Following Jesus (Practical Faith)

Man sitting

I Am Not Good Enough (and that’s okay)

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I’m confronted everyday with a reality that I don’t really care to acknowledge. I am not good enough. I’m a terrible follower of Jesus. With my words I’m great, but my actions rarely back it up. I’m far more selfish than I care to admit with my wife. As a pastor I’m regularly confronted with issues I have no clue how to deal with. In the most important areas of my life I am not good enough to do them even remotely well.

Growing Pains

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I detest discomfort. From as far back as I can remember I have been this way. As a kid if my socks bunched up under my toes I would flip out. My socks had to fit perfectly, otherwise I just could not get past the discomfort.

I suspect this feeling characterizes most of us in western culture. We have such a disdain for discomfort that we avoid it at all costs. That’s why Americans spend over $2 billion a year on non-prescription pain killers. We can’t even stand a small headache. Now, while I think this presents a problem, I think this mindset of avoiding discomfort brings has another unintended consequence.

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Grace Has a Cost

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Grace is a word I hear tossed around a lot these days. We like talking about God’s grace, however I’m not sure the full concept of grace is truly grasped and understood. We like to talk about grace that covers us and grace that forgives our sins. But when we stop grace at that we turn the beauty of grace into “cheap grace.” We take this powerful life changing thing and turn it into something that is small and selfish. Isn’t grace so much more than that? Maybe God intended grace not to just save us but also to restore us and change us.

We can’t buy or earn grace; it’s given as a gift. Most of us have heard this preached to us for most of our lives. However, rarely have I heard of what our response should be once we receive God’s grace. 

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Dear God… A Lesson in Prayer

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How do you approach God when you pray? I think if we are honest we often view prayer as a way to get something out of God. We pray because we want an answer, direction, healing, or relationship fixed. None of those things are inherently bad; however what if prayer is more than getting what we think we need? Maybe God intended for prayer to be more than a platform to submit our requests.

Most of my life I have viewed prayer as a way to get from God what I thought I needed. I would approach prayer as trying to show God why I needed what I was asking for. Sometimes it was for something that was good, other times it was down right selfish requests. My prayer life looked more like a series of sales pitches rather than an authentic relationship. I see now that I was missing out. God intended for prayer to be so much more than what I realized. 

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Standing in the Need

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The current season of life is coming to a close for my wife and I, and a new one is slowly coming to be. It’s a strange place to be in; I’m sure in hindsight I’ll find more appreciation for it than I do now. For now it’s bittersweet. It’s tough to say goodbye, but exciting to think of where God will lead us. This is a growing season. Not a season that one might want, but one that everyone needs from time to time. It’s a season that reminds us that we cannot do this alone.

I look at other people who are following Jesus and it seems to come so naturally. When I look at my own life things don’t seem to come as naturally. I struggle and doubt; I consistently find myself doing the opposite of what God has called me to do. I suspect that even the people that seem to have it together secretly struggle. I presume I’m not alone in this. It seems like human nature to want to attempt life on our own. Yet one doesn’t have to try for very long to see that attempting this rarely works. 

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Good Stories Need Conflict

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I like hiking. Well I like being at a beautiful spot and I like the memory of hiking. But I hate the rest of it. I don’t like to be uncomfortable. Once I hit that point where I’m getting tired I’m done. Hiking is great until I’m tired, sweaty, and 5 miles away from the car and all I can think about is my couch and a cold drink. It’s always more fun in memory, but in the moment I would rather do something else.

I suspect that describes most of us in western culture. We so detest discomfort that we avoid it at all costs. We have made our lives as comfortable as possible. While I don’t think this was done with bad intentions I think it has had negative consequences on our walk with God. The second we run into a problem our gut reaction is to ditch God’s plan. We view the conflict in our lives as something to avoid at all costs.

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