Realizing Your Divine Potential and Purpose: A Fundamental Question (Part Two)

Mick Turner

If my own experience is a valid indicator, it seems that most of us come to a point in our spiritual journey where we are confronted with the reality that things are not as they should be. On a surface level, we may be struggling with a persistent sin or shortcoming; on an emotional level, we may find ourselves wrapped up in a cloak of despondency, bitterness, or guilt. Whatever the surface manifestation, however, if we really take a look at what is going on and if we have the backbone to be brutally honest with ourselves, we find there is a deeper struggle occurring. More often than not, that struggle is between that still, soft voice calling us to move forward in our journey of faith and that other voice of complacency, which tells us that stepping out into the territory of the unknown can be a dangerous affair – at best unpredictable, at worst, downright terrifying. The late Brent Curtis and his co-author John Eldredge describe that voice we often hear in the dead of night:

 

The voice often comes in the middle of the night or the early morning hours, when our hearts are most unedited and vulnerable. At first, we mistake the source of this voice and assume it is just our imagination. We fluff up our pillow, roll over, and go back to sleep. Days, weeks, even months go by and the voice speaks to us again: “Aren’t you thirsty? Listen to your heart. There is something missing.

 

Indeed, my friend, that still, small voice calls us to the grand adventure. It calls us to get up off our seats, step out of our comfort zones, and walk forward in the light of Christ. It calls us to become His partner, to share his mission, to challenge the status quo, just as He did. Yet his calling is a high calling. It is a high honor, but does come with a price tag. The price tag for most of us is, first of all, getting past any sense of complacency and satisfaction with things as they are.

 

The call of Christ is without a doubt counter-culture and has no association with maintaining the status quo for the sake of personal comfort. The divine call is a grand calling, but to follow it is to guarantee a degree of daily discomfort. I have always loved these words by Houston Smith, so much so that I will give them to you in there entirety. I think Smith speaks clearly about what the call of Christ entails:

 

…we have heard Jesus’ teachings so often that their edges have been worn smooth, dulling their glaring subversiveness. If we could recover their original impact, we too would be startled. Their beauty would not paper over the fact that they are “hard sayings,” presenting a scheme of values so counter to the usual as to shake us like the seismic collision of tectonic plates…We are told that we are not to resist evil but to turn the other cheek. The world assumes that evil must be resisted by every means available. We are told to love our enemies and bless those who curse us. The world assumes that friends are to be loved and enemies hated. We are told that the sun rises on the just and the unjust alike. The world considers this to be indiscriminating; it would like to see dark clouds withholding sunshine from evil people. We are told that outcasts and harlots enter the kingdom of God before many who are perfunctorily righteous. Unfair, we protest; respectable people should head the procession. We are told that the gate to salvation is narrow. The world would prefer it to be wide. We are told to be as carefree as birds and flowers. The world counsels prudence. We are told that it is more difficult for the rich to enter the kingdom than for a camel to pass through a needle’s eye. The world honors wealth. We are told that the happy people are those who are meek, who weep, who are merciful and pure in heart. The world assumes that it is the rich, the powerful, and the wellborn who should be happy. In all, a wind of freedom blows through these teachings that frightens the world and makes us want to deflect their effect by postponement – not yet, not yet! H.G. Wells was evidently right: either there was something mad about this man, or our hearts are still too small for his message.

 

 

It is imperative that we don’t become complacent. I am convinced that one of the primary obstacles we Christians face is our own tendency to be too complacent. We come to treasure our comfort zones and, as a result, keep our hearts too small for the message of Jesus.

 

Many of us start out well, accomplish numerous positive things in our lives, and then settle into a pattern of general comfort and complacency. We live not to grow, but to maintain the status quo. This is a tragic mistake.

 

God did not create you to rest on your laurels. Instead, he hardwired you to keep on moving – keep in growing. So beware of settling in for too long. “But wait a minute,” you might be saying. “We all need to rest. All work and no play makes for a dull boy.” Yes, that’s true. We do, indeed, need to take time off from time to time in order to rest, recuperate, and recharge our spiritual batteries. However, these periods of recuperation were never meant to be a career. No, we have to keep on moving.

 

The Pakistani poet and psychologist Ahkter Ahsen, in his epic poem “Manhunt in the Desert,” describes the journey through the desert of a man in search of truth. After wandering for days in the scorching landscape, he is at the end of his tether. Without respite, he is going to die. Fortunately, he eventually stumbles into a small oasis, just in the nick of time.

