Mike's Thoughts - December 29, 2008
I found this article interesting... please read it and then read my thoughts.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/tc/2008/001/3.12.html
Being in fulltime ministry, I have given these same tried and true answers to thousands... Sometimes God does indeed show up, He does provide, support, encourage... but what about the "others" in Hebrews 11?
Having been an "other" for more than 7 years now, I cannot help but see how too often we try to give pat answers for difficult questions. Our entire ministry is built upon Christ, and Him alone. We minister almost exclusively to frustrated, & defeated Christians all over the world, for whom Christianity as we know it simply does not work. For many, God does not seem to show up, He does not seem to provide, support, and encourage. What then?
Inevitably this brings around the usual questions about a persons faith, sin, and personal standing with God. It may even lead to questioning that individuals salvation. "Consider my servant Job..." Ah yes, we might even end up going there. We share how God is doing things we don't understand to accomplish things we cannot see. While all of this may be true, I still ask, where does it leave us? And I can tell you, not only because I have seen it in others, but also in myself. It ends up leaving the struggling believer bleeding on the floor, in an even worse mess. They were depressed before, but now they are suicidal.
Why are we so afraid to tell people simply that we do not know? We do not know why God seems to abandon some, and seemingly bless others.
Lets face it, sometimes God does not come through. What then?
Is it not our calling to encourage one another to love and good works? Is it not our calling to encourage the depth of the persons faith who loses everything and still believes? Can we not simply be willing to admit to people and to ourselves that many times God simply does not make sense? Okay, I'll grant you that SOMETIMES, we go there. But that still misses the mark! Isn't it just astounding that we still keep believing in spite of it all?
I personally have never FELT more abandoned by God than I do today. I see Him do in others what He will not do for me. The words that were hurled at Jesus, the enemy continually hurls at me... "He can save others, but he cannot save Himself." I have seen God to more amazing things in others than most people could ever dream of in a lifetime... but where is God in my own personal situation?
We spent EVERYTHING we had and a lot we did not to pursue His call, believing in His faithfulness, and from our perspective He did not show up. I lost one of my closest friends to a freak virus when He was 25. My mother died of cancer at 56. It is a miracle at all that our marriage has survived. I have seen my children (now 14 and 18) agonize over the struggles and strain, deeply question their God, and their own faith. We lost our house to foreclosure. We have been nearly bankrupt 3 times, and currently have just come through one of the most difficult months financially in a long time. So where was this supposedly faithful God? I have seen myself seething with anger, bitterness, resentment, rebellion, sin... you name it.
Why does He continue to leave us on this insane merry-go-round month after month, year after year, for over 7 years... The level of pain and frustration continues to increase to the point that you either think you will have a stroke, a heart attack, or commit suicide. And we ask ourselves, "this is victorious living? This is Freedom for the Frustrated?"
I've found the answer and I hate it...
Here it is: I don't know.
Do I want to know? YES! Do I get sick of this insanity? Absolutely. Am I angry with God? Couldn't be more so. Would I have it another way... my emotions scream YES. I want out... I want a different life. I want to become a car salesman, or something else... anything else. Let this cup pass from me. I'd do anything to kill this pain. And yet, when it comes to the choices we make day after day, week after week, year after year, there is something that keeps me going.., keeps me from giving up. It is something that is so far beyond me... something that only God can be doing. He is giving us the faith to continue on.
Everything is going according to plan. I just don't know the plan. In the end, we'll look back and see how ONLY God could get the credit (glory). In the end we will look back and say He is genius, the plan is genius. We forget that the will of God includes suffering. Sometimes it is okay to hurt with people, assure them that their feelings are natural, normal, and to be expected. It's even better when we can say... not that we have been there... that we too ARE there. And its okay to encourage them to tell God, "This Stinks." (it's called casting our anxieties on Him.)
Jesus does not offer us freedom FROM our frustration. He offers us freedom even in the MIDST of our frustration. In other words, it's not about getting comfortable, but learning how to live WITH the frustration, to take up our cross and follow. Let's not forget that. The point of praying, trusting, and believing is NOT to receive from God. The point of praying, trusting and believing is that we learn more fully how to pray, trust, and believe.
While he lived on earth, anticipating death, Jesus cried out in pain and wept in sorrow as he offered up priestly prayers to God. Because he honored God, God answered him. Though he was God's Son, he learned trusting-obedience by what he suffered, just as we do. (Hebrews 5:7-8 MSG)
Earlier I asked, isn't it just astounding that we still keep believing in spite of it all? That kind of faith can only be authored by God, That kind of faith can only be perfected by God. Blessed are you when you do NOT see and still believe. Where is the real wealth, the real provision, the real support, and the real encouragement? Is it not in the faith that He gives as we endure things that we cannot endure and cannot understand? Is it not okay to say, "I don't know..."
Shalom, friends,
Mike
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Mike Rule
Living Covenant Ministries International
6240 W Main Street - Suite 5
P.O. Box 188 Cass City, MI 48726
989-872-8525
In the US - toll free 1-800-965-LCMI
http://livingcovenant.com
LCMI - Freedom for the Frustrated!
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Hey Mike,
ReplyDeleteGood to see you Bro!
