own fires.

This is the reward you will receive from me:

You will soon fall down in great torment.

The Israelites at Mount Sinai were so frightened by the power of God and his words that they concluded they never wanted to hear from God ever again!  (Instead they outsourced their spiritual ears to Moses.)  Samuel as a young boy heard God’s voice in the middle of the night – and God made clear to him that his foster family was about to be murdered by invaders.  Jews in the days of Jesus were begging God to send his Messiah to teach them the ways of God, but when Jesus began to preach – it was not long before they hung him on a cross…

No, we cannot well listen to God’s voice and live.  Don’t forget that it was his words that created this amazing world!  In his words hold the power of life itself - raw energy. And listening to God might just be the death of you.

Which is why it is so strange that Hebrews in Isaiah’s time respond as they do to God’s voice.  They mock God and how he speaks to them – using a children’s rhyme about the alphabet – here it is translated into English:

9 “Who does the Lord think we are?” they ask.

“Why does he speak to us like this?

Are we little children,

just recently weaned?

10 He tells us everything over and over—

one line at a time,

one line at a time,

a little here, and a little there!”

Sometimes I can relate – God: You don’t use your megaphone much anymore.  At least, not where I can hear it anyway.

While I’m sure I wouldn’t survive the first syllable, I find myself craving an audible word from the living God.  Instead, the words come “one line at a time” and in quite nudges here and there, over and over again.  “I’m proud of you, son,” or “Try asking for forgiveness from her.” That sort of thing.  How refreshing it would be to truly hold an extended, verbal dialogue with my Creator.

But then again, maybe these hints and short phrases are how one learns obedience. The Hebrew script in the verses quoted above is written in almost lyrical form.  And it reflects the simplicity and triteness in speech the Hebrews were complaining about.

They wanted a highly intellectual, stimulating oratory – not something as simple as “Love your enemies.”

Maybe my listening to God, if I am to truly learn anything – must remain simple and succinct so that I can really hear what he is saying.  I hear enough chatter from talking heads on TV and in my own mind – and God’s silence and simple words of wisdom are just what I need to hear to truly grasp who God is and how to live this highly complex life.

It is the proud that mock the simple – but it is the simple that enjoy a life of abundance.  When God’s simple words of truth and life are enough to sustain you, when you don’t need a theophonic, rapturous experience to know he is wildly in love with you — you are on the right track.

***

Take a look at the back of almost any Bible and you’ll see a map of the Middle East and the Mediterranean Sea.  You’ll see four squiggly lines drawn in different colors and a little key at the bottom indicating that these lines are the apostle Paul’s missionary journeys.

As a kid, it always reminded me of those scenes out of Indiana Jones movies, where there would be a soft fade from a smirking Harrison Ford onto a parchment map, with a red line moving slowly over a map, indicating a plane’s path from Germany to Austria or some other beautiful locale.  It helped convey the story’s progression and the vastness of the tale.

But merely showing each movie’s mapped journeys would no doubt strip the Indiana Jones tales of their richness – the time between journeys, the relationships built in each movie, the enemies defeated…and of course, the explosions!

As nice as it is to have a map of Paul’s journeys spanning 30 years smashed on top of each other, we need to carefully consider the lives and happenings of Paul throughout Acts and the New Testament Epistles to see what those journeys mean – and it might just reveal how God develops a leader in the harvest that finishes well.  (As a side note, I highly recommend the 1981 TV movie Peter and Paul.)

First Journey

Paul’s first missionary journey (Acts 13:1-14:28) from 47-48 CE took place in Southeast Asia and was the start of the churches in the Galatian region.  See Paul during this time as a learner, and not a teacher.  A team covered 1500 miles as traveling evangelists leaving clusters of undeveloped disciples behind who were desperate for leadership.

The team felt that it was necessary that they revisit these churches several times to provide leadership, nevertheless, the churches suffered from immaturity and vulnerability, a weak understanding of the Truth, and was influenced at the hands of very strong and legalistic leaders.  Even though the team saw fruitfulness, it did not see its churches multiply.  The sickness of these churches and personality differences in the team seemingly caused frustration and division.

Lessons:

• The First Journey leader often tries to do it all himself, which leaves behind weak churches who are open to other “do-it-yourself” leaders who want to dominate others.
• The apprentice leader on his first journey beings to flex his own leadership muscles and become a leader in his own right, stepping away from his mentor.
• First Journey leaders are often in a hurry to move on.
• The First Journey leaders is where the leader gains the know-how to pass on to others – you cannot skip the first journey.