 

The oasis is a God-send. Not only does it have fruit and coconuts, but there is also a well. The man becomes rested, watered, and fed and he grows quite fond of the oasis, in spite of several issues he encounters there. After a time, the man developed the habit of each day going to sit on the edge of the oasis, right where it met the desert. As he sat there, he began to feel a vague sense of anxiety. He wasn’t sure where this feeling of anxiety was coming from and he fought to keep it at bay.

 

Pretty soon a voice within him insisted it was time for the man to continue on his journey. The man argued with the voice, reasoning that he would be a fool to head back into the heat, sand, and tremendous aridity. The voice, on the other hand, kept reminding the man that his goal could not be found in the oasis; instead, it existed beyond the desert.

 

This state of affairs went on for quite some time, but the man remained steadfast in his resistance to the voice within. One day he goes to sit in his accustomed place at the edge of the desert. He notices that way out on the horizon, a sand storm is blowing. He watches the cloud of dust dance across the desert, first in one direction, then in another.

 

Soon, the man becomes somewhat alarmed as the storm now seemed to be heading right toward him. The man, still enjoying his seat, did not move because he was certain the storm of blowing sand would change direction, just as it had so many times before.

 

He was mistaken.

 

Before he could react, the storm was upon him. The wind whirled around about him and blew a single grain of sand up his nose. He found the grain of sand highly irritating to the lining in his nose, and frantically trying to dig it out, he uncoiled himself from the lotus position and began dancing about in great discomfort. With the storm continuing around him, the man repeatedly tried to dislodge the grain of sand.

 

Eventually the storm abated and when his field of vision finally cleared, the man discovered two startling facts. First, the grain of sand was at last gone. That was the good news. The bad news was the fact that he was now back out in the desert with the oasis nowhere in sight.

 

It seems God used the storm to push the man back out to where he needed to be. There was no way the man was going to reach his divine destiny parked on the edge of the oasis in the lotus position. The man had to get up, stretch himself, and get moving again.

 

How many times are we in similar situations? We create our comfort zones and rigidly live within their confines. Any attempt to dislodge us from the walls of this comfort zone meets with great resistance. I know in my own life, the pattern depicted in this epic poem plays out in pretty much the same way. I first begin to feel a bit anxious. After this, a voice within me tells me that if I am to reach  my goals I have to get back into the desert, even if it is unpleasant.

 Sometimes, I heed the voice and get moving. At other times, I require a sandstorm to get me to move.

 

(to be continued)

 

(c) L.D. Turner 2008/All Rights Reserved

 

On Comfort Zones And Thinking Out Of The Box (Part One)

Mick Turner

One unfortunate phenomenon I have observed all too frequently is the marked tendency many believers have regarding the content of their thought life. More specifically, it has to do with the fact that too many Christians are confused over what they should or should not believe.

 

Many genuine, sincere Christians write in to blogs and websites, asking so-called experts whether or not it is acceptable for them to believe this or that. They often say something like:

 

“When I am honest with myself, I find that I believe (insert belief here).What I am wondering is, should I believe that? Is it ok for a Christian to believe that?”

 

These questions stem from an even greater problem, I think: religion’s insistence on and illegitimate marriage to the heresy of “correct doctrine.” I call it heresy because the issue of doctrine has evolved into a subtle but deadly form of idolatry. I know that many standard, status-quo church leaders and pillars of the faith will disagree with what I say about this but so be it. In all good conscience, I cannot force myself to agree with something that I think goes deeply against the grain of what Christ clearly taught and reason upholds.

 

The result of this idolatry of doctrine is the kind of questions many believers now have. Hesitant to trust their own conclusions, they turn to perceived authority figures for the answers. In the end, they still don’t find the answer. Instead, they merely make a decision to trust the authority’s answer more than their own.

 

I find this a tragedy because these well-meaning, sincere Christ-followers end up dealing a knockout punch to the integrity of their own minds. Emerson once said that the one thing in this world that was most sacred was “the integrity of your own mind.” The Christian who asked the question in the first place now has something like this going on in his or her head.

