Tough Stuff

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Walt Disney gives us a false message: “Someday my prince will come.” (Okay, this is a true message, in the ultimate sense. Jesus will come back and make everything right. Eventually.)

But meanwhile, life is challenging. Walt Disney tells us that in two hours all of life’s difficult challenges are neatly resolved. The Bible gives a different story.1 Samuel 23-24 tells of David running around in the wilderness, being chased by King Saul, who wanted to kill him. As I previously observed, David was very close to God and yet God let David go through that very tough period.

In the midst of being chased, David knew where to look – God. (He wrote Psalm 63 in the midst of that flight. He must have been carrying a few pens and some paper with him in the wilderness.) In verse 1: “I earnestly search for you.” And then that leads to verse 4: “Your unfailing love is better than life itself; how I praise you!” Wow. His longer-term view of reality is amazing in light of his circumstances.

I find it freeing to know that it’s all right that things aren’t always all right. We need God. He wants us to need Him. If you’re in the wilderness today, cry to God and ask Him to show you His presence. He will. Maybe not immediately or in the way you expect, but He will.

Jesus reminds us, “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am.” (John 14:1-3.)

(Paul Merrill writes here every First Friday.)

How to make a follower.

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Commit your life to something. Could be anything. It’s more fun if it’s something that matters. Or someone.

Learn about it. Or them. I mean learn. Details, subtleties. Favorite time of day. Batting average. History of the development of the scholarship. Not because it’s impressive, just because you love to know.

Conform your life to it. Change your schedule to coincide with when all of the episodes are going to be shown. Don’t just buy the t-shirt, build the muscles that make the t-shirt bulge. Make real choices.

Notice someone who seems interested to talk with you more. It’ll be tempting to interest everyone. But you know that not everyone is. So why waste time trying to convince someone. Instead, look for someone who has the same curiosity or desperation you had, back when we started this post.

Explain what you know. Forget understanding everything. Talk about what you do understand, not as an expert, but as a committed learner. Explain what you learned by screwing up.

Spend time together. Invite them to go to the hardware store with you to watch how you make choices about money and about what projects can help other people. Invite them to go to the movies with you to watch how you make choices about content. Invite them to just sit quietly, unentertained. Invite them to go to the grocery store and the bank. Just like parents do with kids.

Share your reading patterns on Facebook. I used to think it foolish the way people shared the articles they read (Yahoo), the music they listen to (Spotify), the videos they watch. I thought, “do you really want us to see that?” And then I realized that’s a great way to help your followers understand you.

Watch when they start through this list, too. 

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How I get things done. Sometimes.

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In a hallway on the other side of the building from my office are two sofas. They are more like love seats. They form the angle of a third of an apple pie, two slices, one for you, one for me. When you sit on these sofas, your back is to a couple windows, your face is toward the empty church sanctuary, hidden behind a brick wall. And most of the time, traffic in this hallway is light.

A couple times a week, when I remember, I walk to the sofas with a cup of coffee and a pile of lists. It’s a printout of my current projects, the list of drafts of various writing things, some articles that I want to read, the list of things that have to get done before I walk out of the building.

I never stay on the sofas very long, unless I fall into the sleep that looks, I tell myself, exactly like prayer. I never stay long because when I sit down and start to look at the list, I start writing. The log-jam clears. I make sketched-out progress on four or six of the things on the list, enough to go back to my office and my computer and write emails and essays and next steps.

There is nothing special about the sofas, I don’t think. Except that I intentionally move away from my connections. I intentionally move away from people. I intentionally move to God.

Because when I walk to those sofas, I am also saying “I need to be able to hear you God.” I would like to believe that it’s what Jesus did when he walked away from the crowds into the hills to pray. When I remember, that’s what I do, taking my lists and brainstorming with God.

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How stopping can help you see.

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I asked Nancy what to write. She said to write what I had learned Monday. I said I didn’t want to review the day, didn’t what to be reminded. And then I realized that I probably needed to stop and listen.

Hope’s going to Central Europe this summer for a couple weeks. She’ll be working with some high school students from the US and a bunch of kids from there. She asked some people for money to help with the trip. She found out on Monday that almost everything is covered and they don’t leave until July.

I wanted a bicycle. With warm weather coming, I wanted to put wheels under my stationary riding. On Sunday I looked at one at an estate sale. I came home, told Nancy I was going to get it. And then I said, “Nope. Don’t know why, but I’m not going.” Ten minutes later, Andrew called to see if I was going to be home for 30 minutes. A friend dropped off Andrew’s old bike.

I got an email that had me wrestling, struggling with how to respond, struggling with an old sense of failure. It was hacking away at me. Even as I was remembering some teaching from Philippians I had been doing just a couple days ago, I was unable to apply what I so confidently say to others to my own heart. Until I did.

I listened to a 25 year old podcast while driving to get Hope. What new followers of Jesus need, said LeRoy Eims, is love and protection. Before they need rules, before they need scolding or expectations that they should immediately figure out everything that the church hasn’t been able to do right for the past 2000 years, they need love. And explanations.

So what did you learn on Monday?

How following someone home isn’t just for dogs.

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When Jesus started making disciples, he invited two of the first five to the place he was staying. They spent a long time talking. And then they spent three years on the road together. When Aquila and Priscilla wanted to help Apollos learn what following Jesus really meant, they invited him home. When Paul was wrapping up his final instructions to Timothy, he didn’t just say “remember what I said”. Instead, he said, “you know everything about me.” And listed the kinds of things that Timothy knew: his way of life, his purpose, his faith, his love, his suffering. And in that context talked about the Bible as if they had walked through it before, as if it was something that Timothy had seen in Paul’s life as well as his words.

There is a deep relational component to helping people grow. The model we see is that as our lives are being changed by our relationship with Jesus, we allow others to see that process of imperfect development. And that opening of life and home and Facebook activity is part of the evidence of a relationship.

I’m uncomfortable with this, with the day-to-day intimacy that these stories reflect in the relationship between teacher and disciple. I would rather be able to say “let me give you the answers. Now go away.” But that approach develops people who think that following Jesus is more about telling than living. And that’s not how Jesus works.

I find it impossible any more to write scripts, to say “Here are the 8 things that you must do to be more like Jesus.” I’m coming around to thinking it’s more effective to say, “Let’s take a walk. Here are some things I’m learning.”

And I should probably invite you over. But we’re still working on that.

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