To the Nations

I am sitting here at Schlotzkys in Midland just thinking about that wonderful pizza I just ate. Sorry Dennis, that I ate pizza again. I promise I eat other things. Promise. That’s going to be one of the things that I miss though.

I was reading this morning through 2 Corinthians and came across this fresh verse.

‘For the love of God controls us, because we have concluded this: that One has died for all, therefore all have died; and He died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for Him who for their sake died and was raised.’ 2 Corinthians 5:14-15

I have skipped over this verse too many times in my life, but this morning it stuck and resonated. So I read it again and again.

‘For the love of God controls us, because we have concluded this: that One has died for all, therefore all have died; and He died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for Him who for their sake died and was raised.’ 2 Corinthians 5:14-15

I think that this verse articulates well what God has done in my heart as of late. This is the only response to God changing your heart and showing His great love to you – no longer living for SELF but living for HIM who died and was raised for you. Any other response other than total surrender to living for Him reveals much about the heart’s condition. More or less, Paul is saying that because He lived and died to purchase us, we are compelled to live our lives for Him.

Cool. We’ve heard that. We’ve maybe even thought about what that would look like; LIVING FOR HIM. Some of us would even claim that banner over our lives. Some have never read that and allowed it to sink in. Even worse, some are not yet alive and cannot live for Him.

But this morning, that verse became the banner over my life. Because of what Jesus did and is doing in my life, I have no other choice but to live for Him. His love controls/compels me not to duty, but to obediently following Him wherever He leads me.

So far, He has lead me to Schlotzkys in Midland. But I am beginning to sense a new direction for my life, and it is not Midland, Texas. The thing is though, I don’t know where exactly He is leading me. All I know is that God is moving and I must follow Him. Think about Abraham.

‘By faith Abraham obeyed God when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with Him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. … These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. … But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared for them a city. … By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, ‘Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.’ He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.’ Hebrews 11:8-10,13,16-19

That cat had no clue where God was taking him, but still he trusted God. Talk about faith. But not even Abraham (in the Hall of Faith) could have imagined the plans that God had for him and the things that God would do through him. Abraham knew God and desired to follow Him no matter what, so he acted in faith and did follow him.

Faith is not seeing the future; Abraham surely did not see the future. Faith does not know the outcome. Faith does not make logical sense most of the time. Faith is a trust that God will be faithful to His Word and that He will be with you as you go.

So God is asking me to step out in faith; to live no longer for myself, but for Him who has purchased me with His blood. God is compelling me to go to the Nations with the Gospel.

Honestly, I go from scared to death to absolutely peaceful about it. I’ve worked out the details in my head a thousand times, but it’s a futile attempt, because already God is shifting. The only answer is to stick as close to Him as I can. Here’s some verses that I am clinging to.

‘Commit you way to the LORD; trust in Him, and He will act. … Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for Him. ... The steps of a man are established by the LORD, when he delights in His way; though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong, for the LORD upholds his hand.’ Psalm 37:5,7,23-24

So, soon I will be headed to be a name-bearer of Jesus Christ. Soon I will be preaching the gospel to the nations. Soon, I will be stepping out in faith to the ends of the earth. Soon.

The Missionary Call

I had one of those conversations with my dad this weekend that I will remember for a long time. A few weeks ago, I expressed some of the ways that God has been dealing with me recently and asked him to be praying for me. If you don’t know, I want to hold my career, job, life plans loosely in my hands, so that God can use me however He wants. My heart has been moved over the past few years to missions/ministry of some kind, but I am just not sure exactly what God is doing with that yet. So I asked my dad and others to be praying with me about it.

