J. Kevin Butcher's Blog

Regularly folks ask me, “Everything good?” and regularly I answer, “Everything?  Big word.”  I know they usually aren’t speaking literally…but I am.  I don’t expect “everything” to be good until the King comes with His Kingdom and “with righteousness judges the poor and decides with equity for the meek of the earth…and with the breath of His lips He slays the wicked…and the wolf shall dwell with the lamb…and the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord…”  [Isaiah 11:1-9]  In the meanwhile, we’ve got war and we’ve got mess.  Is there any joy?  Is “anything” going right enough that we can say “it is good”?  Of course!  God is constantly giving us good and perfect gifts [like our families and friends and daily bread and the Tigers in first place]…and constantly answering prayer [like for forgiveness and strength and wisdom and safety]…and constantly giving victory in various battles – so Paul can realistically call us to “Rejoice always.  Again, I’m telling you ‘REJOICE’!”  [Philippians 4:3]

But the tenor of our lives here, on this side of eternity, still seems to be that of a sojourner that is always traveling, never home…a warrior that faces constant onslaught from an enemy that wants to kill us and never sleeps…a redeemed human being whose body is the temple of God but who nevertheless many days feels trapped in a tomb of rotting flesh as we fight illness and self and sin…a son or daughter that knows they are loved by a Heavenly Father but longs to be held ever closer – even physically touched and hugged and kissed – and LONGS to hear His voice more loudly and clearly calling us His Beloved.

It ain’t no joke.  And it is incredibly intense.

So, how do we survive?  In fact, how do we overcome?  Of course – the truth and the promise that we can never be separated from the love of our God in Jesus Christ our Lord.  [Romans 8:31-38]  Of course.  But in terms of flesh and bones and touch and words spoken to our face – how do we survive?  How do we overcome?  Eugene Peterson paraphrases Paul:

“The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church: every part dependent on every other part, the parts we mention and the parts we don’t, the parts we see and the parts we don’t. If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing. If one part flourishes, every other part enters into the exuberance.  You are Christ’s body—that’s who you are! You must never forget this.”

I think we tend to take Paul’s words as optional.  Like, “Ain’t Paul cute?  Ain’t that a nice little picture of how the community of Jesus’ followers might function if they ever get around to it?”  But I think he is dead serious.  He’s not talking fluff.  He’s trying to tell us how to be a “band of brothers and sisters” who have each other’s back in the battle until the last shot is fired.  I think he’s saying  – “If you follow Jesus, do your part to be present to your warrior brothers and sisters around you – because if you don’t – THE INTENSITY WILL CRUSH THEM.  But if we each reach out and do our thing with those we see who need us – everyone survives, everyone flourishes…the entire body of Christ wins.  So, know this:  everyone is needed.  Everyone counts.  Everyone’s gift, everyone’s personality, everyone’s touch.  EVERYONE, GET IN THE GAME!!  We cannot survive, we cannot overcome…without you.”

Last night at the end of our men’s group, we decided to pick one of the brothers and speak words of affirmation to him.  It was amazing to watch this man’s face and heart light up and grow and even heal right in front of us, in my living room…simply because some brothers spoke some affirming truth about his character, his heart, his love, his journey, his growth as a follower of Jesus and as a man.  As he walked out the door last night, the affirmed brother said to me, “I didn’t know that kind of thing, that kind of feeling, that kind of encouragement existed.  It was my first time.  Thanks.”

It is incredibly intense out there.  Ask the Father to show you, today, who might need YOU.  And get about whatever He calls you to do, with them, for them in Jesus’ name.

I got an email from my brother the other day.  He talked about his church – a fairly large church, maybe a couple thousand? in Greenwood, Indiana – and there was one phrase which caught my attention and actually hit me right in the gut.  He said, “…and it seems like folks are giving their lives to Christ every week.”  My first reaction – awesome!  My second reaction – “Are folks giving their lives to Christ every week at Hope, where I shepherd and where all I really want is for folks to give their lives to Christ?”

