Morning Meditation, August 24, 2015
For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time for my departure is near. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 2Timothy 4:6-7
My parents are still at the church I grew up in and the one they started 41 years ago. I was in that church last week for a funeral honoring our family’s friend Bill, a man who’d served as the Reston Bible Church mission’s director for nearly thirty years. He was sixty-one; The lives he touched are immeasurable.
My dad and niece. I can’t take it.
The auditorium was packed with faces I’ve known since childhood. I can’t recall another time I’ve been in a room so thick with heritage. Sitting to my left were my favorite missionary couple who’d planted a church in Milan 31 years ago, the ones who brought me chocolate bars when I was a kid. I ran into a doctor and former elder who is now tending to his ailing wife with the same level of integrity with which he practiced medicine and church. Directly behind me sat a couple that planted a congregation in the next town over after meeting Christ at my parent’s church decades ago. Our family’s adopted uncle had flown up, his 81 year-old smile as contagious as the day he met the Lord, as the days he would take my sister and me to the ice cream parlor. My junior high youth leader was there, now with eight grown children of her own, still serving. The three year-olds I’d taught in Sunday school class when I was a sophomore are now twenty-somethings toting kids of their own, some biological and some from diverse parts of the world through adoption.
It was a sliver of heaven where the saints gathered and celebrated the only life worth living: one totally and completely sold out in service to the Lord. And it got me thinking about how a godly legacy starts, is sustained and secured. Because when I get to the end of my life, it’s all I will care about leaving.
Legacy begins with surrender
I’m not talking about our moment of salvation though this is vital to godly legacy. I’m talking about that time—or times—when we say to the Lord, You have me all the way. Not my way but your way. I’m ready to do what you ask and go where you take me. I’m in. In 2 Timothy Paul is writing near the end of his life, certainly remembering the moment he accepted God’s call to the Gentiles. Paul’s answering that call wasn’t what secured his salvation—that’s all God’s grace—but it is what began his legacy. Yesterday’s service made me want to forget being driven by temporal agendas or committed to fleeting successes. I want the Lord to pen my legacy and this comes at surrender.
Legacy is built over time
Paul uses the fitting metaphor of running a race because a race starts as quick as a gunshot but running that race takes endurance. And usually a lot of time. When I considered Bill’s life and the lives of those in that room I realized that all that heritage and ministry hadn’t happened over night. For some, legacy included lonely months on the mission field, estranged loved ones, sickness, persecution, strokes, even seasons marked with some pretty big sin—the kind the self-righteous like to point out—all dotting the pathway, but ultimately, everyone I know in that room is still running. They’re in the race. They haven’t given up.They’re on their way to finishing. They’re fighting that fight (because dear sisters, we’re in a fight). Every day they make a hundred choices for God, whether it be the sacrifice of prayer, the discipline of being in the Word, taking the extra minute to throw the football with their kids at the bus stop, forgiving an offense, and in so doing, one step at a time, their gait continues toward the finish line. None of us gets to helicopter in.
Legacy lasts for eternity
As I glanced at the faces around the room, baby’s flesh to grey heads, so many stories I knew intimately, immeasurable reaches of ministry along with some breathtaking blows, I saw a whole bunch of people saved by grace who’ve given their lives to tell others about that grace and disciple them in the ways of Jesus. When these saints go Home, when I go Home, when we’re all with Jesus, the legacy God’s scripted with our lives will still be at work. As Bill’s four children so richly stated, “We would not be followers of Jesus without our Mom and Dad, and our Mom and Dad would never have made it if not for knowing Christ.” Bill’s legacy will live on in his family and also in the countless lives he’s served, because what we do for Christ is eternal.
Sitting in that service reminded me that absolutely no agenda I’m holding onto can possibly rival the story God desires to write with a life fully surrendered to His purposes. I was encouraged to persevere because legacy doesn’t happen in an instant; Paul’s race boasted sufferings and triumphs and every mundane thing in between, but after a long earthly while, a legacy was built. His race was completed a step at a time, and so is ours. And after we finish our race God preserves the work. Godly legacy begins with surrender, is built over time and lasts for eternity.
Thank you Bill for inspiring us to live all-out for Christ. We do not trust in our ability to run this race, but we trust in the One who’s called us to it.
