The Tipping Point

You may not have noticed, but I can get passionate about things.  My dad will tease me and say, “You gotta get an opinion about something.” Which, I might add, is the pot calling the kettle black because I get every ounce of my opinionated-ness from one source: My father.

But Jeff said something a few days ago that has really stuck with me. I think he knew that inwardly I was just desperately trying to figure out how to get every single person in America to read The Hole in our Gospel [ hardcover | paperback | Kindle ].  If you can’t tell, the book absolutely ruined me in the best possible way. And because I feel like someone just opened up a whole new world to me, all of a sudden I can’t do anything the way I did before, and all I can think about is wanting everyone else to know about it!  But here’s what Jeff pointed out:

That book was my tipping point.  It’s not as if one book was what changed my life–God has been slowly, slowly working for a long long time. I look back at little seeds planted when we left our home and moved in with my parents, when we did the year of LiveDifferent challenges, when I heard from people from Open Arms, Africa New Life, when I read the blogs of several friends who recently returned from Africa, the constant input of my brother and his wife (who tipped a long time ago!), visiting the Real. Life. Exhibit (that almost put me over the edge).  I was teetering very close, and Richard Stearns simply came along and gave me one tiny poke (ok, it was actually a big shove) and pushed me right on over.  It was my tipping point.

Tipped into what? I’m still waiting to be able to share a fun story, but suffice it to say there’s just exciting things going on with international giving, and Gospel of Christ, the gospel of grace, that never changes but that changes everything we do.  I believe our God is radically mobilizing people–their prayers, their lives, and their resources, to reach the world.  I know He always has been, but I’m just finally seeing it in a whole new way.  And no, we’re not moving anywhere!  We’re right smack dab in the middle of God’s will, in our beloved home at Willamette Christian Church with people we love and the honor of serving full-time.  We are right where we belong and yet everything’s changing in my heart.

But my point is that it’s so easy for me to just go crazy and all I want to do is run around and hand out books.  (What’s funny is that I see how similar my dad and I are–he actually bought 10 extra copies of the book to hand out to people he knows.)  But, as Jeff pointed out, while the book was my tipping point, it might not be everyone’s.  And if I don’t understand that only God can move people, by His sovereignty, then I will spend much of my life frustrated and striving in my flesh rather than relying on the work of God’s Spirit. I have much to learn. 🙂

So, while I do hope everyone I know reads this book, and while I hope we, the hands and feet of Christ, can make changes in our lifestyle so that thousands of people may hear the truth of Christ and be freed from the web of poverty and disease, I know that only God can do this work.  I can’t run around trying to tip people. That’s nothing more than religious shoving and shoving rarely works (ok, never works.)  *sigh* Can I at least lean on people and maybe they’ll tip?

Lord, will you break our hearts with the things that break yours? Mine first. I recognize my pride and stubborn heart.  Do your work in our world.  Tip us for your glory.