I get it about not comparing.  When Peter asked Jesus about John’s journey, Jesus replied, “What is that to you?  Follow Me.”

I get it about different “mission” fields being, well…different.  Back in the day I remember being stunned when a missionary couple spoke of sharing Jesus for several decades amongst an ancient people group and something like only eleven people believed in thirty years.

I get it about the ways different groups quantify people who believe.  For example, in a system where folks raise their hands, walk an aisle or sign a card, it is easier to “tell” who is “apparently” giving their life to Christ.

I even get it about not keeping score at all.  Didn’t David get in trouble a few thousand years ago for taking a census with a bit of a prideful spirit?

Nevertheless, my brother’s words caused me pause.  “I am the resurrection and the life”, Jesus said.  “In Him was life and His life was the light of all men”, His followers taught.  If they told the truth, there is no life, no hope, and no future outside of Him.  Our mission is to get Him to people – all people, every kind of people, every individual person in every conceivable situation – they must hear about Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ.  They must have opportunity to believe in Him, to fall in love with Him, and to learn to walk with Him.  And even though we hear reports of Jesus appearing to Muslims in dreams deep in the Middle East, the main way folks hear about Jesus is through us who already know Him and love Him and are loved by Him.

The parable of the soils comes to mind.  Jesus teaches us to sow the seed.  He says that the seed sown on good ground will take root and bear fruit.  It seems our focus is to be on sowing, sowing, and sowing some more…not on monitoring the condition of the ground or analyzing which seed takes root and grows and which seed doesn’t.   But that could be a copout.  I’m not sure.

What I do know this morning is that I desperately want to get Jesus into more lives.  I’m not always sure how to get that done.  Please help me, Father.  Please.

After all these years of following Jesus Christ, I realize that a fundamental issue I continue to wrestle with is “the self”.  The self is simply the package of one’s personality, gifts, desires, hopes, fears, idiosyncrasies, talents and dreams.  In other words, the self is the person.  So, the question is, “What do I do with my own person?  What do I do with myself?”

I tried to live for years without having a self.   I wasn’t sure who I really was.  I tended to let others define me – my mom and dad, my friends, the school, the coach, the team, the youth pastor, the church.  I tried to be what all of them thought I should be.  That didn’t work for obvious reasons.  It is false.  And no one can live deeply or richly or meaningfully if living out of a false reality.  On the one hand, we “people please” – so we become like pinballs in pinball machines – always reacting…never truly acting freely out of who we really are.  On the other hand, the vacuum created by having “no self” causes us to look for any and every way to fill up the emptiness and usually drives us toward a variety of addictions and “quick fix” ways of dealing with the pain.  Some get into sex, drugs and rock and roll…for me, I simply became a driven overachiever…had to achieve athletically, had to get the best grades, had to be the star of the spiritual show, etc.  The result was bondage – there was no peace and no freedom that only comes from being one’s true self.

Then there was a period where I began to “know myself” – what I thought was my true self – and I realized I hated myself.  Feelings of self-loathing and self-rejection caused the same wandering, miserable response – how to fill the vacuum, how to take away the pain, how to stop the voices that said, “You – your self – will never amount to anything.  Give up.  You’re a loser.  That’s all.”

Finally, in the mid-90’s, I cried out to God and asked Him to show me who I really was, who He created me to be…my true self…and to let me know that He, personally, loved that true self – unconditionally and forever.  And He answered that prayer.  Slowly but surely I began to know who I was and accept who I was and began to believe I had a Heavenly Father who not only created me but loved and valued me as His precious son.  It was the greatest freedom I had ever experienced and that realization of the love of the Father for me – my self – is to this very day, the foundation of my entire life.

