As for those who in the present age are rich, command them not to be haughty or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches but rather on God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life. 1 Timothy 6:17-19
“Several years ago I was thumbing through the introduction of a book when I ran across a sentence that changed my life. God is intimately personal with us and he speaks in ways that are peculiar to our own quirky hearts—not just through the Bible, but through the whole of creation.
To Stasi he speaks through movies. To Craig he speaks through rock and roll (he called me the other day after listening to “Running Through the Jungle” to say he was fired up to go study the Bible). God’s word to me comes in many ways—through sunsets and friends and films and music and wilderness and books. But he’s got an especially humorous thing going with me and books.
I’ll be browsing through a secondhand book shop when out of a thousand volumes one will say , “Pick me up”—just like Augustine in his Confessions. Tolle legge—take up and read. Like a master fly fisherman God cast his fly to this cruising trout. In the introduction to the book that I rose to this day, the author (Gil Bailie) shares a piece of advice given to him some years back by a spiritual mentor:
“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
I was struck dumb. It could have been Balaam’s donkey, for all I was concerned. Suddenly my life up till that point made sense in a sickening sort of way; I realized I was living a script written for me by someone else. All my life I had been asking the world to tell me what to do with myself.
This is different from seeking counsel or advice; what I wanted was freedom from responsibility and especially freedom from risk. I wanted someone else to tell me who to be. Thank God it didn’t work. The scripts they handed me I simply could not bring myself to play for very long.
Like Saul’s armor, they never fit. Can a world of posers tell you to do anything but pose yourself? As Frederick Buechner says, we are in constant danger of being not actors in the drama of our lives but reactors, “to go where the world takes us, to drift with whatever current happens to be running the strongest.”
Reading the counsel given to Bailie I knew it was God speaking to me. It was an invitation to come out of Ur. I set the volume down without turning another page and walked out of that bookstore to find a life worth living.
Gil Bailie and Frederick Buechner as cited by John Eldredge in Wild at Heart (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2001) 113-114.
Our Scripture reading for today is likely my #1 favorite text. It sums up my calling. It marks what makes me come alive. To command those with more than enough to live – the rich in this present age – to grasp the life that is really life by enjoying and sharing God’s provision.
And now we turn to John Eldredge, another Colorado-based author, and we read from another classic book. And this post is long so I will try to be brief.
Most as Buechner put it, drift along and just go where the current takes them. Others, as Bailie put it, do what makes them come fully alive. The question is where do you fit in this post. Are you a reactor rather than an actor in the story of God? Are you playing your part or just sitting in the crowd?
I flew down to Bogotá to meet up with Paula and to activate the service of Eliana and Esther. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow we do a discernment retreat to map the faithful work for launching Palmful of Coffee.
In the words of Eldredge, I think they would say they are doing this because it makes them come alive. What I reminded them is that it has the potential to make 2.5 million indigenous workers in the Coffee Triangle come alive in Christ Jesus.
So I ask again, what about you? Are you a reactor rather than an actor in the story of God? Are you playing your part or just sitting in the crowd?
The best way to get in the game is to put to work what you have. Read today’s Scripture again and do what it says.