Sunday, August 19, 2012

Sunday Morning Convictions: Aug 19th, 2012

First off, its my birthday... wouldn't you like to think that on your birthday God might take it easy with the conviction?? But, alas, once again God is more concerned with ensuring that my life is advancing His Kingdom, and making sure that I am paying attention... its almost as though He truly loves and cares about me that He would make sure that I am listening... So, a few things that I will be thinking about as I fall asleep... 1) I have to stop waiting for God to open a door and place me in His service... At the end of this morning's message Pastor Derek was talking about the ongoing needs within our varied children's ministries. My immediate response was, as it often is, to shut down and counter with the oft uttered phrase, "That's not my calling". But, as I reviewed some of what he said later, and in talking with my wife... I was convicted of my attitude. First, I apparently believe I am so special, or so important that I can't be trifled with the needs of the children? Really? Second, I believe that there is something that God is working on building through our church, some kind of new ministry that I am going to be called to be a part of... I have no idea what it is, but I've been feeling it for a couple of years now. First Baptist Church is an amazingly exciting body of believers and many of us in attendance have voiced a feeling that God has been prepping us for something amazing. So, I think my attitude often extends from not wanting to give myself to some other cause or service because I don't want to miss whatever this new thing might be... because I apparently don't trust God to take care of me. And then, Derek said something that shattered my view of service (not because it was something new, I have read and done more than one study that puts out the same point) it was something like this, "You will never be ready to serve where God calls you, if you are unwilling to serve where He needs you." Its not even about the actual service... I was not even willing to consider the need. God has been continually working on my willingness to follow Him. It started with deciding to go to dayshift, it continues with actively seeking a shift in jobs to allow more freedom for service, it includes a point where I finally had to tell God that I would move wherever He needs me to go if thats what He says to do. Conviction #1- be willing to serve wherever I am needed,in order to be ready to serve wherever I am called. 2) I am in a class with men, we are married men, and we have diverse and sorted pasts that give us an opportunity to support one another and build each other up in so many ways. I don't appreciate the individuals of this group enough, I often get lost in just appreciating them as a whole, but not as each man. I am thankful that as I have problems in my marriage, there is a man, who is my peer, that I can talk to... and chances are has had the same issue. Anytime I have shared about the ways I have managed to nearly wreck my own marriage, at least one other man in that group has said to me, Hey, I've been there, let me pray for you, if you need to talk, let me know, etc, so on and so forth... If you are reading this, and you are a man, find a group of men that can give you this... come check ours out if you'd like. Conviction #2- I need to appreciate the men that have been placed in my life and realize that I can learn so much from each of them, if only I would shut my trap and listen sometimes. As a somewhat random side note to end this little blurb, I strongly recommend Subversive Kingdom by Ed Stetzer... whether you have read Stetzer before or not, it is an amazing look at what the Kingdom is, what it will be, and what our role in it is. If we as believers, and by extension, the church, would live as the Bible commands (and Stetzer manages to make easily readable and understandable) our world would be radically changed. I think thats all for now... I really do hope that at some point, I will be able to post much more frequently