But the enemy is slick and what begins to happen is that the once “non-existent and/or despised self” – now known and beloved by God – slowly begins to become the center, to dominate, to shout orders and to dictate plans and values and direction – INDEPENDENT of the God who created that self.  I think this is what Jesus addresses when He says, “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow Me.” [Mark 8:34]  In Luke, He says it like this:  “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes and his own life [self] also, he cannot be my disciple.” [Luke 14:26]  Jesus is saying, “Of course you need a self.  God created your self.  And of course you are called to love your self with a proper self-love.  But self cannot run the show.  Self must know when to bow the knee and take instruction.  Self must realize it is not Lord, that it is created to serve and be available to the One, true Master – Jesus of Nazareth.  Only then can one’s self be free, be at peace and be unleashed to give and receive true life.”

Thanks, Jesus.  Now – I beg you to help me submit my true, beloved self to You in every area of my life.  Use me – my true self – for your purposes, no matter where and no matter what.  It is a battle, Lord.  I think it is the core battle of my life.  It seems like the enemy comes up with a new angle, a new strategy to draw my self into rebellion every damn day.  Some days I’m so confused I don’t even see it.  Some days I see it and don’t care – I choose the misery of self-focus and self-worship over the freedom of submitting self to your Lordship.  I need you.  Help me, please, for your sake, and for your Kingom’s sake, amen.

After teaching on forgiveness on Sunday morning, one of the brothers approached me with a deep and sincere question.  In essence, he asked about David’s life after God’s forgiveness of his sin with Bathsheba [adultery] and her husband Uriah [murder].  In II Samuel 12:13-14, Nathan the prophet tells David that “The Lord has put away your sin” but “the child who is born to you shall surely die.”  So, the brother asked me, “If forgiveness is about God’s grace and it is full and free…why the loss of the child and by the way, if David’s fellowship with God was completely restored, why is there so much drama and struggle in David’s family – Absalom, Amon, Tamar, etc. – for the rest of his days?  How does all this apparent and seeming ‘penalty’ wash with the message of gracious forgiveness?”

Good questions.  Three terms come to mind that call for further explanation.

Consequences – are the natural result and outgrowth of our sin.  The Scripture is clear – “sin always leads to death [Romans 6:23].”  Even for those who believe in Jesus Christ and are guaranteed they will never, ever experience eternal death [John 5:24], there are other kinds of death that can and will follow our sin in this life.  Sometimes it is relational death.  [This may be where David’s long-term family drama fits in.]  Sometimes it is emotional death.  Sometimes it can even be physical death [cf. I John 5:16].  Sometimes the death is clearly seen and felt.  If I drive drunk and get in a bad wreck and permanent injury results, there are clear emotional and physical consequences that I may live with, even for the rest of my life.  Sometimes the death is imperceptible.  If I sin with my anger, adrenaline is secreted which in the long run can damage vital organs in my body.  I may not feel it or know it at the time, but a small piece of me has died in that angry outburst.  These consequences are not a way for God to punish us.  They are simply the natural result of evil.  Evil tends to reap rotten fruit.  It kills.  Does God sometimes graciously deliver us even from the natural consequences of sin?  Sure.  He might.  But in a real, fallen world where He values our ability to choose freely – He often allows the consequences to take their natural course – even when we are fully forgiven and fully restored to fellowship with Him.

Discipline – is God’s chastening hand on His sons and daughters whom He loves.  The author of Hebrews makes the point in 12:7:  “What son or daughter is there whom a good father does not chasten?”  In Psalm 32:4, David says to the Lord, “In my sin, Your hand was heavy upon me…” and in 51:8, he goes on to say, “May the bones you have broken begin to rejoice again…”.  This is God’s discipline.  It is always handed out in love.  It is always “for our profit” [Hebrews 12:10] and often intended to teach us, deepen us and even to bring us to a point of recognizing, confessing and repenting of our sin.  God’s discipline is often “not pleasant, but painful” [Hebrews 12:11], but it is NEVER punitive and ALWAYS redemptive…if we allow it to be.  God’s discipline is often directly related to a particular sin He wants to teach us about.  AND He might bring this discipline to us even when we are forgiven and fully restored to fellowship.  [cf. II Samuel 12:14]  But sometimes God’s discipline isn’t even about our sin.  We can be living in full fellowship with God and still need His discipline.  Like athletes, God’s sons and daughters need to be in shape, fit for battle – so sometimes God brings discipline into our lives simply to harden our muscles, sharpen our minds and deepen our spirits so we are more effective as followers of His Son, Jesus in the great war to bring God’s kingdom to this earth.

