What are you hoping for this year?
There's a general sense among all the people I've talked to recently that 2012 is going to be a good year. There's a tangible feeling of optimism and anticipation for this year.
And that applies to myself as well: as I alluded to yesterday, I'm stoked to be able to focus on the one thing that God has called me to--serving as Associate Pastor at The District Church. (And there's definitely something satisfactory about approaching 30.) I'm looking forward to a couple trips to California, including one in June to celebrate the wedding of my dear friend Kristin to her awesome fiancé, Joey. I'm looking forward to seeing what God is going to do in and through this toddler-aged church these next twelve months--I have no doubt we'll trip and fall on occasion, but I'm excited to see how we learn and grow and start walking. I'm looking forward to growing more as a pastor, a preacher, a worship leader, a small group leader, a communications director, a graphic designer, and of course, a son, a brother, a friend, and most of all, a follower of Christ.
Growing up, the most common refrain my parents would hear from my teachers at their parent-teacher conferences was, “Justin has a lot of potential; he just needs to apply himself. He just needs to focus.” And I was reminded of this because I realized that was true for most of 2011. I was severely lacking in focus, and leading a very reactionary life, running from one thing to the next without any understanding of the larger narrative I was inhabiting, and it led me to do everything I wanted to do (and, indeed, felt called to do) poorly.
So choose to be intentional in 2012. There are things over which we have no control. That’s what life is like; that’s reality. But there are things over which we do have control—our lives, our attitudes, our decisions—and as Paul writes to Timothy: “God did not give you a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of self-control” (2 Tim. 1:7). Having within us the power of the Holy Spirit of the God for whom nothing is impossible, we are more than capable. So commit to living intentionally, to living healthily. Take the time to look at your life, to look at your schedule, to look at how you’re living, working, doing, being.
And hope for this year. Plan for this year.* Prepare for this year. Ask God to give you a vision for this year. Write it down--from the large scale, generic ideas that you want to see come to pass this year, all the way to the specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely goals that you set deadlines for.
And come back to the vision. Again, and again. In the inevitable peaks and troughs to come, come back to the vision. Remind yourself where you began, reflect on where you've traveled, look up to where you're going.
Live intentionally.
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* Some people don't like making plans. They say that they're never going to come to pass anyway, so what's the point? They quote Proverbs 19:21 ("The human mind may devise many plans, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will be established.") as their supporting verse. But that doesn't tell us not to make plans! My philosophy? Make plans, hold them lightly, trust that God is ultimately the Lord of the Universe and of our lives, and that he has things in hand.
Job
So I've been reading through the Bible in a year. Today I reached the end of Job.
It’s a fascinating book. And bemusing, too. My understanding of what it says has definitely changed over the years, and even now, I’m not completely sure what to make of it all—especially all of the words that Job’s friends say. But I recognize the truth in God’s words, and I recognize the importance of Job’s admission at the end of the encounter (42:1-6):
Then Job answered the LORD:
“I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. ‘Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you declare to me.’ I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”
“Knowing one’s place” is far too simplistic and loaded a phrase to encapsulate what’s going on here; I don't think God is, as some think, bullying Job into submission. But perspective is key. As humans, we think of ourselves as the pinnacle of creation—more and more so with the continuing developments in technology and science—and so it’s almost unfathomable for us to think that we might be as nothing to ... well, anything at all.
But God is so far above, so high and holy, so awesome and wonderful, so majestic and glorious. There is no comparison. There is no comparison.
And you know what? This is a good way to start the day: to be reminded that, as NT Wright says, it’s not great faith we need to live truly, but faith in a great God. It's a freeing thought, too: that the weight of the world does not rest on our shoulders, that the responsibility and capacity for changing our lives, our situations, and our world does not come primarily from us, but from the Maker of the heavens and the earth, the Creator of the universe, the God who is above all and in all, and yet who calls us his own.
As Delirious? sings, "God is bigger than the air I breathe, the world we'll leave ..." ("My Glorious").
[image from Good News Bible]
Reflections on The Pastor
Eugene Peterson is a pastor and author that I respect greatly, and whose words and spirituality have impacted me immensely—through his mentorship of my own mentor as well as books like Subversive Spirituality, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, Where Your Treasure Is, Leap Over A Wall and Living the Resurrection. So it was with great eagerness that I bought his latest book, simply entitled The Pastor: A Memoir; I was very excited to learn from the life and experiences of a man who had influenced mine so much. My experience of vocational discernment very much mirrors Peterson’s, from the lessons I grew up with as a kid, to the experiences I had that—at least on the surface—had no business in the formation of a pastor, to the stumbling, fumbling journey into pastorhood: “Seemingly unconnected, haphazard events and people turned out to be organic to who I am” (25). Peterson described this journey as, “all the while becoming, without my knowing it, a pastor”(11).
