What If Moses Wasn’t Necessarily the Most Faithful Person of His Era?

How’s that for a provocative title for my post? Let me be completely clear that, as, leader of Israel’s exodus from Egypt, recipient of the Ten Commandments, and author of the Bible’s first five books, Moses was clearly a supremely godly man. I in no way want to diminish his standing as one of the great men of the faith.

However, beyond the “known” heroes of the Bible, God has always had a multitude of other committed people even in darkest of times. Remember how, centuries after Moses, Elijah was in the depths of despair, thinking he was God’s only genuine follower in all Israel. But God revealed to him that there were 7,000 others who had not bent their knees to false idols (1 Kings 19). We know absolutely nothing about these 7,000 beyond the fact that God knew their hearts and that they remained true to him.

Similarly, we can assume there were many devoted “ordinary” Jewish people during the entire 430 years of Israel’s captivity in Egypt. I may be going out on a limb here, but I believe there could have been people in the generation immediately preceding Moses who loved God as much as Moses did. But one reason God didn’t tap them for the leadership role may have been because he wasn’t ready to move. When the time was right, he needed someone to lead the charge, and Moses was his man.

Expanding on this thought, perhaps there were truly godly people who died the very day before Moses first approached Pharoah to set the Exodus in motion. If that was the case, these people had no idea of the miracle that was about to unfold. But that didn’t mean God wasn’t pleased with them.

My point is that one reason we know about Moses is that he was the right man used by God at just the right time in history. The fact that others are totally unknown to us may be more a reflection of God’s timetable than it was of their “worthiness.” God had absolute discretion to use them – or not use them – as he saw fit. Their job was merely to be faithful. Whether they became channels for God’s mighty power was totally up to God. We tend to think the more holy someone is, the more God will bless and use them in spectacular ways. This isn’t necessarily so.

This concept has relevance for two groups:

1. “Ordinary” Christians who faithfully and quietly follow and serve God in their daily lives. The overwhelming majority will remain unknown to history. However, God may use them to touch others – perhaps just one – which, in turn, could ripple forward, changing hundreds or thousands of lives. So, don’t underestimate the potential impact you are having as a diaper-changing mom, a tenth grade boys’ youth group leader, or a diligent employee faithfully and appropriately radiating Jesus in the workplace. Who knows what eternal impact your efforts will yield!

2. Pastors or authors who labor year after year and never see the huge numbers or bright spotlight that some “celebrity” ministers or writers enjoy. I remember hearing about a missionary family that ministered for decades in Japan – one of the toughest “mission fields’” in the world – with virtually no changed lives to spotlight. Does that mean they didn’t measure up or missed God’s calling? Not necessarily. They did what God led them to do, and that’s what count. Pleasing him is measured by someone’s heart and diligence, not by statistics.

We need to redefine “success” as faithfully carrying out the role and tasks God has placed before you and leaving the results – no matter how big or small – to God. Although a very few may be like Moses, many will be more like the unknown 7,000, but all can be pleasing to God.

The Power of Questions: 3 Examples

Scenario 1:

“You sure can find a dark lining in any silver cloud.” So said a fellow member of our church’s spiritual formation strategy committee. Although I liked the concept the group was discussing, I had just pointed out a possible downside no one had mentioned. Essentially, this gentleman’s message was, “You should keep your negativity to yourself.” I did. I didn’t say anything for the rest of the meeting.

Certainly, I’m not right about every thought that pops in my head. However, as someone who spent nine years in fulltime Christian ministry and as a senior corporate executive with strong analytical/strategic thinking skills, I had considerable experience with the topic under discussion. And I wanted to caution the group about a possible oversight.

I’m perfectly fine with people pushing back on my ideas, but instead of dropping a bomb like this guy did, he should have, first of all, softened his rhetoric and, then, followed up with a question to make sure he really understood my point – something like this: “It sounds like you think this is a bad idea. Am I misreading that?”