Punishment – is the penalty demanded of sin in a just universe.  When evil is swept under the rug and ignored – that is not justice.  Justice calls for punishment.  The clear message of the New Testament is that in some cosmic, mysterious way, Jesus of Nazareth took our punishment on the Roman cross on which He died 2,000 years ago.  John says, “For He is the propitiation for our sin, and not for ours only but for the sins of the whole world.” [I John 2:2]  The term “propitiation” means sacrifice – specifically a sacrifice intended to satisfy the just anger and wrath of a holy God against sin and evil.  Paul says, “God made Him [Jesus] who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” [II Corinthians 5:21]  There is much mystery in these ancient texts, but the sense seems to be that Jesus took the just penalty for our sins – all sin, the sin of everyone who has ever lived – so now the opposite of justice and its penalty – MERCY – is available to all who are willing to receive it.  In forgiveness, we don’t receive punishment – because Jesus took our punishment.  We receive not what we deserve – but the opposite of what we deserve – MERCY. 

Hope this helps.  And to all who read this blog, thanks for your patience the last month as Carla and I have been all about welcoming a granddaughter into this world!!

Since our oldest, Andrea, is due tomorrow with our first grandchild…all I can think about is being a grandfather.  First, I’m realizing one more time how little control I have over so much.  When the baby comes, tomorrow or next Tuesday [the last day they will let Andrea go without inducing labor]…whether the delivery is smooth or tough or natural or by C-section…how healthy our little granddaughter is and will be…and of course I could go on and on.  I remember 28 years ago when we first brought Andrea home from the hospital and the first night when I had to make a decision to go to bed and let God take care of our little girl all…night…long.  And how many times over the years I would get up in the middle of the night and go in and put my hand on Andrea’s back just to see if she was breathing…and how hard it was to let her go off to kindergarten all by herself, or so it seemed.  All these memories of the insecurities of parenting are coming back to me as I anticipate my granddaughter’s birth…so I am praying all day, all the time for God’s mercy and grace on her life.  I don’t have much control.  He has all control.  And I know that He is good and I know that He loves her and so I am committing her to His care in these last hours that she spends in the secure home of her momma’s womb.

And then I’m also thinking about how much I want to be an influence in her life.  I’m remembering my maternal grandmother and how she was the most influential adult in my world until she died of cancer when I was 9.  She gave me unconditional love.  She acted like she liked me.  She spent uninterrupted time with me working puzzles and playing the piano.  She gave me my first cup of coffee when I was five.  She never made me eat my vegetables because I hated them.  She took me to church and let me lay my head on her lap and she scratched my back and rubbed my head while the preacher was preaching and it made me feel so warm and loved and secure.  And she modeled for me what it meant to follow Jesus.  I watched her take people of all shapes and sizes into her home.  She went to a church on Sunday afternoon where the preacher was black and the congregation was all different colors and from all different economic backgrounds – and this was during the last years of Jim Crow.  She was all about being together with everyone in Jesus’ name and loving everyone sacrificially in Jesus’ name because she was all about Jesus.  And I’m convinced that much of who I am today in His name was birthed in me because of what my grandmother Lela gave me when we were together…and she didn’t even live close.  But when we were together – her loving presence was powerful in my life and shaped me for the Kingdom of God.

