Thank God for Long Walks

Psalm 148:7-10

⁷ Praise the Lord from the earth,
    you sea monsters and all deeps,
⁸ fire and hail, snow and frost,
    stormy wind fulfilling his command!

⁹ Mountains and all hills,
    fruit trees and all cedars!
¹⁰ Wild animals and all cattle,
    creeping things and flying birds!

Psalm 9:1-2

¹ I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart;
    I will tell of all your wonderful deeds.
² I will be glad and exult in you;
    I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.

            I was on a walk this morning, a little over 2 miles.  I have been walking a lot this summer. The arthritis in my left knee, first identified in 2004, has worsened of late.  It has been about 3 months since I went on a run and I’m not sure when I will again.  Actually saying that out loud, or in this case writing it, can be scary or depressing, depending on how I think about it.  I have lived robustly.  I have hiked up mountains, received black eyes playing full contact rugby, survived army basic training, and endured vicious hits on the football field.  I don’t feel grateful for limitations.

            However, this morning I did.  OK, I wasn’t grateful that I have knee pain.  I was grateful that in spite of the knee pain, I can walk 2 miles or 5 miles.  (I don’t know how I’d do after 10). 

            I was thankful because I feel so happy while walking.  I feel so close to God.  This morning I prayed for my family, for my church, and for people in my neighborhood.  I prayed for people by name.  Sometimes my prayer while walking doesn’t involve me bringing things to God.  Rather, I listen to the birdsong and feel the wind blow over me, and the sun shine on me.  I participate as nature praises God (see Psalm 19:1-4; 148:3-10). 

Is the Psalmist in these and other passages guilty of anthropomorphizing non-sentient life?  I don’t think so.   The earth has a relationship with God that God understands even if, in our scientific way of thinking and seeing we don’t.  The Bible is full of passages expressing this relationship between God and creation.  This God-nature connection is as real as anything is real, even if we might call it ‘mystical.’  When I walk, I get to participate in that beautiful interchange between God and all God has made.  That’s why I never wear earbuds while I am walking.  I don’t want to miss anything!

So, as I walked this morning, I felt myself full of gratitude for being able to walk and able to enjoy a good walk so much.  That sense of gratitude led me to this conclusion.  I need to not spend much time lamenting things like the fact that I’ll never put football pads on again or I’ll never run a 6-minute mile again.  I thank God that was able to do those things.  And I thank God for the miles and miles of walks ahead of me.  I enjoy life when I live thankfully.  I see God’s goodness. 

So, I am looking all about my life for prompts to gratitude.  I don’t have to look very long or very hard.  God is the giver of wonderful blessings and I will thank Him for them. 

Grace & Gratitude; Competition, NOT Comparison

            I’ll be taking a 4-month sabbatical from my daily and weekly ministry activities in 2017.  I am excited and a bit apprehensive.  It’s like I am just taking a break and releasing control of my church (as if I have control now).  My associate pastor has repeatedly told me this sabbatical is part of my vocation.  While I am not preaching sermons, leading meetings, counseling members, and casting a vision for our church, I am still within my calling while on sabbatical.  And the church is what it has always been: God’s not mine.

            In order to prepare to adjust my daily rhythms from work to rest, I have begun seeing a spiritual adviser and she has me praying the prayer of examen.  In this approach to daily prayer, the one praying begins in silence building awareness of and attentiveness to the presence of God.  I do the best I can to silence all other outside noise (actual audible noise and the noise in my head).  I just get quiet and focus on the present God.  This is usually 2-5 minutes, though I would like to work up to longer periods.

I have done this before, but the examen has been particularly beautiful for me with what comes next.  The second step is to express gratitude.   I usually do the examen when I first arrive at my office, about 7:30AM.  In my mind, I go back through the previous 24 hours and note all the moments of thankfulness, all the things of life for which I am thankful.  This has been amazing! 

Before this discipline, I rarely paused to reflect on the past (in this case the most immediate past – just 24 hours).  I was not aware at how much my life is just charge ahead. I live directionally – forward!  My life question seems to be “What’s next?”  It has been a refreshing blessing to stop, look back, and thank God.  I have always known how important it is to live in gratitude.  Prior to examen I had a thanksgiving practice, one done with my wife.  Before going to sleep each night, she and I list three things each that we’re thankful for.  This exercise centers us, forces us to go to bed in gratitude and not some other emotion (anger, bitterness, etc.).  Sometimes we have to force it, but it is worth it to keep up the habit. 

The examen prayer of gratitude has taken my discipline of living thankfully to another dimension.  My wife and I still do our thanks, but now, I am starting the day aware that I have much to thank God for.  I am a blessed guy.  I am a graced guy.  When I miss the examen on busy, rushed mornings, I feel like I have missed something very important.  I have skipped a part of my morning that normally pours life into me. 

Another effect examen has had on me is a tendency to recall why I am thankful throughout the day.  When I want to get frustrated, a voice in my head (the Holy Spirit?) reminds me to be thankful because so much grace has been poured on me and into me.  Because of the examen and my nightly ritual of gratitude (with my wife), saying thanks to God is slowly becoming a default response for me. 

A couple of ways of seeing life emerge from living with an eye toward gratitude.  First, I know my life is a result of grace.  I am because of God’s grace.  I have blessings because of God’s grace.  I serve as pastor in a wonderful church because of God’s grace.  Saying this does not negate my own hard work and accomplishment.  I put forth a lot of effort and stretching outside my comfort zone to earn a doctorate of ministry.  That degree (with a focus in counseling) equipped me as a pastor and made my resume more attractive.  I have labored for over 2o years in 4 different churches in pastoral work.  It has been a joy and at times an arduous journey. 