That would have given me the chance to clarify the fact that, although I thought the idea on the table was basically solid, there was a consideration that was potentially being overlooked. His question would have invited me to make clear a thought that may not have been perfectly worded without dismissing me.

So, the first power aspect of questions is their ability to invite clarification without alienating others.

Scenario 2:

“Do you think more kids will want hamburgers than hotdogs?” he asked. “What do you think?”

I was a rookie band camp dad helping a veteran band dad prepare lunch for the kids during a summer practice. “The kids should be here around 11:30. When do you think we should start grilling?” “Do these burgers look done to you? What do you think?” He must have asked my opinion on ten different issues.

Now, the other dad had manned the grill numerous times before and almost certainly didn’t really need my input. But I genuinely appreciated his desire to ask my opinion. That made me feel I was truly part of the process.

So, a second power use of questions is their ability to draw others in and give them a sense of ownership.

Scenario 3:

“So, how was your weekend,” I asked my friend over Panera bagels. “Well, not so hot. My wife and I got into an argument about her wanting to buy a rototiller for her garden. It’s only about 20’ x 12’, and I can turn the soil over with a shovel in about an hour. I don’t mind doing that, but she says a rototiller would do a better job. The cheapest one I found at Home Depot is $300.”

He continued, “Have you heard of the book The $64 Tomato? It could have been written about our garden. Every year she spends hundreds of dollars on soil amendments, fertilizer, fencing, pesticide, plants, seeds, and deer deterrent (which is very expensive and has to be refreshed whenever it rains). I’m glad she loves gardening, but the yield is pretty modest (hence the $64 tomato), and I don’t think it’s smart to spend $300 for something I could do almost as well for no money. She didn’t agree. So, it was a pretty icy weekend.”

After expressing empathy over his situation, I asked, “What do you think would happen if, early in the spring, you two sat down and looked at projected expenses over the summer – kids’ camps and activities, vacation plans, any unusual household expenses, etc. – and agreed on how much was available for the garden? If you agreed that she could comfortably spend, say, $400 on the garden, she could use that any way she wanted to. She might have to cut down elsewhere if she decided to buy the $300 rototiller.”

“Well, I never thought of that. That’s a pretty good idea. It just might work,” he responded.

Essentially, I was making a suggestion, but I offered it as a question instead of a statement. As he processed this new idea, he had to think through how his wife might react. Even if it was a bad idea, it would have given him something to mull over, and it could have prompted a somewhat different and even better approach. In either case, he would be moving off dead center.

Another advantage of posing the idea as a question was that I didn’t come across as overly directive and a know-it-all.

So, the third power of questions is their ability to draw people into problem solving in a way that statements might not.

Jesus himself often incorporated questions into his teaching:

·       Can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? (Matthew 6:27)

·       Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? (Luke 11:11)

·       Which of these do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers? (Luke 10:36)

Shouldn’t we follow Jesus’ example?

And did you notice how I phrased this last suggestion as a question?  😊

"What's Your Definition of Legalism?"

My last blog post on my least favorite sermon prompted an old friend to ask what my definition of legalism is. This is an important question, and I decided to change my line-up of future blog posts to answer it. This week, I present three categories of attitudes or actions I consider legalistic, and next time I’ll comment on how misunderstanding culture and context compounds the problem.

Let me start with the most charitable of the categories of legalism.

!. Any practice or activity God has used in my life which I then expect other believers to follow – One of life’s greatest joys is experiencing the blessing of God transforming some area of your life.

One cause of legalism is the well-intentioned desire to see God work in others’ lives just as he has in yours. For example, someone whom God has rescued from alcoholism fully comprehends its danger. So, out of a legitimate concern for others’ well-being, some insist that no believer should consume alcohol – ever. But not everyone who drinks an occasional beer is destined for Skid Row.

There is certainly room for personally abstaining but not for forbidding all Christians worldwide from drinking. Not consuming in front of someone who might have a drinking problem shows Christian charity. And people who have had direct experiences with addicted friends or family may decide not to drink because they have personally witnessed alcoholism’s devastation. I have a friend who holds this view but doesn’t judge Christians who drink.