So Saturday dad pulled me outside to sit under the shade tree and talk African style. He shared with me his experience of being called to the ministry. 17 years old, plans to head to A&M and be an engineer, God definitively called Him to full-time ministry through a series of events, talking to his parents about it and them being a little uncertain about it, heading to Baylor instead, thinking that his ministry would be teaching Greek, but God called him ultimately to be a pastor and lead people to Jesus. He expressed many things, but a few things really stuck out to me:

It was a definitive call, but not specific necessarily. I have wrestled with the necessity for a specific ‘call’ and it helped to hear that God’s call in His life was definitive but not necessarily neatly lain out. God did not exactly say, ‘I call you to be a pastor in Seymour, Post, then Huntington for so many years…’ God called dad to Himself and to serve Him. I don’t know that I have had that one moment where I heard God call me, but it has been a growing ache in my heart over the past few years. As my view of God has gotten bigger and more correct, as I have seen the world more and more, as I have grown and been challenged in my faith God has put the desire within me to serve Him with my whole life, which is the way it should be. I do have a definitive call to serve God (and I believe that all regenerate believers do as well, but we won’t debate that here), but do not know what the specifics are, and that’s ok.

Parents not understanding. His parents, and others around him, did not necessarily understand what God was doing. They did not necessarily see that happening. They did not necessarily want that to happen, but dad knew that he must obey what God had told him. Thankfully, my grandparents trusted him and allowed him to follow God, even though they might have wanted different things for their son. My PaPa spoke some profound words at my dad’s 40^th birthday party. ‘Darryl could have done anything he wanted to do with his life, but he chose to be a pastor and love people instead.’ He may have been being a little sarcastic, but was emotional as well, because he saw how his son loved Jesus more than achieving great things with his life.

God revealed His will in time as dad was walking the call out in faith. God did not lay out exactly how it was supposed to happen to dad immediately, but instead wanted dad to trust that He was working it out for His purposes and dad’s good. That is the essence of walking by faith. God wanted dad to walk with Him no matter where he went and wanted to grow the relationship that God had begun years earlier.

After dad told me all of this he told me how he has been praying hard for me since our last conversation. Through his prayers, God had told dad that he needed to ‘let Byron go’. Dad said that it was not a quick obedience, because it is hard to let your son go. But dad told me, ‘We release you. We release you from feeling like you must achieve what you might think we want you to. We release you to go and follow God wherever he leads. We’ll still be here and will be with you, but we release you to do what you need to do. You are no longer bound to our wants and desires, but are free to follow God.’ Wow. Talk about being moved. What a freeing thing to know that my parents are for me, but also want more for me than just to satisfy them. They want me and have freed me to follow God, which is the greatest thing they could do for me.

Dad also just affirmed me as well. He said, ‘You have the skills, talents, gifts and abilities to do whatever you want in life. And I don’t say that to everyone.’ He sees more in me than I see in myself. Not that God needs talented, gifted people to achieve His purposes, because He uses the weak things of this world to shame the wise and strong. But what a feeling to know that my dad thinks that I can achieve anything that I set my mind to, whether that be owning an oil company or being a martyr for Christ. Wow.

So we talked about what it might look like for me to follow Jesus into ministry/missions. We talked specifics and generalities, but definitely did not come up with the plan or answer. We just talked, and that was a beautiful thing.

Some thoughts on following Jesus into missions/ministry:

Being a missionary/full-time minister is so much more than going to other countries, it’s about being a name bearer, a faithful witness to the gospel, and opening your mouth to talk about Jesus every day, no matter where you find yourself. It is so important to know that a call starts right now and not one day if I get overseas.

I go back and forth often about what God’s call means specifically and how it will work itself out. One minute I think that is as a full-time missionary to some tribe in Africa, the next minute I think it is to be faithful witness at Chevron. Other times I think about how God could use Chevron as a platform to get me overseas fully supported. Then I throw in the fact that I desire to be married and have a family and I wonder how all that will fit in. Will my wife feel the same call? How would it all work? The fact of the matter is that there are too many questions and unknowns. I have to focus on Exodus 33:12-23 – praying that I would only go where the Spirit leads, praying that I would faithfully serve no matter where I am, and praying that I would know God more and more every day.