 

“I thought about Issue A and came to Conclusion A. However, when I checked with my pastor (the authority on the subject), he told me that a real Christian would never believe conclusion A. So, now I believe Conclusion A, but I am trying not to believe it because it is not what a Christian is supposed to believe. My pastor said I should believe Conclusion B. So I am praying that God will help me drop belief in conclusion A and get to the point where I can accept Conclusion B. I am having a hard time believing Conclusion B because it doesn’t make any sense. Still, now if someone asks me what I believe, I will tell them I believe Conclusion B because that is how I am supposed to think.”

 

Do you see how integrity goes out the window with a mess like this? What makes it worse is the fact that if this sincere seeker goes back to the pastor and explains that he or she still thinks Conclusion A makes more sense than Conclusion B, they usually hear something like this:

 

“Well, God’s ways are higher than your ways.” Or, they may get, “Remember, the heart is deceitful above all things,” or, “The Devil is talking to you, watch out!”

 

What ends up happening is that too many Christians go through life confused or worse, almost brain-dead. Finding out they are incapable of thinking for themselves, they just do what makes sense to them. They stop thinking.

 

Sometimes it is difficult for Christians to think outside the box. I think this handicap, and that is what it is, has come about for several reasons beyond the process cited above. For some ardent conservatives, to think beyond those parameters defined for us by church leaders both ancient and contemporary, is to invite doctrinal error. Heaven forbid! We would never want to do that now would we?

 

It is as Mark, a Fundamentalist friend of mine, so cogently put it:

 

“First you start entertaining thoughts that are unconventional and from there you begin to mull over ideas that are more than non-traditional, they are downright weird. From there, it is a short step to doctrinal error. Fan the flames of doctrinal error just a tad and you end up with a full blown heresy. And from that theological tightrope, it is easy to take the fall into apostasy.”

 

Sometimes Mark has a way with words, even if he has a major problem with his tightly wound thinking. I would say that it is people who believe as Mark does, that all one needs is the Bible (interpreted in an ultra-literal fashion) and the historic creeds of the church that fear out of the box thinking more than most.

 

Another factor influencing people’s reluctance to think out of the box is social expectations and the fear of rejection. More than a few believers have both doubts and questions about the faith, but keep these issues under their vest out of fear that others will view them as incomplete Christians. The problem with this situation is the questions will never be answered nor will the doubts be assuaged. Can you imagine, for example, how history would have progressed if Martin Luther had refused to step out of his comfort zone and think out of the box?

 

The reality is that some questions and/or doubts can only be dealt with by thinking in new ways, and involve the ability to view an issue from more than one perspective. If a sincere Christian believes that others will reject him/her just because they do not meet with the social expectation that such questions should not even be raised, then that genuine believer may well wither on the vine, simply because part of their social definition of what a Christian is supposed to be like does not permit faltering faith or inconsistent belief.

 

It is this very type of situation that brings to my mind the immortal words of Emerson: “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”

 

Yet another issue keeping believers thinking inside the box is very obvious. The stark reality is more than a few of us are intellectually lazy. We don’t want to take the time or expend the mental energy necessary to grapple with the more complex issues of the faith. These are the folks with those bumper stickers that say: “The Bible says it; I believe it; end of story.” These are the folks who frequently nap through sermons and say “Amen” even during the announcements. They are quite content to let others do their thinking for them.

We come to treasure our comfort zones and, as a result, keep our hearts too small for the message of Jesus.

 

Many of us start out well, accomplish numerous positive things in our lives, and then settle into a pattern of general comfort and complacency. We live not to grow, but to maintain the status quo. This is a tragic mistake.

 

God did not create you to rest on your laurels. Instead, he hardwired you to keep on moving – keep in growing. So beware of settling in for too long. “But wait a minute,” you might be saying. “We all need to rest. All work and no play makes for a dull boy.” Yes, that’s true. We do, indeed, need to take time off from time to time in order to rest, recuperate, and recharge our spiritual batteries. However, these periods of recuperation were never meant to be a career. No, we have to keep on moving.

 

(to be continued in Part Two)

(c) L.D. Turner 2008/All Rights Reserved

 

The Demon of Complacency

Mick Turner

From consistent observation, I have found that one of the most fundamental problems confronting the Body of Christ in these admittedly challenging times has little to do with external forces and factors. It is easy enough for us to sit back a distance from the “heathen culture” that surrounds us and wag our fingers at a society that by just about all indicators, appears to be heading toward moral and ethical bankruptcy at breakneck speed.

