The Challenge 10
March, 2004
This week is going well
for me. Still really busy but a good
week so far. Ended up working through
the weekend by traveling up to a place near New York City and arriving back in Va
just prior to the class I was going to teach on Sunday night. I guess the biggest thing I've got on my
heart right now is a couple of people I know are really struggling in their
family lives and I just don't know what to do for them. Please pray for them... God knows who I'm
talking about... if you pray, God will hear and know! Thanks.
Headaches
I'm going to depart from my
normal Challenge this week because I felt a burden to let a friend of mine
share his heart with you. So without
further adieu...
A pious believer was very
serious in his spiritual cultivation. He went to church every Sunday and never
missed a ceremony or a baptism. One day, he went to see the doctor. The doctor
checked his pulse and gave him a thorough medical checkup, but failed to
diagnose anything.
"You don't seem to be
ill," the doctor said.
"If I were not ill,
then why would I be here consulting you?" he asked.
"Do you indulge in
unhealthy pleasures?" the doctor asked
"No! I have three
meals a day, at regular hours and in a fixed quantity; I don't take an extra
grain."
"Then have you been
drinking too much? You'd better stop drinking!"
"Of course not! I
don't even drink a drop of alcohol; I drink only plain water."
"Do you often work
late? Do you know that working late is bad for your health?"
"Never! I turn in at
half-past nine every night, and I get up at six in the morning. This is my
daily routine, without the slightest exception."
The doctor began to get
confused. "Do you smoke or take drugs?"
"That is impossible! I
get sick just seeing others smoke, let alone smoking tobacco myself!"
"Then do you indulge
in carnal pleasure?" the doctor asked again.
"How can that be? I am
still a bachelor, and I virtually do not know what a woman is."
The doctor could not think
of anything else, so he gave it a last try. "Do you have a headache?"
"Yes, you are right! I
have a severe headache, and no medicine can relieve my pain."
"But of course. The
halo around your head is too tight!" the doctor said.
I recently had the privilege
of attending a student ministry conference at Willow Creek Association in
Ohio. Let me start by stating, I do believe God's tender hand is on a
great many things we do day in and day out, even when we can't understand at
the time why we have to go through the challenges and trials we may be facing.
This is the time of year I
really start to long to get outdoors and enjoy the break in the weather, but
over the past 7 years, I've found February and March to be very trying
months. Some of the darkest periods in my life have been appearing during
this time period. I'm now starting to accept that I'll be affected
negatively by the change of the seasons and what some call Seasonal Affective
Disorder.
Even in something as mundane
as the changing seasons such as we see now (oh btw, it's easy to enjoy the
change of seasons when the trees are budding and flowers are blooming in spring
or the trees are radiant in the many colors of fall) I see God at work, even if
I don't particularly enjoy this "tween season". I look for
God's influence in a great many experiences, yet am constantly amazed when He
delivers a clear-cut message that explains the things I've been
experiencing. I've been feeling very down lately-I praise God for that
even now.
On the trip to Willow, I had
the opportunity to share with a small group of committed believers some
experiences, both prearranged within the conference and some that were a bit
more spontaneous as we basked in the sharing of our lives with each other-some
of the things we go through and some just plain silliness. I thoroughly
enjoyed the whole trip.
One experience from this trip
was a presentation during a large group session led by Mike Breaux (for those
not from Louisiana, it's pronounced Bro). They had us enter into the
auditorium and take a piece of paper with 3 different color 3M stickies
attached. Below each were very general directions: Someone who
impacted you, Your Name and Someone you can impact (I don't remember the exact
wording, but the gist is there). I got to my seat, sat down and instantly
wrote down 3 names. The second name was easy to fill in as I could take
out my driver's license and fill that one in and be relatively assured of
having the "right" name. The first and third stickie names
ended up being two names I hadn't thought of in quite a long time. The
first name was the youth pastor at my church when I was growing up. His
name is Bill Adams. I can use that name and be assured almost 100% of you
will never know who I'm talking about as it is a very common name. Now,
we had a rather small church, not very spiritually enlightened, yet the youth
group being about 20 of us kids, we knew how to have a blast. We had some
really good times and most importantly my youth group was a place I could go, hang
out (yeah, we used to do that when I was a teenager too!) and feel perfectly
accepted for who I was. I wasn't accepted in many places-even my family,
whom I love, seemed to be displeased with who I was, but in the youth group, I
felt "at home". Bill didn't take us on a spiritual journey
through the Bible. The only Bible Study I can recall us doing was the
book of Revelation which appeals to most teens and young Christians.
