What drives a mission that is possible? I recently read a devotional by Tim Tebow that my husband shared with me; I don’t usually read a manly man’s devotional thoughts, but I love my husband, so I jumped in with him to read it.
I found that Tim is not a dumb jock. The man has insights. Tebow’s desire is to encourage people to live out their calling. How do we do that? The foundation of that is believing we are made in God’s image, chosen by him and equipped to do those good works he has prepared in advance for us to do. Tebow observes that you won’t think your life counts if you think you’re just here by accident, or just going through the motions. He’s absolutely right.
I read recently how many people are struggling with lack of motivation. Coming out of the Covid ordeal, college and high school instructors across the board are reporting that their students have major problems getting work done. They are not motivated. Firing students up to reach their goals is near impossible. They are depressed, anxious, checked out. You ask yourself why, when they are back in class in person and our lives are “back to normal”?
Exploring this further by talking with people and checking out some data, depression and anxiety were already on the rise before the Covid lockdowns happened. Covid devastation just accelerated a trend that already existed. That trend started during the time period in which technology was introduced in schools as part of what was intended as a helpful initiative. The goal was to get tech into all the students’ hands to prepare them for their future. This teacher saw first hand the consequences of using iPads instead of lecture for teaching in his high school. Instead of creating energized, excited users of tech, it created checked-out, unmotivated students.
Further evidence drawn from research by psychologists and other studies show that during the time in which smart phone use greatly increased among students (children really), depression, anxiety and suicide increased greatly in the same population. Teens using a smart phone more than three hours a day may be at higher risk for mental health problems.
Back to Tebow’s thoughts: how do you live mission possible when you don’t believe you’re equipped to carry out works of eternal significance, because you think you’re just here by accident? If you spend your time as a child trying to keep up with the impossible social game that smart phones have brought you and your classmates, and you are immersed fully in a world in which electronic approval is the greatest good, how are you going to know that you really matter because you are already deeply loved? If you don’t think there is someone who already loves you fully, someone you don’t have to impress with your appearance, your style or your number of likes?
Stepping back for a significantly bigger view: while I know that a line cannot be drawn from A to B in one short blog, we have a search for significance in the world met with an overwhelming sense from every angle that we can’t get to the top of the stack, and further, an overwhelming sense that the stack doesn’t matter.
Is it possible that this despair and the hopelessness permeate society because we don’t know that God exists and that we are loved and chosen by him? we don’t see that all our tasks in the world have a purpose that God has given, that what we do for others matters? That understanding is no longer part of our culture. We have chosen freedom from God, thinking that this would bring us satisfaction. Instead, we now live in bondage to despair.
Nope, it wasn’t Just as I Am, although that is a good one. In all honesty, even that prayer was more like this back in 1983: “Well, God, I guess I had better commit myself and my life to you, because I don’t really think I’ve done that, and these people here at this camp seem to think it’s important that I make it official.” As he does, God took even that excuse for confession and came into my life through the tiny crack in that doorway.
Nope, the best prayer I ever prayed was this one: “Lord, keep me humble.”
Yes, that’s it. That’s the best prayer I ever prayed. It is not long; it’s not glamorous. I didn’t ask for guidance or for where I could serve or for me to stop sinning specific sins. It wasn’t Lord take this anger away or Lord take this lust. It wasn’t Lord save my children, or Lord save my life, or Lord save this marriage, although the Lord knows those are all really, really important prayers.
It was a prayer I didn’t want to pray, and when I first started praying it about ten years ago, I really don’t know why I did. What possessed me to pray such a silly, foolish prayer, especially when that was one problem that I did not have? Why did I think it was a good idea to ask God to keep me humble, when nobody had told me I had a problem with pride? When everything with me and my people was fine?
You know the answer to that question. Because from nowhere else could come such a foolish, vulnerable, painful way to grow. The way down really is the way up. God answered that prayer, and he continues to do so. When it was answered, and while it was in the process of being answered, however, I had no clue that was one of the things he was up to. I just knew that things were awful. I knew that I was a complete mess, that I couldn’t get my life back on the upside again, that my kids were unhappy with their situations and with me, and ultimately, that there was no hope of things ever getting better again.
That’s what I thought.
The reality was something quite different. My prayers were being answered, every minute of every hour of every day during which I could not see they were being answered.
To be made humble is quite different from asking to be made humble because you know that is a thing you are supposed to pray. To be made humble is to be broken down into your elemental parts, and still to be found wanting.
The way down is the way up. To bear the cross is to wear the crown.
The fight is over, the battle won–and yet we slog on, into the new week, the Easter Monday after Easter Sunday.
The celebration around the world yesterday was one of the most joyful ever known, I have no doubt. Many believers were with their local fellowships for the first time in three years, depending upon the Covid mitigation or lockdown measures in their communities.
Around the world, we honored the name of the Lamb who is worthy, the Lamb who was slain and rose again and lives eternally. At first light, we thought of every Easter morning we’ve known; we remembered with joy the first Easter morning, when death itself started working backward and the upside-down kingdom Jesus initiated bloomed in its fullness, when the Roman soldiers fainted in fear and the women carried the best news ever to the men in hiding.
But this morning, in Afghanistan, in Ethiopia, in Russia, in Ukraine, in Shanghai and China, the pain and the darkness goes on. In the lives of most people on this planet, there’s something of pain and difficulty and the wrongness of the world. What do we do with this?
In the words of writer Wendell Berry, “We’re going to live right on.” The pain and the suffering need not stop us; in fact, they cannot stop us. We are children of the Father, and the redeemed of the Lord Jesus. What did he come for, if not for Easter Monday? His power proven in his miracles and his resurrection is alive today, inside of each one of us. We take the next step, asking for his mercy to walk alongside us and his grace to infuse our moments this Monday.
No matter what comes now, in his freedom, we are truly free.
It was dark for a long time and I didn’t see anything that showed me that God was listening or that he even existed. Then after I figured out God is real and he’s good, I fought depression off and on for almost 40 years. I couldn’t necessarily see what God was doing with that, and honestly, through a lot of it, I didn’t even realize that the reality I lived in was depression. It was just my life. At times, I couldn’t say for sure if God was involved in my mess, if he loved me or if he was with me.
Now that I can see more clearly, I can see the bigger picture. You know what it is like when you climb up out of a valley on a hike? When you start walking, you only see what is around you, the leaves on the trees nearby, an anthill, dandelions, and the gravel or tree roots in the path.
But once you have climbed far enough, assuming there are no trees to block the way, you can see a long, long way. The next ridge, the middle view, the distance, the sky–all of it. You now know what you couldn’t see or comprehend before. The entire time you were climbing upward, it wasn’t just the bog around you or the barren field, not just the localized flora, fauna or pain–there was a panoramic view. You grasp for the first time just how massive the back of the world you ride is. You contemplate what travels and travails you have sojourned through. You see that you were not, after all, alone.
Once you’re walking free of the fog, you know the great lion was pacing at your side the entire way.
What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun? For all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation. Even in the night his heart does not rest. This also is vanity. –Ecclesiastes 2:22-23
What gain has the worker from his toil? I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. –Ecclesiastes 3:9-11
Have you been there? Are you here now? Yes. I have seen before me the work that I’ve been given to do. I’ve pursued what I love to do and used my gifts to bring joy to others. I’ve seen where love and peace can be given, and I want to be a channel for that love. Yet despite my willingness, despite my work, despite knowing without a doubt that this is what I’m supposed to offer right now–multiple times this week my best efforts are stymied. I can’t get through. I can do everything right, but it seems to be a dead end; nothing changes.
For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. –Romans 8:20-22
Joy in the Journey 