The Last-Minute God

Do you ever get the impression that God doesn't mind letting you struggle? Perhaps by design ("builds character!"), or maybe just by accident?

Sometimes it can seem like Gods having to scramble a bit to take care of our basic needs? Like he maybe didn't really plan ahead and so like a procrastinating student he's having to cram his Providence in at the last minute, just before your life slides into the brink. That doesn't make much sense to me, but I see it nonetheless. He's the Almighty, with the limitless resources of Heaven at his disposal, and yet he so often seems to delay his care for us until the very last minute. And even then he usually ends up wanting us to do a lot of the heavy lifting. The suspense of following a last-minute God like that can really rattle your nerves.

It drives me crazy, actually. While I'm glad God has cared for me along the way, sometimes I just want to feel SAFE, to feel SETTLED. Instead of worrying about whether he'll come through I'd just like to be able to see that he's already thought through everything I will need.

Seems like he's always been that way. Take, for instance, the day that Jesus ran out of food with all those people. The crowd had gathered, the air was thick with the Holy Spirit and the time must have flown by. Suddenly the day had ended and people were fading fast. Nobody had eaten anything. Jesus turns to his disciples, apparently dumbfounded. Instead of doing something properly Son-of-God like and zapping some rocks into bread, he tries to hand the situation off to his 12 followers. "You feed them", he said (Mark 6). They tried to get him to wrap his mind around the situation. "Eight months' wages wouldn't feed this crowd!"

But Jesus didn't get it. He just wanted to know how much food they did have. He was apparently hoping that the crowd had somehow thought to bring along several thousand picnic baskets. Maybe he was stalling for time. Can you imagine how stupid you feel as a disciple going around asking people if they happen to have a lunch big enough to feed five or ten thousand people?

They came back with one lunch, from a little boy who hadn't eaten it yet. Jesus took the five rolls and two fish and turned his face toward heaven to give God thanks. Have you ever heard someone say thank-you in a way that made it clear that there was more to the story than you'd realized? Jesus gave God that kind of thank-you. And then he started distributing the rolls and the fish, breaking them off. And darned if that lunch didn't keep spreading until baskets of it had been spread throughout the thousands of people who were now watching in stunned silence.

By this point the disciples were the ones who were dumbfounded. They'd just experienced first-hand something that couldn't be explained. They'd handed the boy's lunch to Jesus, they'd heard the thank-you he gave the Father, and then they'd seen those little rolls and the dried fish somehow prove to be sufficient.

Sometimes I wonder what it would have felt like to be that little boy: "That was my lunch that Jesus took. I saw him do it--he broke up those rolls my mom made and started give them to the disciples. And he did the same thing with my dried fish!" The boy who'd probably resigned himself to walking home hungry now discovered what it felt like to be part of God providing more than they could ask or imagine.

What would that have felt like--to have been a first-hand player in a wonderful scene like that? I'm guessing that that little guy was never hungry in quite the same way again. Even if his belly emptied, I'd like to think that his hunger only served to remind him of the fact that food can be stretched to provide what's really needed. In fact he'd probably discovered something that can only be learned when you're hungry. And I'll bet he felt SAFE, even SETTLED; filled with the sense that God really has thought through everything.

All the things I'd like to feel like.

God apparently let him hunger in a way that would let him discover what it felt like to be truly filled.

I'd like to be like that boy when I grow up. In the meantime, here's my lunch, Lord.

Getting "Fed" by Your Preacher

People often talk about the need to feel "fed" by their preachers. Secretly a lot us preacher-types cringe at those conversations, probably for a lot of different reasons.

Sometimes listeners can be "picky eaters" and so no matter what you put on their plates they're going to have low blood sugar by the time they turn on the Sunday afternoon sports on TV. Sometimes we cringe because we wish we had more to offer them--pastors with overflowing to-do lists have to deal with the reality that there simply isn't as much time as there should be to create a truly substantial meal. But sometimes we cringe because those kind of conversations can end up being vague, unhelpful volleys of cliches. What do people really NEED from a sermon?

Obviously, people need the Bible. Without that a preacher is merely slinging anecdotes and illustrations. But just because a preacher refers to a lot of Bible verses or really takes apart all the words in one passage doesn't mean people will walk out feeling fed. The reality is that there are different "food groups" listeners need from scripture, and heaping a congregation's plate full of an unneeded food group can still leave them strangely unsatisfied, even if bloated.

Here are three major food groups people need from sermons:

* Biblical information. What does the Bible say? People need to become familiar with what's in their Bibles. They need to learn important people and events recorded there, they need foundational doctrines presented in it, and most of all they need the simple, over-arching story of a perfect world, ruined by sin that's being reclaimed by Christ in anticipation of the day when all things are made new. If people don't know their Bibles nothing else will make sense.