Second Journey

God begins the team’s second journey through the disagreement over John-Mark’s readiness for another mission trip.  It can be read about from Acts 15:36-18:22.  As it turns out, this spurs Paul to multiply his mission team and cover more ground.  This time, Paul’s team is much bigger, dropping a member off in each city rather than leaving churches alone.  This worked out well at first — Paul, Silas, Timothy and Luke…which became… Paul, Silas and Timothy…which became…Paul.  Stuck again – alone and frustrated.  One night in a dream, Jesus gives Paul the answer to his perpetual loneliness and frustrations with the finiteness of his mission teams.

In Acts 18:9-10 Jesus teaches Paul a valuable lesson in multiplication growth.  Stay in Corinth and develop a team from the harvest!

Lessons:

• A Second Journey leader realizes that his plans are not God’s plans.  Learning to listen to God makes him more flexible and prepared for producing spiritual fruit.
• Don’t be surprised if the Second Journey emerging leader steps out from under their mentor and starts doing things on his own – a seasoned, godly mentor will allow this “rebellion” and pray for the emerging leader’s success.  Over time, they will be restored and their relationship will be even stronger than it was before.
• The lesson of the Second Journey is learned through aimless confusion, emptiness, pain, conflict, loneliness, and fear.
• You can’t skip the Second Journey either.

Third Journey

Paul’s third missionary journey (Acts 18:23-21:16) is very different from his first two.  He is learning the role of an organic, catalytic missionary. This time no team is mentioned, and he doesn’t travel from Corinth for over 3 years!  This time, he didn’t even start any churches – instead he recruited indigenous followers of Christ to start the churches, which kept them from being overly dependent on him. In 3 years, all of ASIA IS REACHED with the Gospel! (Acts 19:10,26)  All this, and Paul does not even leave the school of Tyranus.  How??

1. Paul established a regional base for church planter development in a global city (Acts 19:8, Acts 20:18)
2. Mentoring one-on-one became central to his strategy, by life example, and by formal teaching.
3. Missions, evangelism, and discipleship became less ethereal and more “on-the-job” training. (Acts 20:21)
4. Now the Holy Spirit was allowed to pick the teams and to call people to mission.
5. Paul empowered leaders to connect directly with God, so that he was no longer necessary (Acts 20:32)

Lessons:

• Third Journey leaders attract more quality leaders.  God gives his best to Third Journey leaders because they now give everything to the emerging leaders.
• Third Journey leaders have an ever-expanding influence as others take their message further than they could ever go themselves.
• Though they may do less work, Third Journey leaders are now more focused and the work they do is more fruitful and reproductive.

Fourth Journey

This is where things go really wacky.  The Paul’s fourth missionary journey is as a prisoner from Jerusalem to Rome. (Acts 21:17-28:31)  Its hard to think of this as a missionary journey, until you realize it was his intention from day one to make it to Rome, and that doing it this way all his expenses were paid by the Roman Government!  As he was under house arrest for 2 years or longer, he spoke with church leaders and helped encourage the largest church network of the First Century.  According to Paul, this was his most effective missionary journey (Phil 1:12-14)…yet he never left his apartment!

Using his influence as leverage to speak to new levels of human authority, he got the Gospel even into Nero’s household!  He used set-backs like imprisonment and a shipwreck in Malta to start new churches!  He even used his confinement to pump out FOUR letters that would carry his message throughout the world, and history.

Another less obvious blessing of the Fourth Journey leader is that they’ve been sidelined, yet their influence continues to grow. Like a former basketball player who became the coach – Paul’s being ‘locked up’ compelled others to take up his work.

Lessons:

• Most Christian leaders never make it to the Fourth Journey – they usually die or plateau on a previous journey.
• Daily provisions and preparing for the future is no longer a major concern. (Phil 4:10-19)
• Their influence now grows also in the eyes of secular world leaders, and they humbly find expansive, possibly international influence.
• Fourth Journey leaders write more than ever before – multiplying their message, wisdom, experiences, and maturity into countless lives.
• …And he’s not done yet.

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Stay tuned for the next part of the Greenhouse Story 2 Coverage!