Archive for August, 2008
Are you keeping score?
In the quest for success and impact, whether you feel you have arrived to your pinnacle or have a long journey ahead of you, there is a temptation to want to keep score. To find security or to bolster one’s pride by looking at the resources you have.
I know I do it — sometimes it looks at the glass half-full and take pleasure on where I’ve come along. Often times it is glass half-empty and lamenting what I don’t have.
I do believe that having meaningful markers is important, but in this passage I could see how even kings, if they rely on the score more than on God, invite chastisement.
King David, successful in battle, allows some inner temptations or fears to seek solace by keeping score:
Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel. So david said to Joab and the commanders of the troops, “Go and count the Israelites from Beersheba to Dan. Then report back to me so that I may know how many there are.”…This command was also evil in the sight of God; so he punished Israel. 1 Chronicles 21:1-2, 7
David realizes that this is something that God would be angry at afterwards, and God set out to punish him by sending a plague.
What I found interesting was that, even before sending the plague, God shows his displeasure in a way that we can relate to perhaps more so than to a plague that kills seventy-thoussand people.
David, realizing what he has done, turns to God:
Then David said to God, “I have sinned greatly by doing this. Now, I beg you, take away the guilt of your servant. I have done a very foolish thing. 1 Chronicles 1-8
God does not respond directly to David. As if shunning him, despite the direct plea and prior direct communication, the Lord responds to Gad instead and tell him to talk to David.
A direct communication and intimacy with God cut short because of wanting to keep score rather than relying on God.
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King-like Friendship
It’s easy to presume that it is lonely at the top. It often it. But it doesn’t have to be. In fact, it is much preferable not to be.
David, the king to be, was friends with Jonathan, the son of the reigning king, Saul:
“After David had finished talking with Saul, Jonathan became one in spirit with David, and he loved him as himself….And Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as himself. Jonathan took off the robe he was wearing and gave it to David, along with his tunic, and even his sword, his bow, and his belt.”
1 Samuel 18:1-4
Jonathan wasn’t doing this to a man who had already become king. He was doing it out of love and friendship. The lesson isn’t to find your own Jonathan.
It’s to become like him. To someone who is going to become a king in his own right.
Yes, it is easy to make the case that David rises because of his friendship with Jonathan, and that has not been lost on me. That is important to have those friendships, but Jonathan is held up as a model of how to invite such friendships into our lives.
I see two things: 1) are the friends around you like Jonathan? If not, you could be crippled; 2) are you befriending others, others than are exhibiting the King-like attributes as David had?
I myself have pruned relationships — and in hindsight, too late — with people who have “losing” mentalities, an inability to be supportive, and undealt with anger issues. And valued and cultivated those coming closer to the “Jonathan’s” in life.
Chasing After the Wind
While unleashing “the king within” is about leveraging a relationship and obedience to God to strengthen a relationship to the “King” of all kings, it is also about tapping into the ability to rise as a king serving God in his redemption of the world. This isn’t about sitting on a throne and having harlots, but giving glory to God by rising as a leader on earth in the way King David and King Solomon have.
What is this fine line between chasing success and following God? It starts from what the motives are:
“And I saw that all labor and all achievement spring from man’s envy of his neighbor. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.” Ecclesiastes 4:
This isn’t about chasing after the wind and being driven by envy and greed for what other’s have achieved. I know it’s hard. I suffer from this as much as the next person. But separating that comparison mindset from tapping into a God-given passion and talents which, through their successful development, give glory to God and advance the Kingdom.
So as we go on this journey, let’s first check and make sure “envy of [your] neighbor” isn’t the driving force, for it will end in meaninglessness.
Writing the Vision
How many of you in worship or prayer or just out of the blue come upon a vision? It could be a very faint whisper, or it could be a burning desire from deep within your soul.
But you feel powerless to act upon it. There are so many competing thoughts and distractions. Or maybe you have tried to act on it and nothing came of it.
Could the simple first step be to write it. Write it in a way that it will be read?
God, in answer to the propher Habakkuk who awaited for a vision in the face of devastation, spoke very clearly to write it down and believe the revelation shall come:
2 Then the LORD replied:
“Write down the revelation
and make it plain on tablets
so that a herald may run with it.Habakkuk 2:2
Our lives our temporal and physical because we live now in a physical, tangible world. Visions and revelations come from the spiritual and the ephemeral. But to let it stay there, stuck in our heads (which can be easy to do) does not let them enter the world where they can make true impact.
