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Jan
28

A Jostled Vessel

By | Character

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What­ever you are over­flow­ing with will spill out

This past week­end, I was talk­ing to my appren­tice about char­ac­ter and the great poten­tial it brings, if we were truly sur­ren­dered to God. Sur­ren­dered as if we were empty ves­sels. I used ves­sels in the sense that we have capac­ity to be poured into and then poured out. Imper­fect ves­sels as we are, with­out holes (in our faith and char­ac­ter), can con­tain bless­ings to God and oth­ers, in a way that we can daily be poured out as a drink offereing.

Lis­ten­ing this morn­ing to Ravi Zacharias—one of a few men who’s lives I fol­low, learn­ing from their faith, wis­dom and character—he told a story about a tumul­tuous time in his fam­ily grow­ing up in India. As a part of this story, relat­ing his moth­ers char­ac­ter,  he quoted this part of an Indian proverb:

“What­ever you are over­flow­ing with will spill out”

Easy to under­stand, right? The lit­tle boy in the car­pen­ters’ work­shop (pic­tured) appears to be mov­ing cau­tiously with a filled ves­sel (bowl) that serves some pur­pose (poured or some­how dis­charged to use) in the shop.  If his father or mas­ter  (pic­tured) were to back up as the boy went behind, he might bump into him, jostling his hands and poten­tially caus­ing the bowls con­tents to spill. The ques­tion is, if that bowl is us, what spills out?

For this rea­son I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every fam­ily in heaven and on earth is named, that accord­ing to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strength­ened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to com­pre­hend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that sur­passes knowl­edge, that you may be filled with all the full­ness of God. (Eph­esians 3:14–18; Eph­esians 3:19 ESV)

Now in a great house there are not only ves­sels of gold and sil­ver but also of wood and clay, some for hon­or­able use, some for dis­hon­or­able.  There­fore, if any­one cleanses him­self from what is dis­hon­or­able, he will be a ves­sel for hon­or­able use, set apart as holy, use­ful to the mas­ter of the house, ready for every good work.
(2 Tim­o­thy 2:20–21 ESV)

Dec
28

Skipping Steps

By | Faulty Methods

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Maintaining Tools

Main­tain­ing Tools

As I walk through my own jour­ney, try­ing to yield to God’s Holy Spirit, I am see­ing in me the self-determined man try­ing to con­tend with all that is in my path. In this con­tention, I am still con­founded by the real­iza­tion that as I gather my tools around me to tutor my appren­tice, I myself have adopted short­cuts and meth­ods that are not the signs of a mas­ter craftsman.

As I train my stu­dent, I am keenly mind­ful that I must not only avoid illus­trat­ing to him the short­cuts, but warn him against adopt­ing them as well.

This is no clearer to me that in the process of mak­ing deci­sions. I have come to real­ize that I some­times rely on accu­mu­lated wis­dom and forgo an impor­tant step in the process of deci­sion mak­ing; that step is ask­ing my mas­ter for help.

I must stay con­di­tioned to ask­ing God for His assis­tance and insight as I pon­der the sim­ple to the com­plex. Why do I not do this as much as I should? I don’t know really, other than being self–determined and too impetuous—oh, and a sinner.

“Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near let the wicked for­sake his way, and the unright­eous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that he may have com­pas­sion on him, and to our God, for he will abun­dantly par­don.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nei­ther are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.
For as the heav­ens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, mak­ing it bring forth and sprout, giv­ing seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accom­plish that which I pur­pose, and shall suc­ceed in the thing for which I sent it.
(Isa­iah 55:6–11 ESV)

Look care­fully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, mak­ing the best use of the time, because the days are evil. There­fore do not be fool­ish, but under­stand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauch­ery, but be filled with the Spirit, address­ing one another in psalms and hymns and spir­i­tual songs, singing and mak­ing melody to the Lord with your heart, giv­ing thanks always and for every­thing to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, sub­mit­ting to one another out of rev­er­ence for Christ. (Eph­esians 5:15–21 ESV)

Note to self: Sharpen your tools, ham­mer out defects, reex­am­ine your meth­ods and def­i­nitely pray before your next les­son to your apprentice.

Dec
27

The Disciples’ Apprentice

By | General

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A medieval baker with his apprentice.

A medieval baker with his apprentice.

Since the news came in 1999 that I would be a father, increas­ingly as the birth day loomed, I began to soberly con­sider the respon­si­bil­ity that lay before me. Raise a mod­ern day dis­ci­ple of Jesus.

As a fol­lower of Christ, I knew the respon­si­bil­ity that was expected of me; how­ever, I was not pre­pared and mostly unsure, out­side of scrip­ture, where to find the real guid­ance I would need.  After all, isn’t it impor­tant that I am pre­pared to show my son by exam­ple the abil­ity that he is to master?

Rep­re­sented here is the col­lec­tion of thoughts and prac­tices as I lead my son into and through what it means to be a dis­ci­ple of Jesus, the sav­iour of his soul.

“…make every effort to sup­ple­ment your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowl­edge, and knowl­edge with self-control, and self-control with stead­fast­ness, and stead­fast­ness with god­li­ness, and god­li­ness with broth­erly affec­tion, and broth­erly affec­tion with love. For if these qual­i­ties are yours and are increas­ing, they keep you from being inef­fec­tive or unfruit­ful in the knowl­edge of our Lord Jesus Christ.“
(2 Peter 1:5–8 ESV)