Called Out In Kansas

This is part 4 of an ongoing series on faith, and what has turned out to be much more a journey than a topic, per se.  In my last post I discussed the nature of faith, and how it must start with knowing the will of God, and then knowing how to pursue the will of God.  After that, we must step out and act on what He has shown us, and trust that He will do what He said He would.  In the last 2 months I have learned a lot of points on walking out my faith, and I wanted to share my testimony here in case it would be a help to someone else.  After that, in my next post, I want to touch on why it is so important that we walk in faith, and why this has become such a big topic for me.  First, though, for my testimony.

I moved to Larned, where I now live, about 5 1/2 years ago, and began working at a hospital-owned clinic.  I did that for about 2 1/2 years.  In that 2 1/2 years my wife and I stepped out in faith and opened a retail shop in town, a combination coffee shop/scrapbook store.  Of course, that endeavor took a lot of our time and money.  In November 2007 I started doing extra work in an Emergency Room an hour away, to help support our own debt load, and to help support the store.  By the following January circumstances had transpired such that I quit my job, and started my own clinic, which opened in February of 2008.  I continued working in the ER full-time, in addition to working my own clinic, for the next 2 years or more.  Fast forward to 2010, which found me working at an ER closer to home, and doing a 24 hour shift every Thursday, and 48 hours in a weekend, one weekend per month.  By August or September Tayleene and I independently began to feel that it was time to give up the weekends.  We both felt that that season was to be over, but that in the natural it would continue until we decided to put an end to it.  We also were planning for the birth of our second baby in December, and I didn’t want to be gone from home as much.  We finally decided, in October, that my last weekend would be November, and after that I would only work my Thursdays.

Bear in mind, I still was not (and still am not) drawing a salary from my clinic.  Neither was my wife drawing a salary from the shop.  In fact, we were still having to put money into that business to keep things afloat.  So, in the natural, we had no business cutting back on our hours, but both of us knew this was the direction we were to take.   So, I gave notice and we “braced for impact” so to speak.

Ironically, this was a very similar situation to the one we were in when I first began ER work initially.  At that time I knew that the Lord would provide our needs, and part of me wanted to step out of the boat and let the Lord supply, but at the end of the day we decided to work extra to meet our needs.  Looking back on that scenario I do not regret my decision, as my faith was very fledgling at that time, and I still had a lot of fear and anxiety pent up on the inside.  I have no doubt that the Lord would’ve taken care of us, but it would’ve been an extremely difficult test, much more difficult than the test that awaited me this time around, and I don’t think I had the understanding to walk it out the way I did this time around.  The cycles and seasons of the Lord continue to amaze me!

So, as I said, I gave notice to my employer, and waited for the change to take place.  Initially things were fine, but of course I was still getting paid for past work.  By the first part of December, however, everything hit, and it hit all at once, and it hit hard.  One second I was feeling confident in my faith, that He would care for my needs, next minute (almost literally, it was over the span of 10-15 minutes as I paid bills one Sunday afternoon) facing thousands of dollars in bills that I didn’t have the money for, and internally was beginning to “freak out”.  Now, this is where the Mark of 2010 differed from the Mark of 2007.  In 2007 I don’t think I would’ve had the understanding, faith or strength to continue to stand, in spite of what I saw, and I think I would’ve “freaked”.  This time, I was able to begin standing on the word, knowing that He would supply.  In my mind I feared.  In my mind I felt guilty and condemned, especially as overdrafts began piling in (another thing I learned quickly, or rather relearned, is the art of balancing a checkbook, something I had not been faithful at prior to that).  In my heart, however, I knew the promises.  “My God will supply all my needs according to His riches in glory”.  “He has given us all things that pertain to life and Godliness”.  “It is He that gives seed to the sower and bread for food”.  And, of course, Matthew 6:26-34, the verse that made me realize that, in reality, these issues were small potatoes in the Lord’s eyes, and that my focus could not be continually on money, but must be directed to seeking Christ and His kingdom.  There was also the story of the fish with the coin in its mouth, further proof that this isn’t a big deal!  I would read the Old Testament with renewed eyes, seeing the miracles performed through much different eyes, realizing that, “my God is powerful, majestic, awe-inspiring and undeniable!”  How could such a God fail me?

