greatness

When I was in University, taking the first of a few degrees (don’t ask, I’m still begging forgiveness from my wife), I found out quite quickly that if I wanted to get on in this whole realm I would have to align myself with some pretty influential people. I began to realise that in academia it matters just as much who you know as what you know.

A little cliché that works most places, I know, but I was amazed at how true it was.

I began to work with one of my professors, doing grading and other things for him. Then I worked a summer for him and helped with analysis of a pretty major research project. As a result I got my name put on the final project which was submitted to the Canadian International Development Agency. We also spun off a paper which was presented (by yours truly) at the Canadian Agricultural Economists Annual Meeting. I was invited to the banquet, which was much more formal than I had planned. I sat at the table with my prof, who was a Fellow of the association, and one of his friends who was made a Fellow that evening.

I felt like I was being welcomed into the upper echelons of power within the Canadian Agricultural Economics realm. All right, so it is not that big of a step up, but it is amazing how vivid that evening sticks out for me. I was actually approached by a couple of representatives from different schools that night asking me if I were going to attend their graduate program.

It felt great.

I felt great.

I felt as though I had some value, some worth. I began to think that there was something important that I had to contribute to what was going on around me.

I have met some people who still talk about when they meant to that meeting with the Premier way back in ‘72. Or when they were present when the Prime Minister found out he had won the election. Or …

See, I think we all associate how great we are by who welcomes us. If we are welcomed to the table of a Fellow, we feel important. If we are welcomed to a meeting with the Premier, we feel special. If we are part of the privileged few to see the first reaction of a person to becoming Prime Minister, we feel great.

For Jesus, however, greatness is not about who welcomes you, but who you welcome.

It is not about what tables you sit at, but who sits at your table. It is not about building up your own reputation so that others think you are important, it is about taking the very thing that God has given you, yourself, and giving it to others freely and without expectation.

This is one of the reasons he says that when we welcome a little child we welcome him. A child in that society is someone who is considered an outsider, someone who has no real say in what goes on in society, someone who is tolerated at best, but most often ignored, someone like the homeless man sleeping in that stairwell downtown, or that girl who sleeps in the park because of her internal torment, or the homosexual who is ostracised from her community because they cannot see past the label to the person underneath.

Can we be this kind of great?

keep pushing

Road To Nowhere

Originally uploaded by charminbayurr

My son is just starting to learn how to ride a two wheeler (with training wheels of course). He never really learned how to pedal anything before, so there is a lot to learn. He has to figure out how to turn his feet around on the pedals and push at the right times, alternating one leg and then the other. He has to figure out how to balance a little so that he does not feel like he is falling over. He has to concentrate and steer so he does not go off the road and fall in the ditch.

So many things to learn.

The last few weeks we have been going to a vacant road in an industrial park in the evenings to give him lots of room to learn. His mum has been learning how to ride a motorcycle at the same time. I have had to get rather firm with him because he simply wants to give up. Time and again, when it gets a bit tough he just wants me to push him along. I don’t mind giving him a push to get started, but he wants me to keep pushing him.

He wants to simply coast along while I do all the work.

I love to coast too. I love to have someone pushing me along, forcing me to do the things that I need to do. I love to have someone else making me grow in my relationship with God.

Wait. That’s not how it works? You mean to tell me that if I simply show up on Sunday, and have some emotions stirred up by a worship service, then go home and spend no more time in the Word, or doing service, or practising other Christian disciplines I will never actually strengthen my faith?

When I look down the road laid ahead of me, the road that leads me to God and to the person I really want to be, it looks so long. I would rather have someone push me than have to learn how to move by myself.

The problem is, we need to learn or else we will forever be stuck at the beginning of our road. We are all travelling a different road and no one will travel mine with me. There will be some who will come alongside me for a while. They may be able to give me a little boost, maybe pick me up after I have fallen, but then they will have to move on to their own road and I will need to continue mine.

We are responsible for our own lives, and this includes our relationship with God.

retreat

I have been on retreat the last couple of days (just an overnighter) and it was wonderful. It is great to be able to get away with other people who have many things in common with me and spend time thinking about different things.

We mainly talked about how we can encourage one another and those we lead to be more active in their faith, to take their faith to the streets, so to speak.

This has always been a strength of Reformed theology. God has given each of us a calling to perform in the places that he puts us. “Whatever you do, do it for the Lord,” as Paul says. So whatever we do, not just the Sunday stuff, is worship and mission work. I hate to break it to you, but if you are a Christian, you are a missionary.

We are all missionaries.

This means that we are all to think about ways to engage others in conversation about spirituality and religion and what God has done for us in Christ.

Oh, by the way, these conversations can include fellow Christians. Sometimes it is nice to be able to hear what God is doing in the lives of fellow believers.

The way I see it, God is doing something amazing in this world. The gospel message is beginning to cause a fervor around the world again. People are starting to stand up and declare that they believe in Jesus. It seems like everyone I talk to is comfortable with discussing spirituality, and God, and the big questions of life; why are we hear? what does it mean to live a good life? what is our purpose?

What do you think? What is God doing in your life? Where is he causing you to grow?

show who God is

Over the years I have really come to appreciate The Message by Eugene Peterson. There are times when it has opened up the Bible for me in a way that other translations have not. Now, I realise that Peterson’s book more like a paraphrase than a translation, but his attempt to put things in a modern way are somewhat arresting.

A friend on facebook noted one of these phrases this morning, a phrase from 1 Corinthians 12.

Paul is talking about spiritual gifts in this section. He outlines what the various things are, and how all the various gifts are from the same God, but then he gives us each a challenge.

Each person is given something to do that shows who God is: Everyone gets in on it, everyone benefits. (1 Cor 12:7, Message)

We are all given our gifts, not so that we can make a difference in the world, not so that others will be able to see how cool, hip, amazing we are. We are given the gifts that we have, whatever they may be, to show who God is.

So often Jesus used parables, stories about regular people and things, to tell us something about God.

Regular stories,

about regualr people,

tell us about God.

May our story tell others about God. May we use our gifts to show who God is.

if we are the body

If we are the body of Christ, why do people not experience him through us?