Don't Miss the Drowning Chipmunks In Your Life!

A few weeks ago, as I was sitting outside in our backyard by the pool thinking and praying, I suddenly became consciously aware of a small gasping, almost coughing sound coming from somewhere nearby. I realized I had been hearing the sound for a while now, but because I was so focused on whatever I was thinking about, I hadn't really been processing it. So I looked up. And what I saw was a chipmunk drowning in our swimming pool, desperately pedaling its legs, struggling to keep its head above water. I immediately jumped out of my chair and ran to grab the pool net from the other side of our yard to rescue the chipmunk from his (or her) watery grave! As I pushed the net underneath the chipmunk's flailing legs, it gripped on for dear life, recognizing this was its only means of escape. I gently placed it down on the lawn, where it lay shivering for a few moments until it was able to regain enough strength to move again.

This dramatic rescue, and how close I was to letting this creature die without even noticing it, caused me to reflect on how often we unknowingly overlook the opportunities that God gives us and the lessons that He's trying to teach us every day while we go around our daily lives focusing on ourselves. After all, this chipmunk was literally 10 feet away from where I was sitting, gasping for air, flailing about in the water, and I heard its cries for help for who knows how long without actually paying enough attention to realize it! How often do we similarly struggle through the valleys or climb over the mountaintops of our lives, or even just walk down the street, while completely missing the point of it all because we're so focused on our worries and our comfort and ourselves all of the time? How often is God trying to show us or teach us something that's literally right in front of us, but we fail to pay enough attention to realize it?! As Christian author Gary Thomas writes in his book The Beautiful Fight (apparently now named Holy Available),

"Sometimes, in answer to prayer, God does change our situation. He heals us, restores us, provides for us, and protects us. But just as often, instead of changing our situation, He chooses to change our perception: "You're looking at this entirely the wrong way." Have you ever offered your eyes to God? Have you ever asked Him to pour His wisdom into your perception, His perspective into each gaze? Have you ever stepped back and prayed, "God, how does this look to You?" If you do, you'll never look at others the same way again...God wants to transform my eyes from being selfish possessors and consumers to being His servants of selfless love." You'd be surprised how much of Scripture deals with how we use (or misuse) our eyes! This comes into play in what we learn from the experiences we go through in our lives as well as in how we see and love others like God does!

Not long after the chipmunk airlift and reading this passage, I was walking downtown on my way to deliver a card to somebody when I came across a man asking for money on the sidewalk. Typically in such a situation, I would give the man some change, possibly a booklet explaining the Gospel, and then be on my way. This time, I had the desire (see last blog post) to see and treat this man as Jesus would (Show me the Bible passage where Jesus gives money to a beggar and then keeps walking to wherever He was going). I told him I didn't have any money on me, but I would come back with some. On my way back, I stopped and sat down with the man and asked him his story. He shared a bit of his experiences, how he'd ended up in Peterborough, etc. Then I shared a bit of my story with him, about how my relationship with God through Jesus Christ is what brings me hope every day, and he shared some of his past experiences in the Church and his understanding of the Gospel with me. It was probably only a 10 minute conversation all in all, but it meant something. We exchanged names and stories, not just a few quarters, and I was able to really show the love of God to this man as well as share the love of God with this man, although I'm sure I could have done more still.

This man could have been just another "dead chipmunk" that I passed by or overlooked in my life while I carried on focusing on my own selfish interests. But God opened my eyes on this particular occasion and gave me the grace to stop and notice what (or who) He had perfectly orchestrated to be in my path that day. As I preached at Edmison Heights Baptist Church last Sunday, there is no Plan B with God. Everything that happens in our lives is God's Plan A. There are no coincidences. There are no accidents. There is only God. Will we notice what He wants us to notice? Will we reach out to those He has placed in our paths? Let's stop missing the drowning chipmunks in our lives!

I have more to share, but I'm realizing it may be better broken into two blog posts than one.

God bless you all!

-Wes

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Our Goal is not to Live a Desire-less Life...It's to Live a Desire-FILLED Life!

Yesterday, I had the awesome opportunity to preach at my home Church (Murray Street Baptist in Peterborough) about living a life directed and empowered, in other words filled, with God's Holy Spirit. This meant that all of last week, when I wasn't calling people, sending emails, or meeting with people about possibly joining my Panama support team, I was immersing myself in reading, studying, praying, and writing about living a Spirit-filled life...And man, what a week!

