Available

I am a directionally-challenged person. I am lucky enough to know where I am much less how to get somewhere else. Needless to say, this has caused more than one small trying episode in our family, mostly because I do the bulk of the driving when we are together. With me behind the wheel, the common comment from the Peanut Gallery in the back is “Hayden, Daddy missed the exit again.” And the encouragement from the front is usually something like, “I told you we should have turned there. Don’t you glare at me! I am not the one driving.” So, there you have it, a glimpse of life with me driving. It got so bad that after one particular vacation I received a birthday gift consisting of a brand new GPS, complete with a year of map upgrades! How is that for being subtle?

With my GPS, whole new avenues of being have opened up for me. No longer do I worry about getting lost. No longer do I get anxious about missing exits or having to figure out where I am and how to get to where I am supposed to be. I simply plug in the endpoint and drive. When the GPS says turn, I turn. I don’t question. I don’t argue. I turn, and then I drive. I have no idea where I am. I have no idea of where my next turn will be. What I do know is that I am going to get where I need to go. Oh, and the comments from the rest of the crew are starting to subside as well.

When I think about following Christ, I am beginning to think that following Christ is a lot like driving with a GPS. We don’t have to figure out where we are. We don’t have to figure out how to get where we are going. All we have to do is listen, turn, and drive. As simple as that sounds, it isn’t easy to live out. The trouble with listening and turning is I have to avail myself of knowing Jesus, of engaging him at a level that I know when he is saying turn and when he is saying drive. Here’s the trouble with that. I struggle to engage with Jesus.

Here’s what I mean. I struggle to connect with Jesus, really connect with him so that I know him. I wrestle with being available to him at all. I am much more comfortable with knowing about Jesus than pushing myself to know him. When I really press in and ask why this is, the answer that I come back with is that I am afraid. I am afraid of Jesus. I am afraid that he will not accept me, that he will disapprove of me, afraid that he will look upon me with a stern look and say quite simply that I am unworthy to enter into his presence. I am afraid of Jesus and his reaction, so I pull back. Where did I get this fear? I actually think I got it from an aspect of God’s character, his holiness. I have always seen God as holy, pure, something other. And, I have always viewed myself as unholy, impure. Both are true. These truths have interacted so that I have felt that my unholiness somehow keeps me from God because of his holiness. So I grow slack. I hold back, afraid of what might happen if I dare try to move from knowing about God to knowing God. Sometimes I think the burned-on stuff that coats the bottom of my stove has it better than what might happen to me if I dared.

Then I read something like Isaiah 6 and I see that God is holy and that people are not, but this is not enough to keep God and people apart. Rather than turning into a crispy critter, consumed by God’s holiness, people who dare grace God’s presence find that God’s holiness is so great that their impurity is transformed to purity, all by God’s holiness. Somehow God’s holiness is so great that it enables and empowers unholy people to stand before him. In standing before him we learn to recognize his voice. We learn how to listen, when to turn and when to drive. It all starts with daring, a daring to enter his presence and embrace his holiness.

A fellow traveler,

Blake

What’s my next step?

We encourage you to consider engaging in the following as a way of handing off faith in your family.

Pray Habakkuk 3.2 as a family: Listening to God is a community endeavor. We learn to do this starting in our families. This week, consider using the table tent containing Habakkuk 3.2 to guide a family prayer time. You might consider setting aside a time, perhaps a few minutes before or after meals, to say this prayer together. After saying the prayer, be still and quiet as a family, seeking to listen for God’s response and to sense God’s presence. For younger children consider pausing for 2-3 minutes. For teenagers, consider pausing and sitting in God’s presence for 5-10 minutes. You might consider talking as a family about your experience of sitting in God’s presence.

We encourage you to consider engaging in the following as a way of deepening your own faith.

Meditate on Habakkuk 3.2 During this series we encourage you to meditate on Habakkuk 3.2, allowing it to draw you close to the throne of grace so that you may learn to listen to God’s leading. Consider placing the table tent containing this verse in a prominent place in your home such as the kitchen table. When you sit down to eat, pause and be still in God’s presence. After a few moments of entering God’s presence, offer this verse as your prayer to God.