Abundance Events
I just returned from the first ever Abundance Event in Houston, TX. Next stop: Minneapolis, MN on April 27-28. I’m taking a moment to write about it because it was that awesome. Because I’m hoping you’ll be able to gather with us for one of the remaining three Abundance Events of the year (Event Info and Video Here). First off, it was amazing to be out on a “work” weekend with friends: Angie Smith, Lisa Harper, Tammie Head, Jen Hatmaker, Angela Thomas, Travis Cottrell, Jennifer Rothschild, Keely Scott (Compassion), Melanie Shankle (BigMama Blog), you get the idea. It was like summer camp without the smores, although we did sneak Tex-Mex in there.
What I loved most was that the event provided an amazing blend of highlighting the abundance God came to give with the call to give our abundance away. There was opportunity to give in big and small ways, especially since many local ministries unique to Houston were represented. Since Christ called us to be co-laborers with Him and not just spectators, Abundance offered a tangible way for us to be involved with international and local ministries. Oh, and if you came on dead-empty, there was no pressure to do anything but simply receive the abundance of Christ’s love. Brilliant.
My Mom In The Jungle And Other Ramblings
“And you will be my witnesses…to the ends of the earth.” Never do these words of Jesus mean more to me than when I’m in the jungles of Brazil. I’m not sure what constitutes the ends of the earth, but if ever a region deserved this title, the jungle would have as good a shot as any for ends-of-the-earthness. I just returned from my fifth trip there in connection with a ministry called Ray of Hope. They’re a local, on the ground mission in Manaus that exists to serve the people who live along the vast and glorious river we call the Amazon.
My experiences there have forced me to rethink the various elements of my life, thus my Christianity as a whole. So here I am, attempting to blog about this latest trip while it’s fresh on my mind, while I can still smell the scents of the Amazon and my spirit’s still buzzing with the excitement of meeting people who are living the Christian life in ways I’ve scarcely encountered. More than anything, I want to write about the unrivaled joy of serving with my family, my mom in particular this time.
Yes, my mom came with us for her first time, the trip’s first miracle. How shall I put this? My mom doesn’t do bugs. She doesn’t do camping, roughing it, excessive heat. She really doesn’t do roaches the size of rodents, leaping tarantulas, or scorpions that lurk in people’s shoes (people meaning us). And when smartypants people say, “Well, most tarantulas aren’t dangerous”, I want to respond with, “Does this matter when the spider is the size of your face?” The whole Amazon caboodle is not really my mom’s cup of tea. Actually, tea is her cup of tea, as in Earl Grey in an English cup that’s perched on a coffee table inside someone’s home that has central heating and air. Going to the Amazon was a tremendous act of obedience on her part, one I don’t take lightly.
Nehemiah and Jungle Pastors
On Feb 1st, my 3rd bible study releases, Nehemiah: A Heart That Can Break. On Feb 3rd, I leave for the Amazon jungles of Brazil for the 2nd Annual Jungle Pastor’s Conference that several of us started with Ray of Hope last year. Without being overly dramatic I feel attached to Joshua’s words to the Israelites before they were to cross the Jordan, “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you.” This is a sacred time as I look back over a year of studying and writing about Nehemiah with two trips to the Amazon thrown in. It is not lost on me that 2 days after this study releases I will have the privilege of meeting up with 65 modern-day Nehemiahs, 40 of them pastors and 25 of them pastor’s wives. We will gather together for the 2nd time in jungle history to study, worship, fellowship, catch piranha and eat a lot of tapioca. (I am personally packing Kind Bars this year.)
Stuff I’m Writing And Reading
As some of you know I spent all of last year studying and writing about the book of Nehemiah. Well, I did other things like eat and sleep and complain about how “hard” this all was. I traveled some and cooked as many meals as time would allow. I spoke a lot and met a lot of people which was fun, but I discovered after all these years that I might be a bit of an introvert. I realized, while sitting in the midst of my bible, commentaries, laptop, and utter silence, that this space made me very happy. More than all these little joys however, steeping myself in Nehemiah has changed me, and I hope it will do the same for you. The study and videos release on Feb 1st, but more about all this in the next few days…
Happy New Year
I’m about to pluck the ornaments from the Christmas tree and wrap the lights into a quasi-organized ball of tangles. The mantle will be cleared, and my Vietri Santa sugar and creamer that my Mom graciously splurged on for me will be put away until next November or so. The shimmering green, silver, and red wrapped Hershey’s Kisses will remain on my dining room table until they’ve been eaten, because I think you can get away with those well into January. It’s when you’re offering them to guests in August that they become a problem.