Priorities

My life completely changed on September 5th, 2009.

Up until that day, I only had to be responsible to one person: myself. However, on that day, my life included someone else's life. I was responsible to someone else: my wife.

On September 5th, 2009, I was married to my best friend, and our lives became intertwined. What affected her affected me. She became my top priority.

Now, I hope that you caught that mistake. If not, you should probably re-read the set up to this post.

When we got married, my wife became my top priority. I sought first her needs. When she was unhappy, it made me unhappy. When things weren't going right for her it made me worried.

There's nothing wrong with the idea of making my wife a top priority in my life, but the truth is that my wife should not be my #1 priority. However, if I am honest many times she can become that.

Now, I'm not saying that I don't love God or that I don't seek Him above everything else. Most of the time I do. I can honestly say that when we got married I believed that God was leading me that direction, but that is not always my focus. I am not always solely focused on where God is leading me, and what God wants me to do. Sometimes I'm more concerned with what my wife and I want to do, and where our desires are leading us.

You see, I didn't worry much before I got married. My priorities were kind of small and were limited to my own situation, yet when I got married my life's population doubled. I now had to worry about my wife and what was going on in her life: whether she was safe and happy and comfortable. I was also in my second year of college, and now that I had a wife to support making sure I kept the HOPE scholarship was a much bigger deal. So, now I'm worrying about Jenny's safety, happiness, comfort, and my grades. Add on top of that the amount of stress I had at work, Jenny's grades (she's a Psychology major, so she has tougher classes-because she's smarter than me), her job, all of our bills, getting a new car (I was in a wreck, but it wasn't my fault), and all of my positions at church, and you've got a lot of worry.

The problem here wasn't that it was too much to handle, because most of the time it was fine, but the problem was that my priorities were messed up (and can still get messed up). I was seeking first my kingdom, and my own problems. I was trying to make sure that all of my needs were met, and that included meeting my wife's needs.

This is not the life that God has called us to. God has called us to chase after the things of His kingdom before we even think about our own kingdom and our own problems. God says that if our main priority is His kingdom, then He'll take care of all of that other stuff.

When my focus is on my own kingdom, accomplishing what I want done, then it is necessary to worry. Let's face it, the world is out of my control. No matter how hard I work at my job, the economy could crash, and I could get fired. No matter how healthy I am, cancer can always strike. No matter how safe I try to make myself, accidents happen. I can't control this world, and when my main focus is my own kingdom, my own needs, then it is natural to worry.

Not that worry accomplishes anything. As Jesus says, "Who by worrying can add a single hour to his life?" We know that worrying doesn't solve anything, but when our focus is on our own kingdom, then it is comforting to worry. We are holding on to an illusion of control, and missing out on putting our lives in the hands of the One who IS in control.

I want to make it clear that I'm not saying that this is where I should be. I don't think that this is where God wants me to be, but this is where I am.

Everyday is a battle. Everyday is a struggle. Everyday is a choice whether to live my life for God or for myself. Everyday is a decision: advancing God's kingdom or advancing my kingdom?

The times that I do choose God's kingdom over my own, what I find out is that I have peace. Peace is the absence of worry and stress. When I lay my burden of worry down at Jesus' feet, I find rest. When I'm restless from sleepless nights consumed with worry, I can choose to let go of worry, seek God's kingdom first, and find rest in God.

A bonus of all this is that when I let go of worry and seek first God's kingdom and God's will, I find out that everything else gets taken care of.

When I follow God's commands for my money, I find out that I stay away from debt and I have margin in my finances. When I choose to seek first God's kingdom, I love my wife more and I meet her emotional needs more. When I choose to listen to God's will in my morality, I become more of the man that I want to be. When I make God's kingdom the #1 priority in my life, I see that all of the things I worried about all along were not as important as what God is doing in the world.

God is calling us to a better life. Not only a life free of worry, but a life that is overflowing with a joy that leaves us speechless. But we cannot gain access to that life if we're chasing after and trying to advance our own kingdoms. God demands that we lay our kingdoms down at His feet, and seek first His kingdom. He promises that He'll take care of the rest of the stuff.