 

Indeed, it is not a difficult task to define and identify those aspects of the world around us that we find falling far short of the standards set forth by the Bible in general and Jesus in particular. Easy as these options may be, my observations have led me to the inescapable conclusion that our most significant problems as the church universal do not exist “out there.” Out weightiest issues rest within the parameters of our own walls.

 

We have met the enemy, and it is us.

 

I don’t mean to be trite or sarcastic here. Instead, with a heart of sincerity and sadness I want to confront at least one of these problems that seem to be draining the Body of Christ of its vitality and its power. I am not speaking of some sinister or deep rooted problem that will take great energy and countless committees to “study and investigate” the issue at hand. I am not talking about some vague, wispy metaphysical or doctrinal dilemma that, like a parasite, is eating away at the very fabric of our faith. I am talking about something far more simple in concept and personal in terms of solution.

 

I am talking about Christian complacency.

 

Far too many of our churches are experiencing a decline in vitality due to a creeping, insidious blight that normally goes unnoticed until the congregation is on the cusp of a suffocating death, vainly gasping for even a drop of breath, a touch of the Spirit to restore a chance at life and a rebirth of hope. This metaphor of life and death and breath and spirit may seem a bit dramatic and perhaps it is. It is highly appropriate, however. Many churches are dealing with issues of life and death as a result of decades of settling for maintaining the status quo. Further, the absence of breath and the absence of Spirit are synonymous. Man did not become a living being until God breathed life into him. Even more relevant is the fact that in many languages, the words for breath and spirit are the same.

 

The implications of this are readily apparent. Where there is no Spirit, there is no life. And where there is no life, there is death and disintegration. What is more tragic is the fact that much of this could have been avoided had it not been for that demon we are speaking of: complacency.

 

I think there comes a time in the Christian walk of faith when individual believers make a choice to go no farther with Christ. Let’s face it, Christ has called for such a radical transformation of character and world view, to fully follow his teachings would be suicide, given the realities of our post-modern world.

 

“Taking up the cross and following Him is not the same now as it was back in the day,” a friend of mine once said. “If I really did what Jesus said to do, I would wind up the poorhouse along with my whole family. I love Jesus, but hey, I am not an idiot. All in all, I think He understands.”

 

There is really nothing wrong with this logic. The problem lies in the fact that once we begin to make this compromise, a dozen more usually follow in its wake. Listen, my friend, to follow Christ in our day and time is suicide. And guess what? That’s how it’s supposed to be.

 

What is suicide? In a very real sense it is a voluntary death. And what is it that Christ asks us to do? We are to take up our cross and die daily. Each day, we are to undergo a voluntary death. That doesn’t mean that we literally attempt to end our lives. Heaven forbid. No, it means that we place the demands of our ego, our lower self, our flesh, on the cross. They die with Christ so that we may be raised up in new life. It cost quite a bit to be a Christian and this faith is not for the weak of mind or faint of heart. It takes a real hero to be a true Christian.

 

The question before us, and the antidote to the complacency that like a leech, is sucking the very life out of the church, involves each of us on an intimately personal level.

 

The ultimate question facing Christians in this difficult but exciting age is a question each believer must answer individually. Will you take on the yoke of Christ in all its implications and allow him to live and fulfill his mission through you? Recognize that this question involves taking an assessment of the true costs of discipleship. Yes, God’s grace is freely given but real discipleship comes with a price. And in the end, my friend, that price is yourself. How each believer answers this ultimate question will determine how effective the church will be in its mission. Dallas Willard remarks:

 

So the great issue facing the world today, with all its heartbreaking needs, is whether those who, by profession or by culture, are identified as “Christians” will become disciples – students, apprentices, practitioners – of Jesus Christ, steadily learning from him how to live the life of the Kingdom of Heaven into every corner of human existence. Will they break out of the churches to be his Church – to be, without human force or violence, his mighty force for good on earth, drawing the churches after them toward the eternal purpose of God?

 

If you think about it, the words of Willard are both motivational and frightening. Yes, most of us want to be true disciples of the Lord. We all want to learn from him and profess the willingness to do whatever he requires for the furtherance of his kingdom. However, do we really want that? Are we really willing to go to whatever lengths it requires of us? The question before each and every one of us is fairly simple to comprehend.

 

In my daily life, where the rubber meets the road, how far am I willing to go?