Father, help me be that same kind of grandparent – a grandfather that somehow loves his granddaughter so deeply, so completely, so sacrificially…that she receives something of Your King Son from me and through our relationship is equipped to be your Kingdom servant…all the days of her life.

2,000 years ago, Jesus said:  “When you are invited to a wedding feast…go and sit down in the lowest place…for whoever exalts himself will be humbled and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

 Then, 10 years ago, after a particularly humbling experience that devastated me, I went on retreat in Colorado and for one of only two times in my life, I felt like I heard…almost literally…God speak to me on the top of a mountain and this is what He said:  “Go lower son, and I will be with you there.”

It was as if the Father simply repeated to me – in my personal experience – what Jesus had already spoken as a timeless kingdom truth…that God hangs out with, gives life to and ultimately blesses those who choose to take the last spot in the line.

It was like He said, “Hey, don’t worry about the people, the experiences, the mess, the ulterior motives, the traps, the pecking order, the ladder climbing, the back-stabbing…all the stuff in this world that brings you low…because it is in that low place that you will find Me…and it is in that low place where I can most effectively use you.” 

Ironic, eh…Jesus Himself went low.  To a Roman cross.  And three days later, he was exalted.

I’m really wrestling today with why it seems so hard…so agonizingly difficult…to keep going lower?

In January of 1976, a college freshman lying in her bunk in a girls’ dorm asked her Heavenly Father to give her a friend.  In high school she was a popular kid and had a boatload of really close friends but things change and less than a year later she was lonely, feeling disconnected and longing for deeper intimacy.  So on that lazy Sunday afternoon, she asked her God to bring her a friend, maybe a truer friend, a deeper friend than she’d ever had before.

On that same Sunday afternoon, a college senior felt that same loneliness and found himself thinking about a girl he had met a few months back in October of the previous year.  He picked up the phone and dialed the girls’ dorm where there was only one phone on each floor and the phone rang and rang and rang because sometimes, especially on Sunday afternoons, girls were studying or sleeping or out and the few who were left in their rooms didn’t want to be bothered.  But finally someone picked up the phone and went and fetched the girl lying on her bunk – the one asking God for a friend.  And when she got to the phone, the college senior asked the college freshman if she’d like to come to his apartment that evening and watch a movie – it was supposed to be a good one with Robert Redford playing a mountain man named Jeremiah Johnson.  The freshman girl said yes.  And the senior guy was happy – but he had absolutely no idea how life-changing that one moment of “yes” was going to become and how he would discover over the next 35 years that though it was the freshman girl who was praying that Sunday afternoon for a friend…his heart longed equally for someone to love him and for someone to love.

35 years later, there isn’t a day that passes without me thanking God for giving me a friend like Carla.  I really don’t have any understanding of why she loves me like she does.  I’m not saying I’m a bad guy.  Actually I’m a good guy and I know I have gifts and attractive qualities and all of that but you’ve got to understand that alongside the gifts are shopping carts full of baggage – some of which don’t ever seem to go away – and Carla loves me and keeps on loving me and seems to feel drawn to me and have compassion and deep understanding for me in even my most vulnerable, unattractive moments.  It’s as if God has given her a special capacity, a special ability to love me the way He would love me if He was on the earth.  And I love her just the same.  I love her so much I don’t really have words.  The Gospel of John says, “There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother” and I know the text is talking about Jesus but to me those words really describe my friend Carla. And what’s really interesting is that we can still fight like a couple of mangy cats and dogs and can make each other so angry that we grit our teeth and our eyes glaze over but underneath our occasional “me first” mess…there is a deep, rock-solid love that has been forged over 35 challenging but incredibly fulfilling years.  Carla is my friend.  My true friend.  My best friend.  The greatest gift in my life.

