Create a Crisis for a Change
“Is it okay that I read your wife’s blog? Her writing challenges me every time I read.”
—recent comment from a man friend
Kari’s husband Jeff here. She’s off at another commitment and under my watch right now our kids are scurrying from the yard to driveway pretending to be a peregrine falcon and Thompson’s gazelle, respectively, so we’re safe to write for a few minutes. Until a playful predator comes. That would be a crisis to their uninterrupted play time.
That’s what I want to talk with you about: crisis. Crises in fact. Lots and lots of mini-crises, created from our own hands.
A crisis is when you need God to come through, because otherwise you’ll fail. You don’t have what it takes, so you take what He alone can give.
Of course, we cannot create anything ourselves, but all of our creative powers — our creativity — is on loan from the Creator, borrowed to be used well. Whether we steward these powers for good or spend them foolishly on self, we better know what kind of power we’re dealing with. Too many people use their supposed “power” to play it safe, seek comfort, take no risks. That’s some kind of tragedy. (Others create all sorts of drama for themselves and every moment seems like a crisis. That’s sad but not in view here.)
Humanity has been made in God’s image. We may not look like Him in outward appearance, or take a representative form too often, but our essence, our createdness, is in the similitude of God. Makes sense, since He’s our Father.
God has created us for crisis. We were made to shine brightly in dark situations. Yet a person will only know if he or she is ready to trust Him in the inevitable big, unplanned crisis, if they’ve first learned by experience to trust Him with many mini-crises.
That is one secret to Jesus’ life. He is the definition of true humanity, coming to recreate what has been broken lost in us. Yet He did not do it by Himself. Jesus the Son depended moment by moment on the love, approval, and power of God the Father. He imaged the Father well. Perfectly, in all manner of crises. Never hurried, ever-present, calm and collected to unleash the power of God on the situation of Their choosing.
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I hope soon Kari can tell you about the many mini-crises she encounters each week, and as you can consider yours, each one can find perspective to keep on creating these crises and growing as people. It is because of her steadfastness in the face of these crises, forged in fact by each crisis itself, that each us gets to read on the Sacred Mundane. That’s why many men I know read her blog. There’s meat here, substance more than mere style. Using the mundane moments of each life, what seems at first so unspiritual, she makes connections to the Gospel. Every man, woman and child can benefit from that. Kari makes public many private details, though each is processed in prayer and with her husband (me), and together we sense the Spirit’s leading for her to share. Frankly, it would be easier to not share anything personal. Just “write about God,” but while the words would be true, they would not be real.
Realness is where the crises happen. Realness is what we’re after.
There is a gap for each of us between the ideal and real, between what we say we believe and how we really live it out.
Most men I know … scratch that: every man I know likes to do things he feels confidence about it. Some only do the things they feel confident about. It’s why some don’t search for a better job, and why others like to fish. Confidence makes one work on their own car, and for the same reason others take it to the dealer to get serviced. Confidence. One can have the appearance of confidence with mere talk, yet to truly reveal one’s confidence, a crisis has to do it’s work.
Thoughts on Discipleship (2): Darcy
Just a few months after beginning my new adventure as Elisa’s disciple, my roommate and I decided to quit the solo Christian act and actually attend a Campus Crusade for Christ meeting. We’d begun hanging around Crusade (CRU) circles, and over and over I’d heard the name Darcy mentioned. Apparently this woman named Darcy was every girls’ hero. She seemed to have “discipled” (the word now rolled right off my tongue without any effort) innumerable girls and was the stellar pick of the group.
Once again, I marvel at my roommate’s and my willingness and eagerness to jump in with both feet. At our very first CRU meeting (at which, I might mention, Jeff Patterson was the emcee and I remember thinking “That’s the kind of guy my mom would want me to marry.”), we heard the announcement for the annual Cove Palisades trip. Without hesitation, we both signed up to go (now you couldn’t get me to go camping with a bunch of strangers if my life depended upon it…sad how we change with age). I can still see the expression on Darren Holland’s face when we went to sign up. Now I can read his thoughts, “Wow, this is your first time here and you’re signing up for the trip! Awesome!” He was delighted.
As we picked up our bags and got ready to leave, a little wide-eyed, curly-haired, doll-faced girl came up to me. “Are you Kari?” She asked. My eyes were wide. How did she know me? “Yeah,” I said cautiously. “Oh! I once had a horse named Kari!” She said with enthusiasm bubbling over. I nodded slowly. She continued, “I’m Darcy. It’s nice to meet you.” Aha! This was Darcy. I relaxed and held out my hand, wondering again why she’d singled me out. We chatted for a moment, then I was off. There were only a few more weeks until the end of school, so I headed off for the summer without much more connection with her, although she asked for my home address…
Later that summer, a letter arrived in the mail. A five or six page letter (again?!), from Darcy. Apparently she knew, like Elisa, that openness and vulnerability is the name of the game, because she too shared her whole testimony with me, including her long struggle with an eating disorder and the victory she’d found in Christ. I was amazed, once again, at her honesty and humility, and found myself shaking my head wondering, “Why me? Why would she single me out?” As he letter ended she suggested to me that I pray about leading a Bible study the following year. Me? Lead a Bible study! I’d only started attending! What did I have to offer? I’d only just heard about “disciple” being a verb and now I was supposed to start “discipling”? THough it scared me a bit, something inside me knew this was exactly the direction I was supposed to take…