Write it down. Make it plain.
Who is the King within?
Jesus said, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me, and I in him, he will be much fruit….If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.”
John 15:5-7
Jesus is the king “in” you and part of this blog is exploring what that actually means. This passage reveals one way to both “remain in Jesus” and to allow the power of Jesus to remain in you, which is to keep the “words” inside.
It’s a powerful, but consistent, notion that Jesus is the word, and the way to keep Him within is to keep the word within. What does that mean to so completely internalize those commands?
This seems consistent with the earlier entry that God sees the heart, and the way to transform the heart is to allow his spirit inside but to also take the diligent efforts of letting the truth of the living word literally seep into our bones by understanding those words.
So I see three basic types of entries (well, four) — one, where I look at the actual words of Jesus which will lead us to develop the “kingship”; the words and lives of actual Kings, primarily King David and King Solomon to find behaviors and outcomes to model to fulfill our own “king within”; and then, in keeping with the words, to look specifically at Proverbs, Psalms, and Eccelsiastes which are often attributed to King Solomon.
This is what I call the “Open Secret” — a way to experience a full and rich live deserving of a king by following the words of the King of all kings!
Oh, right, and the fourth type of entry is the more personal application — how do I actually apply these to my own life of trying to build a company, grow my relationships, and contribute to my community and to the redemption of the world.
Kingship is in your heart
When Samuel was seeking out the king to someday replace Saul, he saw Elihab and thought, “Surely the LORD’s anointed stands here before the LORD.” He jumped to a conclusion based on outward appearances.
Isn’t this what we do with others? And, worse of all, with ourselves? We look at ourselves in our abilities and possession and make an assessment that we cannot inherit “kingship” — both material and spiritual.
But here’s what God says:
“But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” 1 Samuel 16:7
Part of unleashing the “king within” is to take these words seriously, that God looks at our heart and, therefore, we should as well.
If God were to look at your heart, what would he see? Part of this journey is exploring how we can elevate, strengthen, and purify our heart to be worthy of our King within.
Take every thought captive
2 Corinthians 10:5:
“We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ…”
To tap into the “king within” is going to come up against a lot of resistance: what the world thinks, what you’ve been brought up to think, lies, misperceptions, rampant thoughts that run through your mind.
Take a moment to see if you can catch yourself thinking thoughts that may not be healthy.
As I could through this and begin to wrestle with the notion that, in alignment with God, I can unleash “the king within” — I see thoughts emerge that say, “No, it cannot be done.”
To counter-balance this, first we must be aware of the negative thinking. It can be subtle, and I am going to explore later how, by focusing on something bigger and beyond myself, I bring those thoughts to the surface.
And once you start to do this, you must “take every thought captive” and submit it to the Truth that comes from Christ living within having died for our brokeness.
It is only then that we can each begin to take on the mantle as a “king” to serve the king of all kings.
Auto Suggestion
Does “auto suggestion” play a role in terms of breaking down the “lies” in our past and building “faith”?
The scripture talks much about the importance of having faith and what you can do with it.
But I need to investigate what is says about actually “building” faith. Is it something that can be developed?
It doesn’t appear to be something that is explicitly talked about being developed. Character is something that people talk about, but not faith, or at least as far as I can tell.
I will look into this some more.
Desire
I was reading about the role of “desire” and how having a burning desire is the first step.
It is a basic concept which I had read years ago, but I see that I hae difficulty in the application. In having the tenacity, and the daily passion, to just focus and define that desire.
And then, of course, what should that desire be?
I know that the easy answer, the Christian-ese answer, is that the one and only desire is for God. But in this blog, I want to explore the reality and struggle and real-life application of what that means and see how it manifests.
My desire right now is to have financial, relational, and spiritual abundance. My desire is to see my Internet start-up blossom and yield me a financial gain of $50M. My desire is to be able to impact hundreds, if not thousands of people, who would not otherwise come to know God and the community of believers.
I have started to write it down in this blog, in addition to my own journal and notebook, as part of an ongoing dialogue.
So what are healthy desires? Are these “bad” because they are on something other than God?
For sure, part of this journey is to get into a mindset whereby placing God first, the desires we want first become shaped and filtered.
Ephesians 2:3: “All o fus also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like th erest, we were nature objects of wrath.”