Paul says this really stupid thing in II Corinthians 12:9.  I’ll tell you why I think it’s stupid in a minute.  In any case, apparently there was something in Paul’s life that was really messing him up – not a hangnail – but something big, daunting, debilitating, painful, depressing even.  I know this “thing” – whatever it is – is big because he calls it a “messenger of Satan” and it is beating the crap out of him to the point that he “begs” the Lord Jesus three times to take it away.  Paul wasn’t a sissy.  [If you don’t believe me, check out the list in II Corinthians 11 of all the stuff he endured for Christ without a whimper.]  He even calls this particular wound a “thorn” in his flesh – a term that could refer to a splinter in a finger but also was used back in the day for the sharpened stake on which you might impale your enemy.

So, Paul is bleeding out and begging the Lord for mercy and he quotes the Lord [Jesus?  Must be – the words are in red] as basically saying “no” because “my grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.”  Now really, that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.  These terms – strength and weakness – are antonyms, totally opposite in meaning.  To say that somehow I can be strong when I am weak is as stupid as saying I can go up by going down.  Or if I am poor I am rich.  Or if I am last I am first.  Or if I die…I truly live.  Ridiculous.  Nonsense.  Stupidity.

At least it’s stupid in terms of what I know of the greatest powers and kingdoms and rules of this world.  As a citizen of THIS world, you don’t get strong IN your weakness…you work like hell to come out of your weakness, to leave your weakness behind so that you can get strong.  That’s just the way it is.  You are either strong…or getting strong…or your weakness is called out and you’re voted off the island.

But that’s the interesting thing about the Kingdom Jesus came to show us and to announce – the Kingdom of His God:  in that Kingdom, everything is upside down.  In God’s Kingdom, somehow the poor tend to have a deep richness about them and those at the bottom of the food-chain tend to be elevated if they wait patiently and dead bodies come back to life after three days.  In that Kingdom the first really are last and the last really are first.  And…and…in THAT Kingdom, the promise is that if we offer our weakness to the Father, if we lay it down before Him…He will come to us and around us and be in us and through us with His great, unexplainable strength.  Paul says it this way, “I will boast in my weakness in order that the power of Christ may rest on me.”  In the Father’s Kingdom, our weakness really can be made…strong.

I think that one of the reasons I don’t see more of God’s strength working in and through my weakness is that I want a weakness that really isn’t all that weak.  I want a weakness that is only “kinda weak” or that I can subtly control or manipulate or choose to override once in a while.  I really can’t stand the thought of a “flat on my back, can’t do jack, have no power in and of myself, totally dependent” weakness…the kind of weakness that Paul apparently had, the kind of weakness that literally forced him to let go.  I don’t want the kind of weakness that requires me to relinquish all control and trust and sit and wait for the Father to come and do something strong in and through my weakness…or not.

But oh my Father, if that is the only pathway to true strength…

Last night, at my guy’s bible study, I took a risk and revealed my weakness.  I was scared to death.  I’m the pastor.  I’m the man.  I’m the leader.  I’m 25 years older than these young men.  They depend on me.  They need me to be and to stay better, bigger, stronger.  But somehow, as I shared my lack of strength – my young men, listening to my weakness…seemed to gain strength.  As I released my weakness into the body of Christ, the room around me didn’t collapse but instead grew bold and strong.  And this morning, my weakness – my tiredness, weariness, frustration – is still my weakness.  But amazingly, deep in my spirit, in my weakness, I feel strength.

Lately, flakey people have been driving me nuts.  I’m not talking about strugglers.  We all struggle.  I’m not talking about people in pain.  We all have pain and are called to have compassion for others who are hurting.  I’m not even talking about those who occasionally get distracted in life and “pull off to the side of the road” once in a while in their momentary confusion.  We all do that as well.

