Flashback Favorite: Choosing our focus

The ins, outs, ups, and downs of life can cause us to lose sight of what’s truly important. Especially when it feels like bad, scary things just keep happening over and over. However, regardless of what we’re facing, we can choose what we focus on.

Choosing our focus
Originally posted on April 29, 2015

There are many things to be afraid of in this life.

Every day, the morning newspaper is full of stories about dangerous situations, unsafe people, riots, and natural disasters.  Stories about people from all walks of life with hidden agendas, corruption, and greed shaping the decisions they make.  Some days, it just feels like the whole world is closing in with evil people and bad situations. 

By his choice of words, we can see that David felt that way often…especially when he was on the run from King Saul.  Saul wanted David dead, so that he could continue being king.  Since David’s adversary was the most powerful man in the country, it seemed that everywhere David turned, he was in danger.

Here’s how David describes his situation:

Psalm 57:4
I am in the midst of lions;
I lie down with those who devour me.
Their teeth are spears and arrows;
their tongues are sharp swords.

Don’t just glaze over this description.  Let’s try and picture what David’s describing here.

You’re out in the open.  Not just in proximity to wild animals, rather there are lions who freely roam around the area where you’re standing.  You look for shelter, for cover…anything that will help you avoid an attack.  Even where you sleep at night is not entirely safe.  And you don’t have to guess as to how the lions will treat you if they find you.  There will be blood, and certainly no mercy.

How do you feel?  Where’s your focus?

In moments like these, our real priorities come into a much sharper focus.  We clearly recognize what’s important and what is not.  Survival normally becomes the driving influence in all our decisions.  We may even select a few people we trust, and then we would make our next move. 

However, David’s next move is to look up

Psalm 57:5
God, be exalted above the heavens;
let Your glory be above the whole earth.

Previously in this psalm, David has approached God for refuge and protection.  However, when the danger arrives…when Saul comes close to where David is hiding…David’s request turns away from himself and focuses solely on God’s reputation.

That is the true challenge for us.  When we find ourselves in the crucible of life, when the corruption of the world is pressing in…are we looking to merely survive the evil around us, or are we looking to advance God’s reputation in this world?  Which do we desire more? 

If we choose the focus that David did, then the scary things in life won’t be so overwhelming. 

Keep Pressing,
Ken

Does God ever say no?

Within the last 10 years, I’ve heard a strange argument about the responses God gives when we pray.  The pastor/teacher/author makes the claim that – whatever we ask in prayer – God gives us 1 of 3 responses…and none of them are the word “No”.

The first time I heard this, it caused me to turn my head at an angle, raise an eyebrow, and immediately think, “What?”  The pastor went on to explain the three responses God gives to prayer are “Yes”, “Wait”, and “I have something better”.  Explaining the last answer, the pastor argued that instead of flat-out rejecting our prayer request, God’s Will/God’s Best for our lives means that He knows the request we have isn’t in our best interests – even if we, in this prayerful moment, think it is.

Overall, it seems to makes sense.  I may tell my child “no” when he asks for a piece of candy in the afternoon…not because I’m against him ever having candy, but it’s because I know (and he doesn’t) that we’re going for ice cream after dinner.  If my son asks for a tiger cub, it’s not going to happen – because his safety is more important than looking cool when he tells his friends about the new family pet.

So does God really never tell us “No” because He always has something better for us?  Like I said, it seems to make sense…until I read this story from David’s life:

1 Chronicles 17:1
When David had settled into his palace, he said to the prophet Nathan, “Look!  I am living in a cedar house while the ark of the Lord’s covenant is under tent curtains.”

David’s concern was that while he was living lavishly through God’s blessings, protection, and battlefield victories, by comparison, the official meeting place for Israel with God was still in a portable tent from the ancient times.  David recognized the inequity and wanted to build a temple that sufficiently proclaimed God’s greatness to His people.  David desired a good thing; however, God told the prophet Nathan to give David a very specific message about his desire to build a house for God:

1 Chronicles 17:4, 11-12
“Go to David my servant and say, ‘This is what the Lord says: You are not the one to build Me a house to dwell in…when your time comes to be with your fathers, I will raise up after you your descendant, who is one of your own sons, and I will establish his kingdom.  He is the one who will build a house for Me, and I will establish his throne forever.”

That sounds a lot like a “No” to me.  God did not want David to build the temple; instead, his son Solomon (who was not yet born) would have that honor.  In addition to one of David’s sons building the temple, God did promise to establish David’s kingdom lineage, which is a HUGE promise (and you can read the details of God’s promise and David’s full response in 1 Chronicles 17)…however…David was still not permitted to build a house for God.

That seems kinda strange to me.  Why wouldn’t He let David, the one described as “a man after God’s own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14), build God a temple suitable to proclaim God’s greatness and serve as God’s meeting place with the nation that David helped form? 