Bill's fulltime job was as a counselor for Big Brothers of America. All
was right with my "Christian world". We hung out at church with
other misfit teens and had a great time. The problem was: Bill had a
secret. Bill apparently was a pedophile. Now, he never let on in
youth group, or as far as I know, he never mistreated any of us at the church,
but he apparently acted outside of what was expected at Big Brothers.
Bill's job as youth pastor quickly came to an end and it wrecked my view
of who God was and what His church was about. It seemed that one could
live a good loving life in the church and yet harbor a darker side to their
life. I didn't understand why my parents as church members had rocked my
world by insisting on Bill's dismissal-we had fun and he never treated us that
way.
Jump ahead 20 plus years to
Mount Ararat and my involvement in student ministry. I was new to the
whole idea of being a youth leader. I understood very well the idea of
hanging out and accepting others for who they were---or so I thought. One
teen, whose name I can't use, so we'll call him/her "Pat" presented
me with a challenge. After a short amount of time hanging around Pat, Pat
seemed ready to accept Jesus as Lord and was urged to do just that. The
problem with Pat was that Pat didn't live up to the standards many of us
expected. From my own experiences, I knew that there should be life
change-at least at the superficial level even I did that as a teen. One
could be a Christian and "fake it". Living that double life, as
a teen was easy to do, Christian on Sunday, heathen the other 6 days. Pat
didn't display the least bit of change in life after accepting Jesus. Pat
was the proverbial screw up in youth group. Pat received the kind of
attention I thought he/she deserved. I pressured Pat to conform to the
standard of the "Christian" life. Pat finally became fed up
with me and probably with God in that setting. Pat left the church and
continues to live without any apparent positive life-changing effects on
his/her life.
As Breaux finished his talk
about how one life affects one life which affects another one life, which
affects another life and the ripple continues as we are each affected by a life
and we each affect another life, it became blatantly apparent that Bill Adams
had affected my life. I've always thought of the youth ministry as a safe
place for teens to come and be accepted for who they were. A place they
wouldn't be judged. A place they could come hang out away from the
pressures of being a teen and all the baggage that carries with it. I've
often "preached" to teens how there's a lot of things they can get
away with at church as I watch them and interact with them, but the ONE THING I
would not tolerate is them making someone not feel safe and included.
How hypocritical those words
rang once I linked Bill and Pat's names on those stickies on Tuesday this
week. Because I was the one who had set a standard that Pat couldn't live
up to. A standard that made him/her feel he/she couldn't fit in because
he/she couldn't act a certain way after accepting Christ.
Now Bill was imperfect, but
he knew how to accept us all with our goofy ways and pimply faces. He did
set an environment of grace that created a passion in me for student
ministries, but I've harbored feelings of anger that he was so abruptly removed
from our youth group-we never did get another youth pastor and that was pretty
much the end of the youth group. I always loved youth group because it
was a place of acceptance.
I will ask Pat and see how
Pat feels about youth group in the near future. I'm sure I've got the
answer, but Christ has the ultimate answer. That's why He allowed me to
be "softened up" with all the feelings I was having before the trip
to Willow. He showed me two things: 1. The almost perfect example
of grace in how Bill Adams ran a youth group. We could've had more
in-depth Bible Study-Bill probably would've benefited from it too! But we
had an environment of almost unconditional acceptance. I don't ever
remember feeling unwelcome in youth group. 2. Pat is where I had my
"halo on too tight". Pat didn't change. Pat was supposed
to change- I expected Pat to show "Christ in Pat's life". I
didn't practice grace with Pat-God showed me that sometimes the effect we have
on others isn't for Christ even if we think we are "serving the Lord"
in our role.
There's a thread of grace
here between these two examples and Romans 5:20 tells us:
Our God is a God of
grace. Completely accepting of us in our failures, even accepting of me
in the part I played in Pat's negative experiences. I have a
responsibility to Pat, and to Bill now. I must ask their forgiveness and
draw near to God and them so I can practice the grace that God offers me and in
turn pass it on to Bill and Pat.
I love you all and pray for
grace to abound in your lives-both as takers and givers of grace. I pray
now that God uses this writing to draw you closer to His throne of grace that
you may live in His love forever.
Is there someone in your life that you are
judging? Do you have a headache? Is your halo on a little too tight? Is there someone in your life who you've got
to ask forgiveness of after reading this?
Thanks for writing this my friend... I think we've
all been Challenged!
Until next week ~ Dave
To
make comments, to suggest topics you'd like me to tackle, to get past
devotionals, or to be added to this weekly "devotional email" please
write to: Dave
Hansen at philip419@earthlink.net