It was actually kind of unreal. I mean, it's not like I didn't intellectually know what the basics of living the Spirit-filled life were already...I've heard that talk plenty of times through Campus for Christ weekly meetings, discipleship groups, and the like. But the sharp contrast between my life last week and the several weeks leading up to it came as kind of a wake-up call to the fact that I'd only really been living a Spirit-indwelt, not filled, life prior to this. And what started it all was my day last Sunday. I basically spent almost the entire day reveling in the teaching of God's Word through books and sermons, and one book and one sermon in particular struck me so much that they changed my entire week, if not my life.

The book was The Beautiful Fight by Christian author Gary Thomas. The sermon was Faith in your New Birth by Pastor Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle (http://www.marshillchurch.org/media/trial/faith-in-your-new-birth), taken from 2 Peter 1:1-4. Driscoll's sermon is about two major foundational doctrines of the Christian faith: Justification and Regeneration. Nothing new. Justification is the doctrine that we are perfectly justified before God if we have faith in Christ because of the amazing sacrifice that He made for us. Regeneration is the amazing doctrine that those who believe in Christ have God's Spirit come to live inside of them and enable them to become partakers of the divine nature, as Peter puts it. In other words, God in all of His power resides in us and makes that power available to us to be radically changed people and live radically changed lives!

But what gripped me about what Driscoll said in the second half of his sermon was essentially this: We are not to live a desire-less life. So often in Christian circles, desires are looked down upon. We think of desire as an evil thing. All desires are bad. We should suppress our desires. But that's not true! We are to live a desire-filled life! Paul writes that if we walk in the Spirit, we will not carry out the desire of the flesh, "For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law" (Galatians 5:16-18). The key to living a Spirit-filled life is not trying to suppress all of your desires! How often does that actually work? That's our own strength! And we will fail if we try to live in our own strength! The key is having the RIGHT desires! The key is actually to desire the desires of the Spirit more than we desire the desires of the flesh. And we need to remember exactly the magnitude of what it is Christ has done for us, that He died in our place so that we wouldn't have to, that He suffered all of our guilt and all of our shame and all of our punishment just so that we could be forgiven! So that we could be, and we are, completely free if we have Christ! And we need to let the joy and sheer gratitude that comes from that remembrance fuel our desires! The right desires!

As Gary Thomas records in The Beautiful Fight, when Sir Francis of Assisi first encountered the living Christ, he heard God telling him "Francis, all those things that you have loved in the flesh you must now despise, and from those things that you formerly loathed you will drink great sweetness and immeasurable delight." Wow! That's powerful! I love that! From those things that you formerly loathed you will drink great sweetness and immeasurable delight! When we give in to those kinds of desires, that's when God's power and the desires of the Spirit not only exist inside of us, but take us over! They fill us! And that's exactly what I've been experiencing for the last 8 days and counting! Unspeakable joy in giving into to the desires of God's Spirit! :) Do you know what Sir Francis of Assisi did immediately after hearing this message from God? He saw a leper on the side of the road while he was riding, one of the things he most despised before in his life, but instead of passing him by, he stopped, gave him money, and then kissed his hand. He kissed his leprous hand! But Francis didn't stop there. He then proceeded to ride straight to a leper colony, apologized profusely for how he had previously treated them, gave them money, and would not leave until he had kissed each and every single one of them on their leprous lips! That is drinking great sweetness and immeasurable delight from the desires of the Spirit, the things (or people) we once despised!

Surrendering our will to God's, I think, can be something we ironically try to do in our own strength sometimes. But I don't think sharing the Spirit-filled life with other Christians will ever be quite the same for me. It's no longer just an intellectual truth from God's Word that I'm showing people. It's not even a once in a while experience that eventually fades anymore. It's something I want with all of my heart for everyone to experience on a level with what I've experienced this past week. I spent time in God's Word and in prayer every day last week--not because I had to or felt like it was my duty, but because I want to. Revolutionary, I know. I spent time reading Godly books every day last week--because I want to! I wasn't afraid to make phone calls to potential supporters last week, nor did I hate doing it (and subsequently made triple as many as usual). In fact, I even wanted to once I got into it! I shared my faith with my hairdresser last week. Why? Because I wanted her to know the Gospel and I wanted to share it with her. I finished writing my sermon by Friday night and subsequently had all of Saturday to prepare and practice it (which is a groundbreaking record for me). And I loved doing it! And I was filled with unspeakable joy all week long last week! The desires of the Spirit flooded me every moment of every day, and as a result, I experienced not just victory, but joyous victory over sin, over the desires of the flesh. I only pray that I can continue to live every day in that kind of joy and power of God's Spirit for the rest of my life, and that all of you will be able to as well!

Our goal is not to live a desire-less life...it's to live a desire-filled life.

God bless you all!

-Wes

*****Please see the sidebar on the right (near the top of the page) for information on how to support me financially*****