Incomplete

I want everything I write to have the most meaning as possible. I want so much to write words that fit together perfectly and paint beautiful pictures of grace and truth. I want to be intentional in the way that I write, so that readers would be challenged to know God more. And because I want all these things, I tend not to write as much as I’d like to, because I want each post to be full and not partial. But the reality of life is that we are all incomplete and broken creatures full of partial and empty thoughts and actions. We as Christians are unfinished workmanships that will only be complete when we stand before the LORD Himself one day.

I so want to be there. Complete. Perfect. Not lacking. Finished. I don’t want to be unfinished, lacking, imperfect, and incomplete, but I am. Even in my weakness, I am learning that wholeness is only found in Jesus Christ.

I am growing as an engineer. I am fitting in with my team. I am contributing as much as the next guy. I am almost fully-functional as a Petroleum Engineer. I feel like I belong. I love being productive. I love doing good work. I am becoming respected. I am growing, but not there yet.

I am growing as a person. I am getting involved at Stonegate. I am making friends (albeit slowly). I am finding community (albeit even more slowly). I am enjoying living in Midland. I am learning to be responsible with my money. I am learning to be responsible in cleaning my apartment. I am learning to cook better. I am learning to be more active and am even attempting to do P90X. I am growing, but not there yet.

I am growing up. I am not a college kid any more. I am a young man with a career. I am getting opportunities to have influence on others. I am seeing life kind of come together in so many ways, but yet…

I’m not there. I have yet to arrive.

Today, I could not help but feel discontent all day long. In some ways this is not good, because God has been so good to me. I have nothing to complain about in the grand scheme of things. But In a lot of ways I think that this discontentment is a good thing. With all that I have been blessed with, I should be happy according to the world’s standards, right? I should be content and satisfied, right? But I’m not, and I think that this points to a deeper reality of life. Wholeness is only found in Jesus Christ. Stuff, accomplishments, success, people and things will not satisfy or bring a full life. True satisfaction and wholeness are only found in Jesus Christ.

This is why I can pray with open hands and a loose grip on my career, job, plans and life. I have experienced that Jesus is all that I really want and nothing else will ever fill me up. I can continue to try to fill my life with accomplishments, respect, success, and stuff, but in the end I am a leaky, unfinished clay pot that will never hold life. I continually need Jesus Christ to come, restore, change, transform this unfinished, leaky clay pot into a heart that is alive only in Him. 

I think I know where Jesus is leading me: directly towards Himself. Do I necessarily like the path that I am on? Not really. Do I trust Him? I want to, because His Word says that life is only found in Him. I want to live, so I’ll live for Him.

Passion 2011

It is hard to write one superlative to sum up Passion 2011, so I won’t. Passion was about Jesus.

Now, I went last year in Atlanta, so I knew what to expect and was prepared to be blown away. And I was. I want to take you through the short list of things that God taught me and many others in that short weekend.

Is God at the bottom (i.e. Is He the foundation) of all my joy?

                John Piper begged us to ask this question about our lives. When it is all boiled down, is God and His Glory at the foundation of your joy/happiness/purpose or is it Self? This question when answered honestly is Self almost always. What do we do with this fact? This question demands that you examine your motives, and doing that will expose the true depth of sin in our lives that we oft ignore. Piper wants us to have a correct view of who God is and who we are. Piper wants us to be changed because we see how infinite, magnificent, valuable, majestic, holy, perfect and righteous that God is. Honestly, I don’t see God like this, and  my biggest prayer coming away is that my view of God would grow exponentially to a more right view and my view of myself would diminish to nothing.

               

Is the life that I am living worthy of the Gospel? Does my life make sense in light of the Gospel?

                Francis Chan begged us to ask this question about our lives from Phillipians 1:27-28. If our lives were weighed on a scale against the weight/glory of the Gospel, would they match up? Does the way we conduct ourselves in this world show people the beauty of the Gospel and the power of God in our lives? He wanted us to examine our hearts and pray that God would rid us of self and give us more of Him. This was a powerful message urging us to forget everything else and just know God.