Desperate for His Presence

There is a story in the Bible that you might have heard if you grew up in the church. If not, you may never have heard this story, and that is unfortunate, because this is one of the most powerful stories about the power of God.

I want to encourage you to read it over this weekend. You can find the story in Judges 6-8.

The story begins by explaining that there are these people (the Midianites) who are oppressing the people of Israel. In fact, they're so powerful that the people of God are afraid to even come out of their homes. God decides to intervene.

Which, on a side note, is some of the most hopeful words that occur throughout the Bible. God doesn't just look down on humanity and see us in the midst of our fear and suffering, and act like it's not His problem. God chooses to intervene in our lives, and be a part of what goes on in this world. That's extremely hopeful, and I can't get over how wonderful that is to hear. God doesn't just watch us struggle in our own problems, and sit high above us, removed from our pain. He decides to get involved, get His hands dirty, and be with us.

So with this idea of God, we see God get involved with Israel's suffering and send an angel to a guy named Gideon to ask Gideon to lead an army against the Midianites. Now, you have to understand that Gideon is described as the least in his family and he belongs to the weakest clan. So, basically Gideon is the least likely person to lead an army against an army that no one else can beat.

After much debate with God, Gideon agrees to lead the army against the Midianites. Gideon does what any good military leader does, and he gets a bunch of guys. He gets 32,000 men, and he starts running a training camp with them. While Gideon is doing all this, God approaches him to tell Gideon that he has too many men. Which I think Gideon was shocked at, because-if it were me-I would be thinking, I'm going to need 32,000 more. But Gideon is more faithful than me, and he sends away 22,000.

God still feels like 10,000 is crowding His glory too much, so Gideon weeds them out till there is only 300 left. Finally God develops this plan that seems like it's ridiculous, but it works perfectly and God leads Gideon to lead the Israelites to victory.

This story has been on my heart all week long. The amount of faith that it must take to trust God that fully boggles my mind.

We've been talking about how in order to avoid being a Christian Atheist we have to trust God with our entire lives, but it didn't occur to me until this week that I'm not always doing that. I mean sure I can trust God with my salvation and I can trust Him with my finances and I can trust Him to provided for all my needs, but can I trust Him to do what I can't?

I think whenever you're in leadership this is especially tough. It's very easy to look at the tasks you have ahead of yourself, and just jump in and start accomplishing things without ever being desperate for God's power and spirit. I know it's common in my life to get overwhelmed with the amount of things that I have to do, and forget that none of the things that I do will matter if God's hand is not involved.

Gideon realized this. He knew that he could be a brilliant commander and have many soldiers, but without the hand of God moving He couldn't accomplish anything. That's why God was narrowing down Gideon's troops. To show that the victory wasn't Israel's, but that the victory was solely because of God's power.

There is a lot of freedom that exists in knowing that God is in control. That I can trust God to move, and I can be desperate for Him. I don't have to be in charge of everything, and on top of everything. God wants me to do my best and work hard to accomplish His will, but His will is only accomplished when His hand is moving. It's not about me accomplishing God's will through hard work. God's will is accomplished when I surrender my need to be in control, make plans, and work myself to exhaustion.

I want our church to be a place that is so desperate for God's presence that we don't even think about accomplishing tasks before making sure that God's hand is behind it. We need to focus on moving where God's spirit is, and working where His hand was working before us. Just like Gideon we have to trust that God is the one in control, and no matter how hard we work to try to be in control, He always will be.

The Mini-Me

It's on the heels of our recent Student Winter Retreat that I write this.

It has been an incredible experience to get to do what I get to do for a living. Each week I get to write and plan for our student ministry, and I love being able to be a part of what God is doing in our church. Over the weekend I got a chance to speak - something that I really love - and I received many compliments about my speaking abilities.

Don't worry. The point of this post is not to talk about how great I am. In fact, I want to talk about the opposite.

I feel so overwhelmed and blessed by the amount of encouragement and praise that I've received from those who know me closely and intimately. In fact, it has bolstered my confidence in the opinion that this might be a spiritual gift of mine. In fact, when you're doing something for God, and there are people that you respect telling you that you're good at it, maybe that's a gift that God has given you. So, it can be a very powerful and wonderful thing to be encouraged in your spiritual gift.