In the initial two weeks or so of this process I kept looking for the quick fix.  I saw no hope for meeting the needs I had in my natural resources, so surely the Lord was going to have to use someone to dump a bunch of money in my lap, right?  The problem with that idea is that, then, my faith would’ve been in that gift, and not see that gift as the Lord’s provision.  Through the mentoring of a good friend, I realized that this issue is a process.  I realized that I didn’t have a money problem, I had a faith problem.  Could the Lord meet my need suddenly?  Absolutely.  Did I possess the faith to operate in that manner?  Absolutely not!  So, I had to have faith in the small things, and I had to become more efficient from a natural perspective.  Instead of burying my head in the sand at the stack of bills, a tendency of mine due to my own anxiety and fear, I had to face the issue head on.  I had to contact my creditors, and make arrangements for future repayment.  I had to cut back on spending, personally and in both businesses, that wasn’t vital.  Through it all, the Lord used the situation to address a lot of OTHER issues BESIDES faith.  I’ll hopefully post more on that  concept later.

It is now almost two months since I cut back my ER hours.  I still have some large bills.  I still am having to pinch a lot of pennies that I ultimately don’t want to pinch (buying new product for the store, etc.).  But, the Lord has given me favor with creditors.  A LOT of favor!  I am closer to being out of the hole now than I was.  I think the story that really explains it all to me is the 3 Hebrew children and the fiery furnace.  The three were faithful in their pursuit of their God, and it got them in trouble!  This is proof that life in Christ is not a bed of roses in the natural.  The king threatened them with the fiery furnace, and God didn’t keep them from that.  God did, however, protect them from the fire, and when they came out they didn’t even smell of smoke!  What a powerful testimony to the king.  This proves that, when we learn to walk in faith and trust in our God, times that are hard in the natural don’t need to be hard in Christ.  Although I am not at that point now, it gives me a reference point of what CAN and/or WILL be, as I continue to walk in Him.  The other thing my good friend pointed out is the correlation between the purity of our witness and the smoke from the fire.  If I continue to conduct my business as He is teaching me to, when I come through this fire my witness will be intact, and that is what I desire.  I don’t want my lack of faith or diligence to reflect poorly on Him.

Well, this pretty much gets us current, for the most part.  There maybe some ancillary lessons I have learned along the way, but I shared some of that here, and didn’t expect to.  I hope that this story is beneficial to somebody, and I’ll continue to post as new developments occur.

I’ve intended to complete my series on faith, started oh so long ago, and this is my attempt to at least bring you up to speed with where I am at this juncture of my life.  You see, I thought I had a certain level of understanding, and that a limited series would be able to explain that.  How foolish of me to not realize that knowledge and understanding are ever changing, and that a finite series could never contain what He builds within us.  Also, as I’ve walked this last month and a half, I’ve realized how everything in Christ is interconnected, and walking in faith touches on so many other topics.  So, as has been said so often, life is about the journey, and as this is, after all, a blog, I will have to share the journey as I go, as my understanding is ever-changing.  So, on to faith!

I concluded my last post on faith by stating, in so many words, that faith starts with belief, quoting Genesis 15:6.  I will pick up from there, as it is a good starting point.

Kenneth Hagan once said, or so I am told he said, “Faith begins where the will of God is known”.  Although I don’t follow all of what Kenneth Hagan taught, and actually haven’t read much of what he taught, I love this statement.  In order to walk in faith we must know the will of God.  Knowing His will may come through our study of scripture.  Eric at “A Pilgim’s Progress” is a great example of this.  After spending a number of years as a pastor in a Southern Baptist church, his study of scripture led him to believe that his position was unscriptural, and he took a step of faith, obeyed his convictions and quit that job.  Other times, we may be led by the Holy Spirit within us to do a certain thing, or the Lord may speak to us through a brother or sister.  In some cases, our understanding may be imperfect, and we may act on something that we thought was of Him, only to find out later that it was not.  These are growing pains, as at some point in our lives we must step out in faith and begin trying to walk in His direction.  We will not always be right, but He will always be gracious to us as we learn to walk (much like a little baby, who makes missteps, falls down and stumbles into things).  The bottom line is that our walk of faith must start with knowing, or believing we know, His will.