As I take my own baby steps as a pastor, the lessons of someone who has faithfully walked the path that I seek to walk, and who has both the humility and the spiritual awareness to be attentive to what God is doing at every step, are especially valuable to me. I know I will make mistakes and I know I will never be done learning, but I also know—Peterson has taught me this over the last decade—that if I’m looking, I will see God at work in any and every situation; it is often—though not always—a matter of perspective.
A different perspective is something I often come away from Peterson’s writings with: a new insight, a better understanding, a fuller way of seeing something. This book is no different as, for instance, he describes the church as “a place where dignity is confirmed” (40), “a community of stories” (106), and, on a more cosmic level, “a colony of heaven in the country of death, a strategy of the Holy Spirit for giving witness to the already-inaugurated kingdom of God” (110).
And through the stories that he shares in the book of his own experiences and his reflections on them, I begin to understand a little more what it means to be a pastor—some of the joys and challenges I have already faced as well as some of the joys and challenges that I can look forward to.
I have already begun to see the truth to the words of George Arthur Buttrick that Peterson quotes, that the most important thing to do in preparing to preach each week is to meet with the people of the church: “There is no way that I can preach the gospel to these people if I don’t know how they are living, what they are thinking and talking about” (87). And I have already seen my tendency to deal with people as problems to be fixed; and Peterson also faced this temptation, but came to understand that “my work is not to fix people. It is to lead people in the worship of God and to lead them in living a holy life” (137).
The quiet, settled rooted spirituality that Peterson has written of, espoused, and lived out over decades is one that I have sought to emulate and become familiar with, and I look forward to continuing to grow in it. There’s a “kind of relaxed leisureliness that flows from a person who knows what he’s about, who knows where he’s going and what he’s doing. No need for hurry if you’re confident in who you are” (29). Especially for someone like myself, who has activist (read: busy!) tendencies, a spirituality that slows down, that brings peace, that provides deep roots, is especially necessary.
Perhaps most encouragingly, in reflecting on The Pastor, I have already seen the work that God has done and continues to do in my life in preparing me to be a pastor. I have had great friends and family who have walked before me on this road whose example I look up to: Clem, Gabe, John-Paul, Aaron, and more. And though I have never met him, Eugene Peterson is one whom I count as a spiritual father, who has a way of not just articulating experiences that I too have, but also of casting a vision for who I want to be:
I want to be a pastor who prays. I want to be reflective and responsive and relaxed in the presence of God so that I can be reflective and responsive and relaxed in your presence. I can’t do that on the run. It takes a lot of time. I started out doing that with you, but now I feel too crowded.
I want to be a pastor who reads and studies. This culture in which we live squeezes all the God sense out of us. I want to be observant and informed enough to help this congregation understand what we are up against, the temptations of the devil to get us thinking we can all be our own gods. This is subtle stuff. It demands some detachment and perspective. I can’t do this just by trying harder.
I want to be a pastor who has the time to be with you in leisurely, unhurried conversation so that I can understand and be a companion with you as you grow in Christ--your doubts and your difficulties, your desires and your delights. I can’t do that when I am running scared.
I want to be a pastor who leads you in worship, a pastor who brings you before God in receptive obedience, a pastor who preaches sermons that make scripture accessible and present and alive, a pastor who is able to give you a language and imagination that restores in you a sense of dignity as a Christian in your homes and workplaces and gets rid of these debilitating images of being a ‘mere’ layperson.
...
I want to be an unbusy pastor. (278)
How I’m making decisions
While in the UK, I got to read a lot--one of the perks of spending much time on public transportation. One of the books I read was Belief, edited by well-known scientist Francis Collins; and one of the excerpts is from Martin Luther King, Jr. In a sermon about having a tough mind and a tender heart, he said this:
[The tough-minded individual is] characterized by incisive thinking, realistic appraisal, and decisive judgment. The tough mind is sharp and penetrating, breaking through the crust of legends and myths and sifting the true from the false. The tough-minded individual is astute and discerning. He has a strong, austere quality that makes for firmness of purpose and solidness of commitment. (184)
It was that last phrase—“firmness of purpose and solidness of commitment”—that stirred me. Whether because I’m a Third Culture Kid or because I come from a middle class Chinese family or for whatever other reason, my approach to making decisions has always involved more bet-hedging and playing it safe, waiting until the dust has settled before striking out, holding out until I know things will work out.
And it struck me that God wants more than that. God wants more than playing it safe. Being responsible doesn’t equate with playing it safe. Making wise decisions doesn’t always mean going where things are guaranteed. Following God doesn’t always entail knowing how I’ll be taken care of, only that I’ll be taken care of.
So I'm trying to make my decisions based on who I want to become--who I believe God created me to be--rather than just who I've always been or what's safe.
In case you're wondering, yes, this is related to life decisions that I've been making the last few weeks. Which I'll write about soon. 