Over the past week my reading was in the uncomfortable period of David’s life that I’m sure he wishes hadn’t happened. Funny to think that he was a great man, but God doesn’t spare him from the eternal public humiliation of what he did and how it changed his life, family, and heart.
Paul’s words echo here, “Let any man who thinks that he stands, take heed lest he fall.”
So last week 2 pastors were “fired.” I know the men on both sides of the malfunction. Men are not good at dealing with long-term tension, either in treating it with grave seriousness while it’s small, or in the heat of the moment being patient to work out the right closure. It doesn’t matter if we have a million books and wrote a million more, the flesh rebels, defeats the law of the mind and takes us captive. This leaves the state of man and the state of following Christ in a state of random flux. Anything can happen. Don’t assume rationality will win the day.
You watch men fall, though not deep, just fall. We baptize our arrogance as a right, a mere failing. But the crash was still there and people suffer on both sides. Who has wisdom for all of this? How long do you stick it out, praying for help, and when does wisdom wake you and you realize that it is time to go?
And so the kingdom of God moves on slowly amidst our fumbling and crashing. If it were not for God, this would be a total wash and wreck.
And then there is Paul, the failed man. You may say he failed early and got it out of the way, but what a crash. Killing, beating, arresting Christians and then, poof, he is one. Three days of blindness to review the carnage. And Paul never forgot this….to me, though I am the least of all saints this grace was given….unfit to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God….I am the chief of sinners, this last one within a couple years of the end of his life.
So I land again at Phil. 3….I press on to make it my own because Christ has made me his own. You get a picture here of a man living every moment with grave concentration on following Christ, fully aware of his heart but seeking to give honor to Christ in everything. It’s like if someone threw you a dart and you had to catch it, or if someone threw you a baby, deep, deep concentration. And what was the reason, to be sinless, to be perfect for the sake of being sinless and perfect, no, it was because Christ had made Paul his own and given him the blessings and power of the universe for a specific task. Paul pursued Christ.
If someone gave you a plane and paid all the fees, paid all the gas and all the maintenance and inspections, you’d be nuts not to fly it and as often as you could, and imagine if there was a task associated with the plane. You’d want to fly it often and perfectly and, of course, avoid all crashes. It would be out of honor and appreciation, but there would be a sense of fun and thrill and trying to hone your ability with this unique gift and privilege.
And so what do you learn about the church and its crashes? That God forgives and restores and uses all the calamity of His children to teach them, move them, break them, and dissatisfy them until they want nothing more than humbly, with full concentration, pursuing Jesus to honor Him for His incredible grace and forgiveness. And then this “thing” he has put into our hand, the life and the mission, takes on the awe and fun it was meant to have as we strap ourselves in, taxi out to the end of the runway, release the brake, give it full throttle and head for the sky.
This time, we hope, without the crash.