Once we come to this point, the next step is to act.  Now, here is where a lot of people, myself included, get tripped up.  On more than one occasion I have seen His will, and in my haste to see it come to pass ran willy nilly in trying to carry it out, and failed to seek the “how” to go along with the “what”.  The results have been miserable, with much wasted time and much wasted energy, and on at least one occasion, much heartache that wouldn’t have been necessary had I been more patient and diligent.

So, having sought His will in WHAT to do, and having sought His will in HOW to do it, we then must step out in faith, and do what we must in the natural to see that plan or that thing come to pass.  For Eric, again using him as an example, he had to take the step of faith and quit his job.  For me, acting meant I started a business, and later another.  We obviously have to do our part to accomplish what He directs.

Now, here comes the hard part, at least for me.  Usually, once we take that step of faith, and do as the Lord directed, the enemy will come and attempt to distract us or discourage us.  (My apologies to those who find references to Satan as “the enemy” to be comical, naive or immature.  I do feel very strongly that Satan works hard against those that are attempting to walk out the will of God in their lives.  Although there can be normal hard times that are not a product of “enemy action”, I firmly believe that he specifically attacks us in attempts to dissuade us from walking.)  All manner of things may go wrong, once we step out of the proverbial boat and try to walk on the proverbial waves.  Peter, in this respect, is a great example for us.  Peter succeeded, in that he did what no other mortal man has ever done, he walked on water.  Peter only failed because he allowed his faith in Jesus to be overcome by his perception of his surroundings, by the “waves boisterous”.  This brings me to my next point:  we must see the word of God (and this will not always be the bible, per se, but sometimes rather the words He has given us internally) as the ultimate authority and the ultimate truth.  The truth of the word of God must be more real to us than what we perceive with our natural senses.

OK, so this is where the rubber meets the road.  This is the meat of what I want to share, and I touched on this some in Part 2. There is a tendency, especially in those from the Word of Faith movement, to feel like our faith has to be rock solid at all times, and to not have adequate faith is to fail, or to make a “Plan B” shows a lack of faith.  And with that failure comes a fair amount of shame, because “you didn’t have enough faith”.  There is also a tendency to think we can “muster up” faith when we need it.  For instance, if I read enough scripture (because after all, “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God), pray long or loud enough or listen to enough tapes I can suddenly increase my faith to accomplish the seeming impossible right now!  Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, this is not the case.  From my limited, but growing, experience with this, sometimes when we step out in faith, our faith may not actually be sufficient to complete the task, at that time.  As such, we may experience a period of time where things look rocky (like Peter and the waves), where we aren’t seeing the fullness of what we expected to see.  It is in these times that doubt tries to creep in, and tell us that we missed God, or that we don’t have enough faith, or that we’re stupid for having tried such a thing.  It is in these times also that we must keep His words before us, and trust that He won’t fail us.  It is in these times that we must stand.

Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.          (Ephesians 6:13)

As I’ve stated before, I love Hebrews 11, the whole chapter.  These saints saw something in their hearts that they NEVER saw with their physical eyes, and yet they believed until the day they died. Hebrews 11, starting with verse 13, says:

All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.¹⁴For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own.  ¹⁵And indeed if they had been thinking of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return. ¹⁶But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one.  Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them.

Unlike these Old Testament saints, we are the heirs of the promises, the ones who have seen and will see their fulfillment.  But like these saints, we must approach the Lord with the same tenacity, with the same refusal to go back, with the same refusal to NOT settle for anything but what He has promised.  The Kingdom of God operates on the principle of faith, and if we don’t learn to walk in that we will never approach the glory, individually or corporately, that He calls us to.

Well, this at least catches things up some.  I will hopefully write the next installment this weekend, giving my personal testimony in this regard, and giving some practical guidance on how this is lived out in our daily lives.

God bless!

OK, now that I’ve gotten everyone’s attention, let’s get on with the post.

First, this post is not intended to bring offense.  It is a point of discussion based on my own beliefs and observations, and is intended to be just that, a discussion.  There are two dear brothers whom I highly respect, although have never met, who openly profess “allegiance” (my word) to the tenets of the Reformed movement, Arthur at “Voice of One Crying Out…” and Eric at A Pilgrim’s Progress.  Both have been very open in discussing their observations of the shortcomings or mistakes of the Reformed movement, so by no means do I feel they are one-sided.  As such, I feel that my discussion on this topic will not be taken wrongly.  So, on to the discussion.

