For a long time now...

For many years---ten, actually!---I have agonized over the fact that I was sent as a church-planter, pioneer, home missionary, or what have you, but not given much help, neither from men nor from God.  I supposed this was because I wasn't a "go getter" in spiritual things, but more of a "wait on the Lord" type: "They that wait upon the Lord..." was kind of a mantra that helped me to be patient.

One day, 5 or 6 years back, I began to think, "Well, maybe the Lord is waiting on ME to do stuff, go out on faith, push out into deep water, etc.  That was a theology of action.  It also didn't last long, as the results really didn't change. Not that I really did a lot. I'm lazy by nature.  That's one problem. But I don't really think laziness is a big issue for me, for I see lazy people all around me doing great things.  They just don't think much, but do stuff, make mistakes, chase rabbits, and largely waste time in doing things that don't bear good fruit either.

So what is it that God is doing, keeping me here in Virginia going around without much progress? Often I thought, "Perhaps I should give up this quest and just do what everyone else does: keep my nose to the grind, go to some church that I like, write books or plays or symphonies, and just stop trying to launch a ministry. in other words, give up; join someone else's ministry, that's good enough.  Be a doer, not just a dreamer and a thinker."  But going to church these days is next to torture, since there just isn't any good preaching to be found, and the worship is all contemporary---meaning, "You don't know this song. And we probably will never sing it again. So just stand there and listen to US sing, act really involved and look really cheerful about it.

What does the Lord want of me?

Tonight, my old friend RZ gave me something like an answer by reading Deuteronomy 8.  God sent Israel through the wilderness for 40 years, to go a  distance that should have taken 4 or 5 weeks.  Forty years! Why?  It was to humble them. Deuteronomy 8:2,3 says,

2 And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. 3 So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.

God led them around for such a long time in order to humble them, to help them really know without a doubt WHO they are.  "Know thyself" is one of the important goals of philosophy.  I shared this with my friend Drew today.  It is important for a religious person to truly know himself BEFORE GOD.  We don't live by bread alone, nor by our brains, nor by money power, not even by The Law.  As a Christian, I live by the word of God.  I know my own weaknesses, and that I am mortal, and that without my God, I would be lost and utterly helpless.  Now I know that "I can do everything through Christ who gives me strength."

That takes time. Learning such things can't happen just because I listen to someone who told me, "You know, Chris, apart from Christ, you can do nothing."  It took Israel 40 years.  They had to experience helplessness daily, and daily total dependence on God. They had to be humbled.

Now that I have been floundering here in Virginia for 10, I have learned much in the wilderness.  Only 30 years to go, praise God!  Perhaps I will not even be allowed to enter the time of harvest I envision. But it is enough that God is my God, and my Savior, and my Hope, and that I may proclaim His cross to a few souls.  Oh that God would call me, choose me, and send me to greater work for Him, let me cross over and be really useful in that good land of harvest.  I trust that even if he does not, he will give it to my children and disciples.

Lord, accept my body, soul and mind as your temple, and live in me. Through me do your own great work, for the glory of your Son Jesus. Amen.