The Forgotten Fruit of Faithfulness

It's safe to say that we live in a culture that prizes the concept of "radical."

We--and I definitely include myself in this category--love to think of ourselves as revolutionary firebrands, as if our generation is the cumulative second-coming of a technologically equipped Martin Luther.

We love to glorify the cowboy, the lone ranger, the wild men who break free from the prison bars of a 9 to 5 and a lawn to mow.

While much of this is attitude can be good and necessary, I think that we as Christians are especially prone to exalt a radical out-of-the-box attitude as the newly discovered chief end of man.

It strikes me as odd--and most of all, humbling--then, that the concept of "radical living" in and of itself is nowhere to be found in the Scriptures. Of course, as Jesus steps onto the stage of human history, He delivers one challenge after another that require a radical change at the heart level--akin to being born again--but you won't find Him calling His disciples to become a group of mavericks who renounce convention as a spiritual act in and of itself.

In fact, what the Scriptures hold up as the the normal and practical context of a Christian living out his or her faith is just that: normal and practical.

Maybe, instead of Christ calling His disciples to merely flaunt convention, He's calling us to a change that is deeper than simply quitting a job or selling a house. You don't need to be given a new heart to figure out that the American Dream isn't all it's cracked up to be, but you do need to be given a new heart if you're going to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

This is the kind of change that will result in that increasingly forgotten virtue known as faithfulness.

Now, if you're anything like me, that may not exactly thrill your heart to hear that, because it seems so mundane and ordinary. Faithfulness doesn't sound all that exciting, but for the believer, faithfulness is a clear sign that God is actively working in our lives, producing the fruit that is to be characteristic of His people.

The forgotten fruit of faithfulness is what my friend and former boss, Tim, reminded me of this past year. Tim had originally hired me at Concordia, and I worked under him for a year before he moved onto a different position at the school.

I have all the respect in the world for Tim as a godly man and a leader, and so when I came upon hard times in the past year, I went to him for advice.

After listening to my situation and helping me to think through a couple of different issues, he said something so simple that I was almost tempted to pass it by.

He said, "Jay, God is not calling us to do anything heroic or to be liked by everybody, but He is calling us to be faithful. With His help, I think it's a pretty achievable goal."

A few months removed from that conversation, I'm still getting a bit choked up just remembering those words and the deep, lasting consolation the Lord delivered to my soul that afternoon.

Far from boring and mundane, faithfulness is a miraculous fruit that is produced by God's Spirit in the hearts and lives of believers.

And how does faithfulness show itself? In everyday life, of course.

Faithfulness means answering the bell morning after morning, working hard, paying attention to detail at our jobs, refusing to be distracted and waste our company's time. It means that we are consistent in the time we spend with our families, making that time count by pouring into them and showing them how to walk with the Lord.

Faithfulness also means pursuing relationships that God is putting naturally in our lives; relentlessly loving, knowing and caring for our friends, co-workers and neighbors and ceaselessly praying that God would open a door for His gospel there.

Faithfulness means that we make the most of our time, realizing that time is short and we are on a mission to reach a dying world with the good news of God who has loved us and pursued us even to the point of death so that we might live in Him.

I pray that God would produce this forgotten fruit of faithfulness in me more and more.

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires." -Galatians5:22-24

Columbus, C.S., and the God of All Comfort

As I checked my email for the ump-teenth time this afternoon, it hit me: My god is too small.

Before you get too excited and start putting a tract in the first-class mail headed for Columbus, allow me to point out the lack of capitalization on the above "g".

Because by no means is the God of Glory, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, too small. No, no, He is the One who raised Christ Jesus from the dead.

The god I'm talking about is decidedly smaller than the aforementioned God who sits enthroned above the earth, looking down upon the sons of men as if they were grasshoppers--yet still taking notice of us image-bearers of the Holy One.

The god I'm talking about is nothing more than a crude replica of the God of All Comfort. This mini-g deity is simply the god of comfort, offering--in the place of unconditional trust in the creating, sustaining and redeeming love of God--a paycheck.

Not that I'm against paychecks per se, in fact quite the opposite, I'm for 'em. Especially as it applies to supporting my family, as per the emphatic direction given in 1 Timothy 5:8, which declares that  a so-called believer sitting on his duff, neglecting the needs of his family, is in a worse predicament than that of an unbeliever.

Or, to steal a line from It's a Wonderful Life, "(Money) comes in pretty handy 'round here, Bub!"

With right around 25 applications in process and just over a week into moving my fledgling family across the country to the fair (and slightly humid) city of Columbus, Ohio, I'm ready to get working.

A natural and godly inclination, to be sure, but one that is easily perverted by the Enemy.

Here's how it has worked in my mind over this last week: I'll spend a few hours at a time feverishly applying to anything from local coffee shops to multi-million dollar marketing corporations, then I'll refresh my inbox, literally not willing to leave a new email unopened for more than a minute or two.

Since I have my email set to pop up when a new email arrives, the question to "Is there a new email?" is invariably "No" when I check it this way, but still, I want to be extra sure I'm not missing something, as if the email will read, "This job will self-destruct in 10-9-8..."

Now I'm sure I'm not the first, last or only person to ever experience this cycle, but what I noticed with increased clarity this afternoon was the fact that, instead of thanking God for allowing me to play a part in His story and asking to make me faithful to play it well, I have been begging that He would quickly bring along a job, period.

But what if, during this time of job-seeking, God is not most passionate that I find a job, but that I seek Him more, that I realize my dependence upon Him more. What if He desires me to pray for His kingdom to come with a fervency that I wouldn't have if everything was dialed in?

Could it be that He is using this unique time--now more than ever--to cause me to deny myself, take up my cross and follow Him?

If that's going to happen, I know that the top casualty is going to be the mini-g god of comfort.

It's going to end up looking something like the scene C.S. Lewis creates in The Great Divorce, where one of the ghosts has an extremely painful lizard-ectomy of the shoulder. The lizard had been a nuisance and a tormentor of the ghost up until this point, directing his paths, yet disallowing him to be free and whole.

When the lizard is finally removed from the ghost's shoulder, there's a terrible, agonizing scream from the ghost, but he is transformed into a solid man, and the lizard is transformed into a great stallion that suddenly serves as a faithful steed--not an encumbrance--for the now-solid man.

Uncomfortable as the process may be right now, there stands the God of All Comfort, promising to replace my self-made, shabby version of "comfort" with that infinite, unfading variety of Comfort found only in sharing in the afflictions of Christ.

The test is going to be whether or not I check my email right after I get done posting this self-directed sermon.

Ready? Set? Go.