However, all of this encouragement can begin to inflate your sense of personal pride and your ego. That was never my intention; nonetheless, it still happens a little.

Not that I begin thinking about how great I am or how wonderful I must be, but I begin envisioning a distorted view of God. I begin imagining that when God looks at the things that I do for Him, that He is overwhelmed with gratitude and begins jumping up and down, screaming at the top of His lungs (which is really loud if you're God), "Thank you, thank you, thank you, Nathan! Oh, I'm so grateful that you decided to do something for me! Thank you so much! I so appreciate having a follower like you! I wish I had ten million of you, and then I could get some REAL work done!"

I'm going to be honest, that was pretty painful to write. In fact, until we see it written out like that, we don't realize that we look at God like this. Like a helpless boss who is sitting around, waiting for us to get off of our butt to do something. As if God was just so thankful to have you help that He would throw a parade for us, because otherwise His will wouldn't get done. But let's be clear about one thing:

God doesn't need you

I know that might feel like it's not right, but it really is. I don't mean for this to offend anybody, I really don't, but I think this is something that some of us need to hear every so often. I know that I do.

As we talked about on our retreat, our lives can matter. In fact, we were created to have purpose, for our lives to have meaning, and for us to be a part of God's plan to change the world. That's the most important thing to remember:

GOD is changing the world

Retreats don't change the world, programs don't change the world, messages don't change the world, songs don't change the world, but the God who created the world has the power to change the world. And God is in the process of changing this world...forever.

The amazing part of being in relationship with God is that He invites us to join along with Him as He changes the world, but we have to make sure that we remember who it is that is changing the world. We have to remember where our focus should be. And most importantly, I have to remember what I am in comparison.

Tiny

In comparison to the power, the beauty, the majesty, the purity, the overwhelming greatness that is our God, I am so small in comparison. I may do things that are considered great in the eyes of this world, but the truth is that I am unable to do any of these things without God. God is more than capable to change the world, He is not held back if I decide I'm too lazy to get off my butt and help out. God doesn't need me, but

I need God

In John 3:30, John the Baptist testifies about Jesus, and he claims, "He must increase, and I must decrease". John's not saying that we somehow can make God bigger or smaller than He is, because we have no authority or power to do that. What John states here is that in order for us to truly be a part of God's plan, we have to point all of the glory back towards God. Another version of the Bible states it this way, "He must become more important, and I must become less important".

This is where God is pulling me back down to. God may let me be a small part (a very, very small part) of what He's doing in this world, but in order to be aligned with God's will for this world, I need to decrease in importance and He must increase in importance. I can try my best to grab a little bit of God's glory in my struggle to be on top, but in the end I'll be left on my knees, empty-handed.

God's not interested in sharing His glory. God is glorious, and He intends to get all of the glory. He intends to use me and consume me, but it is all done in an effort to bring Himself more glory. Believe me, I'm alright with that.

It's not egotistical, it's not arrogant, it's God showing who He really is.

Because God is glorious

Righteous

Majestic

Marvelous

Wondrous

Everlasting

Holiness embodied

All-Powerful

All-Knowing

All-Consuming

Always present

A blinding light

A strong tower

The Father of lights

The Father of creation

I am blessed to give God all of the glory. It probably will always be a temptation to try and grab a little glory for myself, and make myself out to be more important. Yet when I remember about how small I am in comparison to God, it becomes easy to deflect any glory that might come my way back towards God.

I am not glorious, although I might want to be. I am not great, although I might want to be. I am not in charge, although I might want to be. I am not God, although I might want to be. I can try my best to be on the top of the hill grabbing as much glory as I can, but it's like chasing the wind. I'm left on my knees, empty-handed. God deserves all of the glory, and He's determined to get it.

I pray that those who made it through this entire blog post will be willing to say, "He must increase, and I must decrease". I pray that we can become a church that says, "To God be the glory".

God is God, and God is good. To God be the glory.