Legalists are not so generous and often force on others their views on this or dozens of other issues.

2. Any practice or activity I feel compelled to do to enhance my relationship with God and which, if I don’t do, will jeopardize my standing with him – This trap is very subtle. Spiritual disciplines such as reading scripture, praying, helping others, and sharing your faith are all important, can help you grow in your relationship with Jesus, and should be encouraged.

Christians fully understand that we can do nothing to earn God’s forgiveness. However, after their initial salvation experience, some revert to a performance mentality, working to maintain God’s approval. Clearly, your behavior matters, and God wants you to live a holy life. But it becomes dangerous when you turn the spiritual disciplines into a slavish list of mandates and lifeless drudgery where, if – for example – you miss a day of Bible reading, you assume God disapproves of you.

I succumbed to this snare early in my Christian life. For the three summers between my college years, I worked at a wonderful 4-H summer camp at the far eastern end of Long Island. After my first season, God touched my life, and I trusted Christ to forgive my sins. During my second year, I was vocal about how wonderful it is to know Jesus. But apparently my behavior didn’t quite match my words. At the end-of-the-summer counselors’ banquet where we gave each other funny awards, I got a “Practice What You Preach” certificate signed by Jesus Christ himself. Ouch! Apparently, my behavior wasn’t quite up to snuff.

So, I vowed to do better my third summer and committed to thinking about God as continuously as possible:  while interacting with the kids, while meeting with other counselors, while teaching electricity classes, while cleaning the washhouse toilets, etc. If I realized I hadn’t thought about God in the previous ten minutes, I would confess that “sin” and promise to do better.

This certainly was not the easy yoke or the light burden Jesus talks about in Matthew 11:28-30. My obsessive thought practice lasted for about two days before I realized it was sucking the life out me.

This is a great example of self-imposed legalism.

3. Any practice or activity that fans my spiritual pride or causes me to look down upon those who are less “spiritual’ – This, of course, is the older brother’s problem in the Prodigal Son parable. Enough said.

So, there you have it:  three aspects of legalism. But wait . . . there’s more! There are also cultural overtones that can play into this syndrome. Next time I will discuss four other elements that can compound the legalism problem.

Two Dramatic Answers to Prayer in the Context of Hundreds of Unanswered Ones

Last time, I told the incredible story of how the Lord led us to buy a vacation house in the San Gabriel Mountains during the California Bobcat wildfire, which came within six miles of the house. The bottom line of that blog was that once God makes his will clear, we should joyously follow it even if some downstream circumstances prove tragic. As a reminder, our house did not burn down.

But there is another lesson from this event. As I explained last time, for years Annette and I had been

praying about and researching ways to have more direct involvement in our kids’ and grandkids’ lives despite being 2,100 miles away. Nothing made sense. And then one Monday in August, we learned about this great vacation house that made everything fall into place. We put an offer in that Friday, and it was accepted the following Monday.

About the same time, our son-in-law Rosty experienced an equally incredible eight-day dramatic answer to prayer. His law firm was experiencing great stress:  the two senior partners were retiring, it lost its major client, and its overall sector was declining. These dynamics required considerable retraction and downsizing. Rosty saw the handwriting on the wall and began exploring other possibilities. Unfortunately, his segment of law is rather narrow, and due to family needs, he had to confine his job search to the Los Angeles area. Opportunities were hard to come by, and none of us were optimistic.

Then on a Monday, also in August, he saw an online ad for an associate’s position at a dynamic law firm in nearby Irvine. It was a longshot. Despite his solid years of experience, he had no experience in this new firm’s practice areas. Of course, Rosty was completely upfront about what he had and had not done, and his interviewers said they understood and were fine with that. They greatly respected his background and skillset and were confident he would quickly come up to speed in the content areas.

So, just as our house acquisition decision spanned just eight days (from Monday to Monday), so did Rosty’s job search. He was offered the job exactly eight days (coincidently, also Monday to Monday) after seeing the online ad.

