My dear friend and brother, Chris Roe, sent me this email thought (read below). Chris and Jennifer are the couple we are partnering with in Encounter Ministries. Chris' real passion is helping people (especially men) dig real deep. He does not cut corners or play the religious game of "being the nice guy". Chris is real. Chris is discerning. Chris is a man of God...and I don't use that term lightly at all. I respect and admire this brother for being a shepherd of people's hearts. To get a flavor of his insights, read below...
Randy H.
From The Way of the Wild Heart- John Eldredge
"So much of what we interpret as hassles or trials or screw-ups on our part are in fact God fathering us, taking us through something in order to strengthen us, or heal us, or dismantle some unholy thing in us. In other words, initiate us."
Ok, we know the pattern, life is going ok, nothing too bad, too good, just alright, and then....BAM! It happens, a hassle, a bill you forgot you owed, an old flame crosses your path, you get downsized, you get fired, you get caught, your wife gets sick, your church is in turmoil. Basically, the proverbial "other shoe" drops. Now what? How do you respond? What is your default setting?
Most of us do one of two things. We either think God is doing this to us or that we brought it on ourselves because we aren't doing something right. We either blame God or we blame ourselves. Now some of us good Christ-following folks might even blame the enemy for an attack. After all we know that he is roaming around like a lion seeking to devour us.
In the first two scenarios the enemy does win. Blaming God or thinking we are in need of punishment both hinder and wound our views of God and ourselves. While the idea that the enemy is attacking is a legitimate one, sometimes I think we miss something. I think we miss that maybe God is up to something far more exciting. He is initiating (training) us.
Now there is a problem. Most of us only know of one kind of training, the passing on of information. Education as we have come to know it is all about information. It rarely includes experiential learning. And yet how is that working for us? Answer me this, has all the passing on of information you have received in church and other forms of religious learning REALLY prepared you for your life? Now don't get me wrong, I am not proposing we do away with information. I am just saying that method of teaching is woefully incomplete.
So what is missing? Training. Real, live ammo, training, initiation. We know it's true, we love the movies where this happens. Star Wars (esp. the first three). Rocky (who doesn't want a guy like Mick? I love it when he says "you're gonna eat lightning and crap thunder!") and even The Karate Kid. Students are "taught" through experience, by a process of initiation. Taught in such a way that they are READY for what comes when it comes. And the great thing is that while these "students" (let's call them understudys) don't usually realize why all of this stuff is necessary, they submit to it. And in the end, they are ready to face what comes.
We LOVE those endings. Daniel beats the dude from Cobra Kai, Luke blows up the enemy, Rocky knocks out Apollo, Drago, Clubber Lang (Mr. T.). We cheer and watch them over and over again. WHY? Because we want that in OUR lives.
But we miss out. What's up with that?
God's great desire is to initiate us into ever increasing glory. The bottom line to what is really going on is that God is "working together all things for good" for the purpose of our deeper and fuller transformation into the likeness of His son. (read Romans 8:28,29.) He is making us sons and daughters through the initiatory process called life.
You may ask, "Why am I not experiencing this?" You may say, "It seems like God is always screwing things up for me and they just get harder or worse....each heartbreak gets more painful."
Well the one thing that is missing for most of us is to (Man, we hate this word) SUBMIT. To accept that life is one big training ground and no matter what the origin on the difficulty, the hardship that our loving Daddy, our own Omnipotent Mr. Miagi, Mick, Obi-Wan, is using this pressure cooker called life to make us more like we were originally intended to be. To trust that God has my best at heart.
Sound risky? Really? How is your way working out for you? Are you moving ever increasingly in freedom and joy? What about rest? You getting any of that? You learning more and more how to face the enemy and extinguish his flaming darts?
Isn't the way we have always lived (under our own power and strength) really the risky proposition? What if your today experience, be it chasing chickens (Rocky) or sanding the floor (Karate Kid) was making you into the fighter, the warrior, the lover, the husband, the follower, the leader, the father, the friend that God intended you to be?
Hebrews 12 (NIV)
7Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father?
Endure difficulty as training, as initiation. As preparatory education for the fight we call life.
Maybe God loves you enough to teach you like a master teaches a pupil. So when you must face life head on, you will be able to call on that power. So that you will live as children of the master. Prepared for the fight and the resulting freedom at hand.