 

Each of us must settle this matter for ourselves. It is ultimately between the Lord and the individual believer when it comes to answering this vital question. However, our individual answers, taken collectively, largely determine the nature, the character, and the future of the church as a whole.

 

I am not trying to be fanatical here. I am not saying that unless you go all the way, you are not what God wants you to be. If that were really the case, I would be the first to admit that I would be toasted and toasted quickly. I think what Jesus is asking is, “How far will you go given your current circumstance?”

 

Also keep in mind, to avoid answering the question is to answer it. God, however, sometimes refuses to allow some of us to rest unless we answer this vital query. I know in my own life, whenever I avoid God for any length of time, particularly something he wants me to do that I don’t want to do, I can make Jonah look like a piker. Still, the Lord indeed comes after me and, in the final analysis, I am grateful.

 

If my own experience is a valid indicator, it seems that most of us come to a point in our Christian walk where we are confronted with the reality that things are not as they should be. On a surface level, we may be struggling with a persistent sin or shortcoming; on an emotional level, we may find ourselves wrapped up in a cloak of despondency, bitterness, or guilt. Whatever the surface manifestation, however, if we really take a look at what is going on and if we have the backbone to be brutally honest with ourselves, we find there is a deeper struggle occurring. More often than not, that struggle is between that still, soft voice calling us to move forward in our journey of faith and that other voice of complacency, which tells us that stepping out into the territory of the unknown can be a dangerous affair – at best unpredictable, at worst, downright terrifying. The late Brent Curtis and his co-author John Eldredge describe that voice we often hear in the dead of night:

 

The voice often comes in the middle of the night or the early morning hours, when our hearts are most unedited and vulnerable. At first, we mistake the source of this voice and assume it is just our imagination. We fluff up our pillow, roll over, and go back to sleep. Days, weeks, even months go by and the voice speaks to us again: “Aren’t you thirsty? Listen to your heart. There is something missing.

 

Indeed, my friend, that still, small voice calls us to the grand adventure. It calls us to get up off our seats, step out of our comfort zones, and walk forward in the light of Christ. It calls us to become His partner, to share his mission, to challenge the status quo, just as He did. Yet his calling is a high calling. It is a high honor, but does come with a price tag. The price tag for most of us is, first of all, getting past any sense of complacency and satisfaction with things as they are.

 

The call of Christ is without a doubt counter-culture and has no association with maintaining the status quo for the sake of personal comfort. The call of Christ is a grand calling, but to follow Him is to guarantee a degree of daily discomfort. I have always loved these words by Houston Smith, so much so that I will give them to you in their entirety. I think Smith speaks clearly about what the call of Christ entails:

 

…we have heard Jesus’ teachings so often that their edges have been worn smooth, dulling their glaring subversiveness. If we could recover their original impact, we too would be startled. Their beauty would not paper over the fact that they are “hard sayings,” presenting a scheme of values so counter to the usual as to shake us like the seismic collision of tectonic plates…We are told that we are not to resist evil but to turn the other cheek. The world assumes that evil must be resisted by every means available. We are told to love our enemies and bless those who curse us. The world assumes that friends are to be loved and enemies hated. We are told that the sun rises on the just and the unjust alike. The world considers this to be indiscriminating; it would like to see dark clouds withholding sunshine from evil people. We are told that outcasts and harlots enter the kingdom of God before many who are perfunctorily righteous. Unfair, we protest; respectable people should head the procession. We are told that the gate to salvation is narrow. The world would prefer it to be wide. We are told to be as carefree as birds and flowers. The world counsels prudence. We are told that it is more difficult for the rich to enter the kingdom than for a camel to pass through a needle’s eye. The world honors wealth. We are told that the happy people are those who are meek, who weep, who are merciful and pure in heart. The world assumes that it is the rich, the powerful, and the wellborn who should be happy. In all, a wind of freedom blows through these teachings that frightens the world and makes us want to deflect their effect by postponement – not yet, not yet! H.G. Wells was evidently right: either there was something mad about this man, or our hearts are still too small for his message.

 

I would encourage you to set aside some time each day, or as often as possible, for the next two weeks and just spend time alone with these words from Houston Smith. Pray about these words and what they mean to your life. Ask the Holy Spirit to teach you about Jesus and how these words relate to Him and how they relate to you. The Holy Spirit will answer you. It is, after all, in his job description.

 

© L.D. Turner 2008/All Rights Reserved