God Values What I Don't

WHEAT AND CHAFF

At a conference I attended everyone was invited to share an item that expressed what God was doing and had done in their life.  One man from Kansas brought some ripened wheat stalks.  I was drawn to these and asked if I could have one to take with me through the days to ponder.  I asked him to show me the grain and the chaff on the wheat stalk.

Wind winnowing is an agricultural method developed by ancient cultures for separating grain from chaff. It is also used to remove weevils or other pests from stored grain. Threshing, the separation of grain or seeds from the husks and straw, is the step in the chaff-removal process that comes before winnowing. "Winnowing the chaff" is a common expression.

In its simplest form it involves throwing the mixture into the air so that the wind blows away the lighter chaff, while the heavier grains fall back down for recovery. Techniques included using a winnowing fan (a shaped basket shaken to raise the chaff) or using a tool (a winnowing fork or shovel) on a pile of harvested grain. (Wikipedia)

I remember taking the stalk of wheat with me for a while before God spoke to me.  He told me that much of what I consider wheat in my life, he calls chaff, and much of what I consider chaff in my life, he calls wheat.  There are weaknesses and trials that I still feel shame about that God considers precious.  I wish such things were not part of my past at all, but some of them are dear to God.  Why?  Did he want me to be weak or defeated?  No, he sees these as the places I drew near to him for hope and encouragement, places where I came to trust him deeply.  "He is like a tree planted by streams of water which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither.  Whatever he does prospers."  (Ps. 1:3)  Through these times I planted myself in and near to God.

SEPARATION FROM SUCCESS

I also saw that what I thought to be my best "assets" were things that God had much less interest in.  They were even things that he was trying to separate me from.  Why?  Was he afraid of my doing well or succeeding in something?  No, I believe that many of these abilities and gifts are from him.  I just have a drive to depend on these things to increase my value.  My best talents and abilities are chaff to my Father because he values me apart from them and wants me to see myself the same way.  Wickedness is based upon this drive to be valued apart from God's love for me.  "The wicked are like the chaff that the wind blows away."  (Ps. 1:4)  Grounding my value in my talents and abilities exposes me to continual efforts to raise myself above other people, so that I will be blown here and there by every wind that comes along.

John the Baptist said of Jesus, "His winnowing fork is in his hand."  (Matthew 3:12)  One of the primary works of the kingdom of God is this separation.  Such separation will inevitably lead to each person's eternal destiny - sheep from goats, good fish from bad fish, fruitful trees from unfruitful ones, etc.  This is a warning.  But it is not merely that.  It is also a plea.  Jesus came to separate people from their sins which are always bound up in a heart that values things incorrectly.  When my value lies in what I can accomplish or in how talented I am or in what people say about me, even if it is for the work of God, then I am on the fast track to destruction.

FRUITLESS OR FRUITFUL?

The grain or the fruit of my life lies in the dearness and nearness of God.  A fruitless life is not one in which I accomplish seemingly little, but one in which I grow increasingly sad and bitter against God and other people because they do not think of me as much as I think they should think of me.  Such a life yields only chaff.  It may seem big and quite satisfying because so much of my time is filled up with it, but in the end it is empty, "chasing after the wind" as Ecclesiastes says.  Chaff chases the wind because it has no real substance to ground it.  Such efforts are most quickly recognized because they wither in the sun of persecution and trouble.  Without real trust in God and deep love for him, such efforts will not build anything nor last long.  Lots of smoke, but little heat.

A fruitful life is one in which God accomplishes a lot through the little things I do.  One of the things that made Jesus so remarkable was that even the "big" things he did were small to him.  One time when I played racquetball with a remarkable player.  He was not built like a tank nor was he faster than a speeding bullet.  It was just that ever move he made counted and the smallest flick of his wrist could slam the ball slow low and fast that I could never reach it.  His mastery was not measured by his striving and effort, but by his ease incredible power.  So Jesus could be relaxed and loving and yet so controlled and powerful.

Because of my drive to try to make it without God which is enforced and encouraged generally in most human systems, "the stone that the builders rejected has become the capstone."  (Mark 12:10)  Jesus explains that much of my value system is directed wrongly.  What I consider worth building and working one, God has abandoned as worthless, like building a house or a city on a flood plain, "sinking sand."  The very thing that seems to weak and small to bear the stress of my life becomes, through God's mercy and grace, the very stone that can support my whole life.

I am directed to know Christ more fully through whatever I can and not worry about how much effect those things might have nor about how such things might make me more valuable.  I need merely to ground myself in how much God values me and the rest will work itself out.  My talents and abilities will become my servants and friends instead of my masters.  They will be used with a careless ease instead of a worried drive.  I will be able to find the joy of working in God's strength and gently laughing at my own.

Lord, I so enjoy writing and thinking about your thoughts as laid out in the Bible.  They are my delight and life to me.  Continue to separate the wheat and grain in my life through joy and laughter. Amen.

Leftover Love for My Family

LEFTOVER LOVE

Why does my family receive the leftovers of my love and attention?  Why am I so tempted to devote more of my love, respect, and attention to those outside my house?  These are questions that my family has been asking for a while.

First, the question applies to not only my teen-age kids, but to myself.  One of my first questions when dealing with problems in my kids is the question, "Where did that come from?"  I have to do some careful self-examination avoiding the pitfalls of self-pity and self-justification.  Am I teaching my children that our life as a family is secondary to my work, my friends, or my church positions?  Self-pity says, "I am a rotten father.  I'll never get this right."  Self-justification says, "I'm doing my best.  What more can be expected?"  Both avoid the questions, "What can be done?  What would the Lord have of me?"