*These two questions are great daily questions to be asking. When answered honestly, they expose the depths of our sin against a Holy God.

Learning to hold loosely my career, plans, life

                I got to have an incredible conversation with Mallory at Passion, which was a complete surprise to me. I have not written much about that nor have I talked that much about it with many people over the past year and a half. I need to be more open about it all and not hold it all in. We got to talk about how good and faithful God has been to both of us. Our relationship ended when Mallory started holding loosely our relationship and offering it to God to take away or use for His Glory. God in His infinite wisdom took it from us to teach us that He will be our only Satisfaction. The reason it was so hard in the flesh was because our relationship had never been better and there was nothing wrong. Mallory just began to walk by faith and God did the rest. We got to talk about how we are both so thankful for what God did, because neither of us has ever sought after God like we have the past year and a half. I had the thought yesterday that God might use this to show me what trusting Him looks like, what walking away from a good thing looks like, what obedience looks like, and that He is worth so much more than the stuff He has given us. Currently, I am praying the same way that Mallory began to pray 2 years ago. I am holding loosely my career, plans and life, asking God to use them for His Glory or take them from me so that I will know Him more intimately. What a blessing that short conversation was!

We desperately need deep, meaningful friendships

                After being in Midland for 7 months my friend base is still really small. I have met some great people, but the depth of relationship is still in progression. It takes time and experiences together to grow to a place of depth, and that just has not happened much here compared to A&M. My prayer before the trip was that God would begin some deep, meaningful relationships with the group that I was with, and He was faithful to do that. He really grew us together as a group and I know that I will continue to develop many of those friendships. Also, I was reminded of the incredible friendships that I have had for the past 5 years. I saw so many great brothers and sisters in Christ at Passion and was reminded of how faithful God has been to that area of my life. What a blessing!

Reaching the unreached, downtrodden, disenfranchised, broken, hurting, lost people is beautiful work

                I found myself in tears multiple times this weekend about what God is doing in the most broken places on earth. As a group, we raised over $220,000 to fund the project to translate 90 stories of the Bible into the heart language of the KOSO people of Mali, West Africa. This moved me so much, because of the stories of reaching the ends of the earth with the Gospel. Nothing gets me fired up like stories about that. Also, my Dad and others from His church just got back from a similar situation in Guinea, West Africa and shared some of the same stories. Praying that God would open a door for me to be a part of reaching the unreached people groups in the nations one day. Passion also has sponsored some amazing projects in Haiti to begin rebuilding peoples’ lives and the country itself. Check it out here and here! What a joy it was to see God’s people rally around bringing hope to the nations!

God has made us heirs with Christ

                Ultimately God makes much of us for His namesake and desires that we would make much of Him because of who He is and not just what He has done. Piper talked about a few ways in which God makes much of us. He made this one point that I had never thought about. Paul talks about us being made fellow heirs with Christ when we are saved. Since Christ owns the whole world and will continue that for all of time, it would be foolish of us to live to obtain the world for this momentary blip called time, when if we seek Him we will have it all for eternity. What a waste to live for it now and not get it. It is far better to give it all away now and get it for eternity. But beyond that, we get God in the most intimate, deep relationship for all of eternity which is far better than possessing the whole world. I thought that was great. I don’t necessarily understand it completely, but it is another reason to put off the things of this world and pursue Christ!

These are just a few of the many things that God taught me and is still teaching me. Please pray with me that our view of God would grow exponentially into a right view. Pray that our view of ourselves would diminish to nothing. Pray that our lives would be lived in a way that is worthy of the Gospel. Pray for deep, meaningful friendships. Pray that we would hold loosely our lives and allow God to use them for His Glory or take them away from us. Pray for our neighbors, co-workers, friends and the nations to know the hope of Jesus Christ. Pray that God would awaken our hearts to Him daily. Pray that we would know God. Pray with me.