towards leadership and culture

God is Not in Your Toolbox

God is not in your toolbox; he is not at your disposal.

He is not something for you to apply to a problem. That is not how it works. Some of us work hard in ministry and think that if we can find the best way to apply God then we will succede. This approach inverts the relationship between us and God. We are to be his hands and feet in ministry, not the other way around.

We are in God’s toolbox, we are at his disposal.

I came acros a great post by Mark Anderson on the Resurgence site. Mark writes about resisting temptation and uses a great clip. Young kids are put in a room with a marshmallow and told that if they dont eat it for 20min then they can get a second mallow. Easy enough? No. These little boys and girls are forced to sit and stare at this sweet treat and resist the urge to take a bite. Some succede while others fail. You have to check it out.

I think of my ability to resist temptation. Sometimes I succede and sometimes I fail. I noticed how some kids would stare at the marshmallow, some would touch it, smell it even nibble it! How are they going to resist eating the thing when they get so dangerously close! There it is. I do the same thing. How can I resist temptation? Stay far, far away. I am sure you are familiar with the words that Paul wrote to the early Christians in Corinth.

No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it. -1 Corinthians 10:13

We can resist because God is faithful. If marshmallows are your kryptonite then keep far away. In fact, I would recommend running in the opposite direction! Many of us need to pull a Joseph and run away from the sin that so easily entangles. How do you avoid temptation?

Back to the future?

How awesome was yesterday? Many of us consider the past better than the present… and you can forget about the future! Have you turned on the TV lately? The world is going to fall apart any day now. What’s that noise? Trumpets? I think I see a white horse poking its heads through yonder clouds (Bible Joke: Rev. 19:11)… You hear this talk in the church all the time. People begin sentences with remember when and they drift back to simpler times where flannel graphs and overhead projectors better communicated the love of Jesus.

Then there are those who throw out the past entirely. Grandma and Grandpa have nothing to offer because we have it all figured out. These people navigate with one reference point and can become easily lost. How can you possibly know where to go unless you know where you came from? These people also have a loud voice in the church and wont settle for anything less than the latest web 3.0

We read about this tension between the yesterday and tomorrow in the book of Ezra.

And all the people gave a great shout of praise to the LORD, because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid. But many of the older priests and Levites and family heads, who had seen the former temple, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid, while many others shouted for joy. No one could distinguish the sound of the shouts of joy from the sound of weeping, because the people made so much noise. And the sound was heard far away. -Ezra 3:11-13

What a mixed bag emotions! Some people are happy about laying a new foundation for the temple; the house of God was going to be rebuilt after many years. But the old timers could only weep aloud because of what used to be; they saw the lost glory of God’s house. Who is correct?

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