* Biblical application. What does this mean I should do? Knowing scripture without knowing how to apply it can sometimes result in disappointingly little life-change. All the bible knowledge in the world will make very little difference if listeners never discover what it will look like for those teachings to be applied to their lives. What do they need to do differently because of what the Bible says to them?

* Biblical self-knowledge. Why do I often resist this? Biblical information and practical application alone won't necessarily bring change to someone's life if their heart isn't open to that transformation. The fact is that as fallen people our hearts instinctively resist receiving God's grace and sharing it with others. Our hearts can unexpectedly spasm, leaving them hardened against God's transformation. Preachers need to help listeners discover some of the more common ways in which the Enemy tricks us into turning our backs on the new life God offers.

These are three of the more common food groups needed in a sermon diet. One of the challenges facing preachers is that no two congregations have the same dietary needs, and and in fact no two listeners in any one church family need exactly the same thing. A preacher offering solid Biblical information may leave people starving for application, or sermons that are rich with application may ring flat if people aren't helped to open their hearts to receive what scripture offers.

Pray for your preacher as he or she plans your congregation's menu.

And then clean your plate when the meal is served.

A Call for You?

Why do you do whatever it is you "do" in life? If you're a student, an executive, a lawnmower repairman or whatever it is...why did you decide to head in that direction? Chances are there may be some pretty good common sense reasons for your choice: a good opportunity, the need to pay bills, maybe the expectations of other around you.

When you become a pastor they don't talk like that. Suddenly the whole "what-to-do-when-you-grow-up" takes on a much more pious tone. You don't merely decide to become a pastor, you discern a call. Sounds a lot more mysterious--kind of like Jake and Elwood Blues deciding to get their band back together in Blues Brothers. That kind of talk is taken as normal for preacher-types, and I've had a lot of conversations where I've told people of the process through which God called me to serve him in full-time ministry.

But to a lot of people that kind of talk would sound funny applied to other jobs or professions. "When did you discern your call to drive that delivery truck?" "When did you discover God was calling you to be a personal-injury attorney? Somehow it seems strange to think of people in other jobs actually being called to those professions.

OK, let me get more specific with you: when did you first realize that God was calling you to (insert your job or school status here)? Chances are most non-minister types would look at me kind of funny in the face of a question like that. People may choose their jobs for an of a number of reasons, but a clear call from God usually isn't very high on the list.

That seems strange to me. The Bible speaks so clearly about God's plans for our lives: Eph. 2:10 reminds us that we are "God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which He prepared in advance for us to do". Psalm 139 assures us that "all the days ordained for (us) were written in His book before one of them came to be." If God has plans for every single day of our lives, and if there are some very specific reasons why you and I are exactly where we are--then wouldn't it make sense for us to ask God what He wants us to do? And if we start to get tired of whatever that was, wouldn't it make sense to ask Him again before jumping into whatever comes next.

In our denomination we take a minister's call very seriously. In fact there are pretty tight restrictions placed on people like me who have been called to ministry. I think that's good; if God called me to something I should think twice before jumping into something else just for a change. What if we did that with substitute teachers or computer techs or with oil change specialists?

When Jesus Got Distracted

I grew up with the idea that Jesus was all about the cross. Somehow I got the impression that the events of Holy Week the only real priorities for him. It never really occurred to me to wonder what He'd been up to for the three years of his public ministry before that week, or even the thirty years of his life, for that matter. Seems like a long ramp-up process, especially for the Son of God.

Actually, if you read the Gospel accounts you begin to get the sense that Jesus got off-task quite a bit. He almost comes off as having a little bit of redemptive A.D.D: just when he's working up a good head of steam about our sins...HEY LOOK GUYS, A LEPER! And off He'd go, getting all caught up healing some disabled person or talking about giving a cup of cold water to some poor kid. Fortunately the Apostle Paul was able to cut through these distractions and lay things out decently and in good order in books like Romans and Galatians.

Unless...maybe Jesus wasn't distracted. Maybe He took three years to start rocking things with a quake whose epicenter was located by that empty tomb outside Jerusalem. Maybe He was actually demonstrating exactly what He was doing during His time on earth with us. Making all things new, wiping away every tear from our eyes, letting the dumb start scat-singing with pleasure and the lame start breaking out in some celebrative dance steps. Maybe we needed to see how "distracted" He could get so we didn't freeze-dry His gospel down to four spiritual laws through which we could calculate our salvation. In fact, the Apostle Paul himself did all his theologizing against a backdrop of all creation "groaning as in the pangs of childbirth" waiting for Christ's redemption to be completed.

You know, maybe we don't get distracted enough.