I enjoyed what you had to share on Dave Aldrich's blog this morning, he and I are great friends and are in touch almost daily.
Mike my wife and I have travelled a very similar road as you. It was in the thick of the hellishness that He unveiled to me-us the "treasures of darkness" it was right in this nightmare season we went through in LOOSING EVERYTHING, that He met us in a way that today continues to flood our lives and spill over.
Bro, I hope you can hear my heart in asking this question, not an inquistion, why do you see it needed or even necessary to be anyone other than just MIKE, and Whom you belong to??
Is He the Father of our/your spirit, not able to reach-touch-impact-those He brings into your life apart from being the 'founder' of anything??
After finally reaching what I whole heartedly sought, the "calling" upon my life, THE MINISTRY, and after Father lovingly pulled the rug out from under me, burying us alive, only through going through such indiscribiable pain, torture, did I begin to see that all the time-decades I sspent in pursuing Him, what I was looking FOR, I already had in Him!
Isn't it the same 4 us all, in that apart from continued revelation of the I AM in us as us, we will strive to try to get into whatever only to discover, we're already IN?
I want to say I have been encouraged down through the years in reading different things you and your wife have shared, but it was the Father doing this not through someone who had anything other than Jesus as his life!
I love what my wife lovingly says to me from time to time..Richar, the ONLY thing you have going for you is JESUS...why do we need anything else??
Brother,
ReplyDeleteI do hear your heart, and understand your concerns and questions. Will you hear mine as I respond???? Your comments left me a little bewildered and baffled at first. Then I remembered and re-read the About Me description I put in my blog.
Then I understood where the judgement came from that I
"see it needed or even necessary to be anyone other than just MIKE, and Whom you belong to?? Is He the Father of our/your spirit, not able to reach-touch-impact-those He brings into your life apart from being the 'founder' of anything??"
What I wrote about myself in the About Me section of the blog was not about validating what I do. If I wanted to validate myself I would start quoting statistics about what Christ has done through me... I would share numbers and facts of what He has done through LCMI - abd believe me those numbers are not insignificant. But, quite frankily I couldn't care less about any of that.
What I wrote has nothing to do with how I identify myself to myself or to anyone else. I was just being EXACTLY what you asked me to be -I was just being Mike. See, being me means I don't have to think about me much at all, or worry about how people perceive me; either those in Christ, or those outside of Christ. I'm just me. I didn't spend much time trying to make a statement about what I wanted to say or not say, how I wanted to be perceived or not perceived. In fact, I wasn't really thinking all that much about me at all when I wrote it. I just wrote what came to mind and let the chips fall where they did. In fact, that is the way I do most of my writing.
If it came across as though I was trying to prove something about me, or what I do, i apologize, because that was not my intention.
Shalom,
Mike
Mike,
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for being able to decipher my wording.
I guess what has unfolded within my life after having spent a lengthy time of my life in pursuing what I perceived "being called" was that in discovering that there was NO need 4 me at least for any ministry apart from Him in me as me, make any sense??
I know I am not defined by labels, but I have a very hard time discerning why when a person KNOWS it is Christ as their ONLY Life, that they still continue to to be known through exterior badges-buttons-callings-anointing what have ya??!
Is he NOT enough, Bro, again, Please hear my heart, and yes I am wanting to see/know/hear yours as well..we live in a world of the blind, labels mean everything to the blind..it is the only safe-clear way of demarcation to "know right from wrong," but have we not in Christ lost ALL ethnicity and all of that which kept us from truly knowing Who's we were-R??
By the way, I loved what you shared on my blog, thank you so much, I would love to connect with you sometime via Yahoo Messenger if and when you have time.
I wonder if you hear more of my story you might better see/understand wher i am coming from in all I have and am trying to convey? :)
Words/labels are synonymous with things in the minds of most that have NO relevance to truth at all, "church-Pastor-truth-faith-Rev.-director etc."
Bottom line, I love your heart 4 Him, and that IS a given!!
Rich,
ReplyDeleteYou unknowingly hit on the reason I often use such labels...
"we live in a world of the blind, labels mean everything to the blind..it is the only safe-clear way of demarcation to "know right from wrong,"
I use the labels to meet others where they are at... not for self identification. This is one way of being in the world but not of it for me. It is also part of the freedom... to meet people where they are at in a way they can understand. There was a time when I refused to acknowledge any labels, titles, etc. The Lord really confronted me on that.
It's kinda like what I have seen since I started teaching and training internationally. People were much more willing to listen to the message when they knew I had "been there." There is something about having taught and trained in a foreign country that changes how seriously people take what you have to say. At first I hated that... but then I came to embrace it. I realized how God wanted to use it to open doors that would otherwise be closed to me.
I don't use yahoo much anymore, but I'll see about getting back onto it. I had two accounts but i have not been on them in some time.
BTW, I will be teaching in Canada this spring. I believe it is March...
http://www.livingcovenant.com/Itineraries/2009Itinerary.htm
Thanks for the dialog. -- I am enjoying it very much.
Shalom
Mike
Mike,
ReplyDeleteThanks Bro, this helped me tremendously, how you broke this down, I'm beginning to SEE! :)
Rich