We find the answer a number of years later, when David is explaining his temple dreams to Solomon:

1 Chronicles 22:6-10
Then [David] summoned his son Solomon and charged him to build a house for the Lord God of Israel.  “My son,” David said to Solomon, “It was in my heart to build a house for the name of the Lord my God, but the word of the Lord came to me:

‘You have shed much blood and waged great wars.  You are not to build a house for My name because you have shed so much blood on the ground before Me.  But a son will be born to you; he will be a man of rest.  I will give him rest from all his surrounding enemies, for his name will be Solomon (the name “Solomon” sounds like the Hebrew word for “peace”), and I will give peace and quiet to Israel during his reign.  He is the one who will build a house for My name.  He will be My son, and I will be his father.  I will establish the throne of his kingdom over Israel forever.’

David was very much the “warrior king” who shed a lot of blood on the battlefield as he fought for Israel’s territory.  As such, God saw David’s history as incompatible with building a place of worship.  Instead, if a temple was to be built, God wanted His temple to be constructed during peaceful times rather than built on the immediate spoils of war. 

This says a lot about the character of God and how He wants to be represented to the world.  The legacy of the temple’s builder would influence the perception of the temple and the reputation of God among the people.  If the building was known as “David’s temple”, then memories of war and bloodshed would be associated with the building where the Israelites encountered God.  Instead, the building is referred to as “Solomon’s temple”, underscoring the time of peace when it was constructed and the vast wisdom associated with Solomon.  Looking at the Bible as a whole, we find significantly more instances of God engaging humanity through peace and wisdom than we encounter Him via war and bloodshed.

In the end, God telling David “No” wasn’t about God having “something better” for David.  Instead, God chose the builder that was better to represent Him and His reputation.  God’s choosing of us for a task or service or not choosing us for a task or service is something we have to wrestle with.  Even if we really want to do a particular action for God, He may choose someone else.  So, how do we deal with that?

David is a good example of how we can handle God telling us “No”.  Instead of pouting, withdrawing, or getting angry with God for not letting him do the good thing he wanted to do…David did everything he could to support Solomon’s temple building activity.  It would be a massive project that would ultimately take seven years to complete.  Here’s what David told Solomon:

1 Chronicles 22:14-16
Notice I have taken great pains to provide for the house of the Lord – 3,775 tons of gold, 37,750 tons of silver, and bronze and iron that can’t be weighed because there is so much of it.  I have also provided timber and stone, but you will need to add more to them.  You also have many workers: stonecutters, masons, carpenters, and people skilled in every kind of work in gold, silver, bronze, and iron – beyond number.  Now begin the work, and may the Lord be with you.

Maybe there’s work you’ve always wanted to do for God, but through your own life choices or by God’s timing, you have not been able to do it.  However, there are lots of ministries doing really good work that could use your help.  We would be wise to consider the possibility that instead of us personally leading the charge, we can better serve God by taking great pains to support those whom He has chosen to handle these projects.

Keep Pressing,
Ken

A double warning for those who work

We see the same stereotypes in most of our TV shows.  Take a group of five adults in a workplace setting, and you’ll almost always have an overbearing boss, the perky one, someone who can’t keep their personal life together, the nerd, and the old guy/gal.  We’ve seen them so much that we tend to anticipate that people in life will act out these roles.  In a real sense, our entertainment has become our expectation.  And while TV shows are society’s current choice of distraction and amusement, the need to be mindful of a stereotype’s influence is actually an old issue.

There was a running gag in ancient comedies of the arrogant, back-talking slave who mocked the master behind his back and sassed his master to his face.  Either of which would lead to the slave taking a beating for comedic effect.  This motif was regularly present in Greek and Latin plays.  These shows also type-casted the role of the slave to be wicked and selfish.

When Paul wrote to Timothy, as much as one-third of the Roman world was made up of slaves.  Roman slavery was not like what we think of in terms of slavery – it wasn’t race-based (there were slaves of all races) and while some did the harsh, menial work other slaves had significant skills and responsibilities (such as medical work, teaching, and business).  The average age of a slave was 17, and most could reasonably expect to be freed by the time they reached 30 (with typical life expectancy of 36 for women and 43 for men). 

So if 1/3 of society was slave population, you can imagine that there would be a fair number of slaves in the church.  And if the general expectation of “slave behavior” was rudeness, disrespect, and conduct that deserved an occasional beating – would God expect something different because of their society status?

1 Timothy 6:1-2
All who are under the yoke as slaves must regard their own masters to be worthy of all respect, so that God’s name and His teaching will not be blasphemed. 

And those who have believing masters should not be disrespectful to them because they are brothers, but should serve them better, since those who benefit from their service are believers and dearly loved.

Whatever circumstance a slave found themselves in, they were to demonstrate their relationship with Jesus in the way they treated their master.  Paul doesn’t say that the master must deserve respect or should earn respect…instead, the slave must [choose to] regard their own masters to be worthy of all respect.  They were to ignore the low-bar expectations of society and realize that their actions mattered to God’s reputation.  A slave that acted counter-culturally would stand out as a positive witness for God.

