I remember a pastor joking once that he was reading a book and it was so convicting that he had to quit reading it. I can totally relate. It’s like sometimes my soul is craving that truth, that hard truth that kicks my teeth in and brings that true repentence, and yet I hate it too. I hate conviction because there is one thing that repetence always requires: change. The word repent literally means to change direction, as in a military term where you stop, turn around, and march the opposite direction. I hate stopping and changing directions.
We had a VERY convicting sermon this weekend. VERY convicting. Too convicting. Usually when Pastor Joel is gone I only go to Saturday night service (confession!), and use the opportunity get a break on Sunday morning, but this time I had to be there again to get every last tidbit. We heard from Pastor Chuck Bomar of Colossae Church. The topic was hearing God’s voice, and the gist of it was that we might say, “I want to hear GOd’s voice” or “I just want to know what God’s will is so I can do it.”
Really? Do we really want to know what God’s saying so we can do it? Really?
He used an excellent illustration from Jonah, and how often we use the “counsel of circumstances” to lead our path instead of God’s voice. God tells Jonah to go to Ninevah. But going to Ninevah is neither desirable nor comfortable, so perhaps Jonah tells himself that’s not really what God wants him to do. So he goes the opposite direciton and perhaps he says to himself, “Well I’m going to go in this direction and God can always stop me if it’s not His will.” (sound familiar?) Then he finds a boat and pays the fare and gets on it. Perhaps he says, “Hey! There’s a boat ready right when I need it. That’s God providing for me, right? And look, I have the fare to pay! That’s God providing for me financially, right? Great confirmation. Here I go!” So as long as things are going great Jonah continues living in the dilusion that perhaps he is ok (Now Scripture doesn’t say that Jonah tells himself these things, but by way of illustration it’s powerful because we do things like that all the time. We look at circumstances and assume that if it “works out” then it’s God’s stamp of approval.)
How did things “work out” for Jesus? Paul? Stephen? Peter? I’ll give you a hint. It starts with an “m”. Martyrdom. Yeah, circumstances didn’t “work out” how we might think. That’s not how they determined God’s will.
So all of this to say that I’m convicted about how much of my motivation and direction seeking is at the heart purely selfish. I look for things to line up in a way that seems good for God and good for me…ok mostly for me. And quite honestly, right now I’m so tired that I feel like I don’t have the strength to be unselfish. Anybody ever feel like that? Last night I told Jeff, “OK, so my desire to have a beautiful home where we can just settle down and never move again is probably selfish. But I’m so stinking tired of moving and trying to be strong and packing up these STUPID boxes that I don’t care of it’s selfish, I’m too tired to be unselfish.” Anybody?
So in the midst of my “too tired to be unselfish” feelings, God throws me a challenge today (I hate that!). I really have to be vague about it but hopefully I can convey the gist. What if God called us to give up something that we really want/desire for our family so that someone else can have what they really want/desire? And what if that thing is really big? And what if that other person actually has a face and a name and is someone that I don’t think deserves it? (I know, I have an ugly heart) What if that other person is a thorn in my flesh? It’s one thing to give of our money to some precious bright-eyed shoeless orphan in Africa or to some charity and increase our tax deduction. But what if we need to give in a way that doesn’t gain us any warm fuzzy feelings or decrease our taxable income. Giving in a way that actually deprives us of something so that someone else, whom we might not even have the warmest feelings toward, can have what we don’t. What then? And what if my sense of entitlement is screaming at the top of its lungs that that just wouldn’t be FAIR?
And as soon as my ugly heart utters the word, “fair,” my vision scans to my sweet Jesus, hanging on the cross, bleeding, dying, weeping, suffocating. Fair. Unfair. My utter wretchedness. My undeservedness. I am the thorn in the flesh of His brow. And yet He suffered. Oh Jesus help us. Help me. Change my heart.
You know I don’t know exactly what God will ask us to do. But I do know that today, and any day, that God issues us a challenge, I pray that He would give me and grace to respond,”Yes, Lord. Thy Kingdom come, my kingdom go. Not my will but Yours be done.” It’s so easy to say. So hard to do.
So while I hate conviction, I’m thankful for it. And thankful for His grace, and thankful for–as Dutch’s children’s Bible calls it–His “never-failing, never-changing, always forever love.”