new season

On one hand my sabbatical is now over but on the other hand I am learning to remain in the Sabbath (learning to rest in God and to experience the rest of God).

My favorite book on the subject of rest is "The Rest of God" by Mark Buchanan.  If you have never read his stuff, you should.

In his book he describes the sabbath and the Jews this way,

"The most moving stories of the Jewish people keeping Sabbath are the ones when they kept it in the midst of crisis and terror.  They kept Sabbath under siege.  They kept it in famine.  They kept it in drought.  They kept it in Warsaw's ghettos and Hitler's death camps and Stalin's gulags. They kept Sabbath when the world was falling to pieces.
Their keeping it in their days of peace and abundance and freedom prepared them for keeping it in times of war and scarcity and captivity.  Their keeping it nurtured something deep and hidden in them that came to light only on the day of testing.  As the rabbis are fond of saying, more than Israel ever kept the Sabbath, the sabbath kept Israel."

Jesus said, Come to Me ... I will give you rest for your souls.  It is my prayer that I deepen my relationship with Christ and experience His rest and bear much fruit to the glory of God.

So, I am off tomorrow to Orlando for GCM's Ministry Team Development. This is for building my missionary support team -prayer, financial and coaching/training team.

be rooted and grounded in His love,

doug

celebrating irrelevancy

As I am closing in on the end of my sabbatical, I am musing on the theme of being irrelevant.  This has been one of the many internal battles that I am learning to wrestle with and embrace instead of dread.

The reason for this is simple:

I have nothing (1 Corinthians 4:7) ...

I can do nothing (John 15:5) ...

I am nothing (1 Corinthians 15:10) ... apart from Christ!

However, in Christ,

I have all things (1 Corinthians 3:22-23) ...

I can go through every circumstance (Philippians 4:13) ...

I am new (2 Corinthians 5:17).

We, humanity and I, tend to struggle between too low a self-esteem and a too high self esteem.  Both by the way are rooted in the same soil of pride.  It is in this soil we try to find something valuable in us, about us, around us, or through us to give us a sense of self-worth.

Christianity provides a new way of seeing.  It matters not what others think of me or even what I think of myself. There is a third way which only Christianity provides.  It is how God sees me, 1 Corinthians 4:4-5.  "It is only His opinion that counts." — Timothy Keller in The Freedom of Self Forgetfulness.

And what is God's opinion?  Here are two beginning points:  Romans 8:1, 31-39.

This is where freedom is.

Good night,

doug