Both of these stories are incredibly encouraging and speak to God’s gracious intervention in our lives. But they stand in stark contrast to literally hundreds of heartfelt prayers offered over many years that didn’t turn out the way I or others wanted:  illnesses that ended in death, financial stresses that lingered and lingered, mental illnesses that weren’t healed, new business ventures that failed, marriages that fell apart, wayward children who never returned, addicts who never achieved sobriety, etc. How do we explain this?

The best I can come up with hearkens back to my last post’s reference to three things Jerry Bridges says about God in his incredible book Trusting God:

·       He controls absolutely everything.

·       He loves you completely.

·       He knows what he’s doing.

These truths back you into the corner (metaphorically and theologically) of having to conclude that you can – indeed, must – trust God in all circumstances, even the ones you hate.

Why does he answer some of your prayers (occasionally with great flair) and not others?

I have no idea. But think about this. If you could “make” God do everything you wanted, you would essentially become the all-powerful magician who could make God do your bidding. Do you really want that?

I may not know why God answers some prayers and not others, but I do know that God is trustworthy. As Paul triumphantly affirms, “I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day” (2 Timothy 1:12). All I can add is, “Amen!”

How's Your Spiritual Muscle Memory?

The ability to perform a task without consciously thinking about it is called “muscle memory,” a term that originated with physical activities. Examples include a tennis player’s ability to instinctively hit a difficult backhand shot and a cyclist’s sense of when to shift to a higher or lower gear. All automatically. All without consciously thinking.

This concept also applies to areas other than athletics. As a blues harmonica player, when I am learning an intricate tune, I have to break down each phrase and play it over and over and over again. After repeating a phrase dozens or even hundreds of times, I reach an inflection point where suddenly the notes “just come out.” And even after not playing a particular tune for years, when I return to it, I’m amazed to find it’s all still there. This is muscle memory.

Muscle memory requires two things: 

• Deliberate practice of the underlying skill involved

• Lots of repetition

Although I don’t ever recall anyone specifically applying the concept to our spiritual lives, I think we can. Faithful Christians often meet both requirements:

• We practice significant underlying activities like worship, prayer, Scripture reading, fellowship, service, sharing our faith, etc.

• We typically repeat these habits a lot

As you read Jesus’ behavioral standards and respond to the Holy Spirit’s promptings in your life, you begin to “just know” what to do and how to act in particular situations. Here are some examples:

• Repeatedly reading and taking to heart passages like the Sermon on the Mount eventually drives their truths deep into your heart and into your actions.

• If you’ve developed the habit of giving part of your income to further God’s work, when you get an unexpected windfall, one of your first impulses will probably be to give some of it away.

• After you’ve seen God’s faithfulness through numerous crises, you may instinctively turn to him when new tragedy strikes.

Bottom line:  following Jesus becomes second nature, and it reshapes and transforms you.

As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2:16, we have the mind of Christ. Although this doesn’t mean we’re infallible, it does mean our thoughts can become increasingly like his. This is especially true as we continuously behold as in a mirror (which is an example of muscle memory’s repetition requirement) the glory of the Lord and are transformed into his image through the Holy Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:18).

Three Ways to Go Wrong

Of course, we can mess anything up, and there are at least three ways you can fail to live in the joy of spiritual muscle memory:

1. Not practicing it all and failing in either the basic disciplines or the rigor of frequency

2. Going the opposite way and turning these beautiful spiritual disciplines into legalistic requirements

3. Becoming so “disciplined” that you crowd out the Holy Spirit, failing to draw on his power or respond to his promptings

The ideal blend involves:

• Regularly and joyfully participating in activities that build Christ-like character

• Not turning these disciplines into empty rituals

• Always being attuned to the Holy Spirit’s leading that might take you in unexpected directions

Routine and discipline are great, but you must always leave room for the Holy Spirit to redirect you as he sees fit.

So, back to my original question:  How’s your spiritual muscle memory?