But, I can’t fall into a trap of taking credit for anything.  I work hard and commit myself fully to ministry because that is an appropriate response to the grace God has given.  Also, let me not exaggerate my own work ethic.  I have lazy days.  I mess up.  Whether by my good or in spite of my failure, I acknowledge that I appreciate where I am and I thank God for my life.  I pray that if extremely hard times hit, I will have the spiritual wherewithal to continue giving God glory.  I don’t know that I could do that in the face of unspeakable personal loss.  I pray that I could.

Acknowledging that my life is graced and basking in God’s grace is a first way of seeing life that comes out of living in gratitude.  A second way of seeing might seem more surprising.  My gratitude compels me to be competitive.  That’s right!  I think Christians and pastors should compete hard, the way a Michigan running back leans toward the end zone or the way my beloved Detroit Lions race to be the first to clean out their lockers after yet another season without the playoffs.

Here’s what I mean by competition.  When I attend a conference and hear about what other pastors are doing, or I talk with pastors in our area and find out churches and ministries that doing great works of compassion or Kingdom pronouncement, it should inspire me to strive for greatness in our ministry at HillSong.  We should try to help people with such effectiveness that people in our community say, “Oh, you know that HillSong, they help people.”  Our ministry should equip believers in such a way that when people in the community meet our folks out and about and marvel at how loving they are and how grace-filled and compassionate they are and then discover they are HillSong people, they say, “Of course!  That’s the type of person that comes out of HillSong.  That’s what we expect from HillSong.”

We should compete to be outstanding ministers of the gospels, disciples of the Master, and proclaimers of the word.  We live missionally and as disciples for the sake of dying to self and rising in Christ.  We become so filled with grace and with the Spirit that the Gospel pours out of us in a torrent.

However, competition should not breed comparison.  If the church up the road preaches a robust gospel and doubles its membership and begins ministries that actually reduce hunger in our community, we must not compare ourselves to that church.  We should rejoice in what’s happening there.  I must not compare myself to that pastor.  The comparison will eat me up.  In the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30), Jesus did not critique the one who had 4 talents (v.22-23).  Jesus praised that one.  He did not say, “Why didn’t you reproduce as much as the one who had 10?”  Jesus commended him for growing from the grace he had been given.  And Jesus said to him, “Enter the joy of your master.” 

We must not become jealous if the church up the road outpaces us in membership.  I cannot be down on myself because I don’t lead a ministry that is as “big” as the one led by the pastor on the magazine cover.  There are many ways a ministry can be big, and God can do big things while working through small groups.  God has lead me to my role as disciple, husband, father, pastor, and friend.  I appreciate the grace God has given me and I compete to make my 2 talents become 4, and then the 4 to become 8.  When I think of myself, it is not a downplaying of what I have done.  Come on Rob!  Why aren’t you as “successful” as that pastor 10 years younger than you who leads a 1000-member church?  No, it cannot be that.  Such a posture of jealousy would mock the grace God has blessed me to receive. 

I want to live in constant gratitude, aware that my life is full of grace.  And aware of that, I want to compete hard in all the roles I fill, so that my 1 talent becomes 2, and then 2 becomes 4, and so on.  For me this approach to discipleship is challenging, satisfying, and joy-producing.  Moreover, it lands me in the middle of God’s work in the world.

Theology of Blessing

20Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. 21And he said, "Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD" (Job 1:20-21).
As I write this, I am nearing the end of a fabulous, week-long vacation. Our time has been split between my parents’ house and my aunt’s lake-house. My sons, 2 and 7, have had a great week of connecting with my generation of cousins. There are 15 in my generation and my boys got to meet and spend quality time with 6 of them (including my sister and me) as well as some of my aunts and uncles and my parents and grandmother.

How many people would say they have a restful week-long vacation with their parents? My wife also has had a good time. So many people become adults and have acrimonious relationships with their parents and adult siblings. We have been truly blessed.

And that is really my whole point here – blessing. I have lived a blessed life; the life of Job before Satan got a hold of his possessions, family, and health. So, do I respond as Job did by leading my family in worship and praying for them? YES! And what would happen if I lost it all?

I shudder to even imagine that eventuality!

But, it is worth thinking about. What is the proper theological response to blessing? The book of Job raises theological questions about suffering, but what is a proper theology of prosperity and blessing?

In short, two answers come to mind. The first is thanksgiving. I was sitting with my dad on the back patio. I was reading the Bible and writing in my journal. He was reading the morning comics. We were both enjoying coffee and bacon. When my journal entry was complete, I asked him to pray with me because I always pray when I am done journaling. I thought about the blessing of having a dad, who is a good friend and a brother in Christ, and I thought about all the blessings of the week, and I led us in a prayer of thanksgiving.

Without doing any complicated theology, I think the first response to blessing is to say thanks to God. We don’t wonder why we are blessed and another is not. We thank God.

A second and equally important response to blessing is generosity. A friend of mine, a missionary named Phil, really tipped me on this. I was writing some newsletter pieces for our church about tithing. He said, “You know Rob, the real New Testament teaching about money and giving is generosity.” Jesus and the New Testament writers do not teach us to give 10% of our paychecks. Generosity is modeled, taught, and commanded.

So, all disciples of Jesus are called to extremes in generosity. And our generosity should reflect how “blessed” we have been financially and relationally. We give our money, we open our homes, and we open our hearts. Just as it is unwise to blame God during times of hardship, it is unwise to take credit during times of wealth God. We thank God profusely, and we share the blessing with an extravagant, unending flow of generosity.