As I examine my tendencies to spend time away from home, to hurry my family from on event to another, or to make my family picture-perfect, I find that my attention and my desire is focused on pleasing and impressing people outside my family and home.  Why?  I believe that home and family is only one step away from our own hearts.  My marriage and my kids reflect what sort of person I am far more than my job, my friends, and my church positions.  As with my own heart and private world, I find myself more concerned with my family looking good rather than being good.  As long as everyone else thinks my family is okay, we're okay.  Never mind that we can barely stand being around each other.

If I settle for appearances over reality, that's not good.  If I mistake appearances for reality, that's dangerous and destructive.  The reason real changes in my family are so difficult and time-consuming comes from several factors:

• I do not want to change myself, really.
• I do not know how to change myself.
• I really don't want my family to change much, just in a few ways that will make life easier for myself.
• I do not know how to go about changing my family.

Change and growth seem elusive at best.  Most of the time I want to be struck by lightning or bit by a radioactive spider for change instead of doing any training or effort.  I might wish my family was different, like I wish I was a concert pianist, but wishing only breeds trying and trying is merely an effort expected to fail.  Two things are needed to break out of this situation: encouragement and endurance.

CHANGE BEGINS WITH TRUE HOPE

Hope needs to be set on what is true, otherwise it yields disappointment or even despair.  Jesus was big on truth.  He was always saying, "I tell you the truth" because he knew we needed truth to live by, truth to hope in.  The truth about family is that it is a reflection of the Trinity.  Jesus final word on God is that he  is his Father and our Father.  God's will and desire is bent on redeeming family relationships because, at their best, they give a dim picture of the oneness found in the Trinity.  If I work on my family life, I am deeply involved in the work of God, shining out his image.

Jesus's commands also reflect this.  Part of the greatest commandment is to love our neighbors as ourselves.  Who is our neighbor?  Simply, one who is "nigh" or near.  It may be that one of the big problems of the priest and Levite in the parable of the Good Samaritan was that they were overly concerned with people who were not "nigh" to them.  They were is a hurry to get "there" rather than love the person who was near at them moment. Sometimes that person is a stranger we may not like very much.  More often the ones who are near to me are my wife and kids.

All this talk about Jesus's commands often breeds guilt in my heart because I am used to seeing them used as clubs to beat people rather than hope to lift people. I am as guilty as anyone else. On the contrary, "everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope." (Romans 15:4) It is not Jesus who overburdens us with commands that we cannot keep, but ourselves. Loving family is not something I must or should do, but something that I get to do by God's grace. Jesus's commands are always pictures of what I can be like as I walk alongside him bearing the easy yoke.

So this is the encouragement. I am confident that God wants my family to be a center of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. This is his will. He never intended that such a life would be done without him. Jesus does not command what he will not have done by God's grace. His commands provide the picture of a life immersed in the Holy Spirit, a life drawing upon God's kingdom resources, a life dead to dead-end desires. Love is the best word to describe such a life. Family is where such love resides most of the time.

Endurance comes from knowing that when I pick up the burdens in my life, God will be at the other end, doing most of the lifting. Endurance comes from knowing that God will not lift what I I do not lift. My main work of lifting is the work of trusting. My effort begins as I trust God to work in my life. As I understand God's desire to make my family a place where love, joy, and peace reign, I can align my work with his. He takes my small efforts and gives them powerful results I could not have anticipated.

FAMILY MEANS TOGETHER

So what does that all mean? For my family, we do a lot of things together. As a result we do less things in general, since we feel we need and want to do many of them together. One of the most important things we do together is devote ourselves to God. Without such time with him, we cannot go on very long. Such devotion is made up of Bible/devotional readings, sharing work and conversation, eating normal and special meals together, and praying for each other and with each other. God continually meets us as we expectantly come to meet him.

Where are you to begin? Begin where you are. Make that one corner, room, house, office as like Heaven as you can. Begin? Begin with the paper on the walls, make that beautiful; with the air, keep it fresh; with the very drains, make them sweet; with the furniture, see that it be honest. Abolish whatsoever worketh abomination--in food, in drink, in luxury, in books, in art; whatsoever maketh a lie--in conversation, in social intercourse, in correspondence, in domestic life. This done, you have arranged for a Heaven, but you have not got it. Heaven lies within, in kindness, in humbleness, in unselfishness, in faith, in love, in service. To get these in, get Christ in. Teach all in the house about Christ--what He did, and what He said, and how He lived, and how He died, and how He dwells in them, and how He makes all one. Teach it not as a doctrine, but as a discovery, as your own discovery. Live your own discovery. (The City Without a Church, Henry Drummond)

Such a life will transcend the walls of our homes and the intimacy of our families. As we find ourselves trustworthy and able to work with what is small and close, we will find ourselves asked to work more with what is more distant and "big," but, I suspect, never to the exclusion of what is close and small. From the Bible as well as my own life I know that what is "big" and "important" to people in general is never big and important to God. The biggest changes start in the smallest corners and with unlikely people at the heart of them.

Lord, you know my heart. You know how I long to impress other people and how I think that by impressing others I will find the approval I seek. It is not true. Teach me how godliness with contentment is a great gain for myself and my family. Let me know the truth in the words, "Follow me, and I will make you a fisher of people." Just like you, Jesus. Amen.