Paul is such a realist.  He recognizes peoples’ general, selfish tendency to use a situation to their own benefit – and warns slaves not to take advantage of their believing masters.  Choosing to act like society’s stereo-typical slave because you assume that grace and mercy will be available is not only hypocritical, but shows a lack of understanding of the love Christ showed all of us.

Paul’s directions are applicable for us, even though we don’t live in an indentured-servant society.  We come across all sorts of stereotyped behaviors in our own jobs, and we need to make the choice to live out of our relationship with Jesus, rather than meet society’s low-bar expectations.

Every time we go to work, God’s reputation is on the line.  Others will definitely notice how you go about your business – even if the boss is an overbearing jerk.

Keep Pressing,
Ken

A warning for the young ones

Success at a young age can have its downfalls.  We see it often in the entertainment industry, when a child star has national fame and an unending flow of fans…and then, as soon as their voice begins to crack, the public focus shifts away to the next young talented person.  The starlet usually doesn’t handle this rapid change in fortune very well, either.  Our news feeds are full of sad ‘Where are they now?’ stories.

I think a large reason why these starlets begin to flail and eventually fail is because they are not receiving sound advice as they navigate their early success.  Their manager’s (and oftentimes, also their parents’) ambition is to take advantage of every opportunity to keep the starlet’s name in front of the public.  Whirlwind tours, constant events, and deceptive sweet-talk convince the child that he or she really is the center of the world.  When the starlet begins to believe they are the reason for everything going so well, they think that they actually deserve the spotlight.

As Paul explains to Timothy which characteristics either seek out or avoid for someone to fill the overseer role for the local church, he includes this warning:

1 Timothy 3:6-7
He must not be a new convert, or he might become conceited and fall into the condemnation of the Devil.  Furthermore, he must have a good reputation among outsiders, so that he does not fall into disgrace and the Devil’s trap.

Paul’s concern is that a “young one” in the faith will not be ready to handle either the rapid success or flattery that could come their way in an overseer role.  An overseer’s job is to leading people toward God, helping them avoid personal pitfalls, and instructing them on how to navigate cultural issues.  However, if an overseer doesn’t keep his focus on God, if he begins to dwell on all the compliments that come his way…then he might become conceited and think that he is reason for his congregation’s success.

It was pride that cost the Devil his position as an archangel.  Likewise, if an overseer becomes conceited in his position, God will remove him. 

Satan is more than willing to use his experience to lay a trap for the overseers in God’s church.  Therefore, overseers must be vigilant in protecting their reputation among those in the larger community, and especially among non-believers.  The world loves to point out the stories of when Christian leaders fall into disgrace.  If an overseer is a new convert, then the risk of being caught in these traps goes up significantly…so it is better to let the young one develop a blameless reputation on his own before he carries the burden of representing a larger Christian community.

Paul doesn’t gives Timothy these guidelines so individuals will be excluded from doing the noble work of an overseer; rather, Paul wants to protect the individuals who do lead, the church, and most importantly, God’s reputation among unbelievers.  We need competent, mature leadership within our church family. 

This is why Paul mentored Timothy.  Now it’s Timothy’s turn to mentor others.

Keep Pressing,
Ken

Choosing our focus

There are many things to be afraid of in this life.

Every day, the morning newspaper is full of stories about dangerous situations, unsafe people, riots, and natural disasters.  Stories about people from all walks of life with hidden agendas, corruption, and greed shaping the decisions they make.  Some days, it just feels like the whole world is closing in with evil people and bad situations. 

By his choice of words, we can see that David felt that way often…especially when he was on the run from King Saul.  Saul wanted David dead, so that he could continue being king.  Since David’s adversary was the most powerful man in the country, it seemed that everywhere David turned, he was in danger.

Here’s how David describes his situation:

Psalm 57:4
I am in the midst of lions;
I lie down with those who devour me.
Their teeth are spears and arrows;
their tongues are sharp swords.

Don’t just glaze over this description.  Let’s try and picture what David’s describing here.

You’re out in the open.  Not just in proximity to wild animals, rather there are lions who freely roam around the area where you’re standing.  You look for shelter, for cover…anything that will help you avoid an attack.  Even where you sleep at night is not entirely safe.  And you don’t have to guess as to how the lions will treat you if they find you.  There will be blood, and certainly no mercy.

How do you feel?  Where’s your focus?

In moments like these, our real priorities come into a much sharper focus.  We clearly recognize what’s important and what is not.  Survival normally becomes the driving influence in all our decisions.  We may even select a few people we trust, and then we would make our next move. 

However, David’s next move is to look up

Psalm 57:5
God, be exalted above the heavens;
let Your glory be above the whole earth.

Previously in this psalm, David has approached God for refuge and protection.  However, when the danger arrives…when Saul comes close to where David is hiding…David’s request turns away from himself and focuses solely on God’s reputation.

That is the true challenge for us.  When we find ourselves in the crucible of life, when the corruption of the world is pressing in…are we looking to merely survive the evil around us, or are we looking to advance God’s reputation in this world?  Which do we desire more? 

If we choose the focus that David did, then the scary things in life won’t be so overwhelming. 

Keep Pressing,
Ken