I’m talking about people who ought to know better that bounce from thing to thing, relationship to relationship, church to church, job to job, cause to cause…always seemingly looking for an “elusive something” to hold their attention for more than a hot second.  These folks make promises and don’t keep them.  They often talk a lot but there’s not much substance or action behind their words.  Many flakes try to be about everything so they are ultimately about nothing.  You can’t count on them because they’re not dependable.  To flakes, purpose is not very important and circumstances and the whim of the moment are all important.  They don’t tend to stay with anything or anybody for very long.  And boy do they love a thrill – in fact, flakes are addicted to the thrill of the moment, to emotional highs, to the “feeling” that they are at the happenin’ place at just the right time.  And maybe, at the most foundational level, flakes are simply all about self.  It is difficult for them to understand how their flightiness or “pinball in a pinball machine” response to life impacts those around them who are trying to love them, live in community with them, make sense of life alongside them and together trying to make a difference for the Kingdom of God.

And I guess that’s the bottom line for me – how can a follower of Jesus, someone who says they are about the Kingdom of God – be a flake?  Struggler, sinner, wounded healer…of course.  Flake?  Hell, no!  Jesus was purposeful in His love for us, for the world, for His enemies, for me.  He set His eyes on His Father’s will, on the cross of forgiveness and let nothing and no one distract Him.  He knew what He believed in, knew what He valued and dared the gates of hell to try to knock Him off His game, His purpose, His destiny…of rescuing and redeeming you and me and ultimately the universe from the powers of darkness.  Where would we be if Jesus of Nazareth had been a flake?

I’m starting to believe that the main reason the Kingdom of God isn’t winning more decisively today in America is that too many of us who claim to follow Jesus…are flakes.

Don’t be a flake.  Decide what and who you are about and get about it.  If it is the Kingdom of God and loving people, get on it and stay on it, in Jesus’ name and for His sake and with His power and strength.  If not – then stop trying to play both sides and doing the flakey “hop around, churchy, thrill-seeking, where’s the best sermon and the best band and the best whatever” thing – and just be honest about the fact that you are about yourself and circumstances and emotion control your life and you can’t be counted on.  If you’re going to be a flake – then at least do us all the favor of one non-flakey act:  call yourself out as a flake and stop trying to act like you are a follower of Jesus because you’re not.

Luke 10:2 is curious to me.

“Jesus said to them, ‘The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few; therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into the harvest.’”

It’s pretty clear that in some unexplainable way, God has chosen to “partner” with us to bring human beings home to Himself. This concept is mind-boggling. The God who created a universe 90 billion miles in diameter by the word of His power…needs partners? Are you kidding me? To be honest, I guess Jesus doesn’t really say God “needs” partners – but simply has resolutely chosen to use partners. In fact, Jesus’ statement has a passion and urgency that implies if we refuse to partner with God – the harvest won’t happen.

And obviously, in Jesus’ mind, one of the ways we partner with God in this “human harvest” is through prayer. He doesn’t say one philosophical or explanatory word on how this all works or even why God chooses to do it this way. He simply says, “There are so many people who are ready to come home to the Father and there aren’t enough of us to bring them home. So ask the Father for more co-workers to go get them, to harvest them, to gather them into the Father’s arms.”

It occurs to me this morning – and Philip Yancey’s book on Prayer has really been a big help to me thinking through this concept – that many [all?] of the calls to prayer in Scripture are a call to “partner” with the Father. Prayers for deliverance, prayers for healing, prayers for wisdom, prayers for forgiveness, prayers for victory, prayers for power…these prayers aren’t magic formulas or incantations or ways for us to manipulate God or control the work of the Holy Spirit or “make something happen”. Then what are they? Could these prayers be our mysterious weapons of spiritual warfare, the main weapons our God has given us to use to “partner” with Him in bringing His Kingdom to earth?

Yancey quotes Eugene Peterson [translator of The Message] who says this about partnering with God through prayer: “I do not control the action; that is a pagan concept of prayer, putting the gods to work by my incantations or rituals. I am not controlled by the action; that is a Hindu concept of prayer in which I slump passively into the impersonal and fated will of gods and goddesses. I enter into the action begun by another, my creating and saving Lord, and find myself participating in the results of the action. I neither do it, nor have it done to me; I will to participate in what is willed.”

Wow.