I have two points that I want to make, but before I do that I want to give a caveat.  I do not have the intellectual mind to discuss the finer points of Calvinism vs. Arminianism.  I can’t quote scripture in support of one or the other, and that is not really my point.  Minds much greater than mine have argued these points ad nauseum, so I can’t hope to offer anything new in that vein.  I also want to say that I don’t identify myself with either side.  I think both sides have merit, and I think, paradoxically, that both are right!  So, again, on to it.

1.  I am always amazed at the loyalty expressed by Reformed people for Reformed theology.  Although the brothers I mentioned above do not have a blind loyalty by any means, there is still a strong devotion to the “5 solas” and the 5 Points of Calvinism.  Now, I don’t condemn this loyalty.  I guess the question in my mind is one of unity.  If I identify myself as reformed, do I risk alienating my Arminian brethren?  Or, if I identify myself as Arminian do I risk alienating my Reformed brethren?  Is any one theological system anything, in light of the greater importance of Christ?  Or, put a different way, do I want to identify myself by any other identifier than a follower of Christ?  Now let me stress again, I do not write this to be offensive.  I am sure Eric, Arthur and other Reformed believers have responses to my questions, and that is why I ask these questions.  My interest lies in the fact that I’ve not come across many similar allegiances in those that are walking outside of traditional Christianity, and so I thought I’d bring it up.

2.  God, and thus the bible, is full of seeming paradoxes.  I say seeming because I am sure they are not paradoxes at all, but appear that way to me with my limited understanding of His nature, and limited understanding of eternity.  For example, on the one hand God commanded the Isrealites to kill every man, woman and child when the Isrealites crossed into and conquered Canaan.  Failure to comply had serious consequences.  On the other hand, “For God so loved the world….”.  My natural mind can not comprehend that this is one and the same God, but it is.  How can the same God be full of vengeance and full of supreme love at the same time?  Well, He just can!  Likewise, how do you make sense of the arguments for Calvinism and Arminianism?  Both can point to scriptures that support their view, and both can outline why the other side is interpreting their scriptures wrong.  Could it be that both are right?  Can it be that man has the ability to make a choice, but is only able to make that choice by the grace of God?  I know it sounds contradictory, but I believe that something akin to this is the truth.  Let me discuss why I say this (see next paragraph).

The longer I live the more I see that God has a purpose in the earth.  That purpose is more than to live together in eternal harmony, or to barely escape the end times until we get raptured.  The purpose of God is to build His city, His people, in the earth.  His purpose is to express His glory in the person of Christ, and he’s chosen to use us to accomplish that.  I also believe that He has chosen to use man to bring about the final and ultimate defeat of the enemy, or said differently, the final and ultimate reign of Christ on the earth.  “‘My food,’ said Jesus, ‘is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.'”  I believe His work is to establish Himself as the unquestioned God of this earth (I won’t go into more detail here, so as to not get bogged down too much).  So, if God has a specific purpose in the earth, and He chooses to use man to accomplish it, the fine points of Arminianism and Calvinism come into play, regarding man’s ability to make a choice in His service to God.  If Calvinism is right, God would have His plan, He would choose the people He wanted to accomplish it, He would call those people into service and they would accomplish the task at hand.  Would such a plan take 2000 years?  On the other hand, if God calls many, but we have the choice to follow or not, then we can see why the process has taken so long, because man often doesn’t do as God directs.  Here is what I believe:  I believe God calls men (men and women) to do tasks in His kingdom.  Man can choose to do those tasks or not do those tasks.  As long as man continues to miss the boat, so to speak, there is a continuous merry-go-round-type cycle that goes on, where man goes around and around on the same track, until he finally decides to follow the directions of God, and moves onto the next step, or season.  In this process God is supremely patient.  I also believe that, in the end, the will of God is irresistible.  He WILL accomplish His work.  The timeframe in which it is accomplished, however, is partially up to man, because God has chosen us to accomplish His will.  As a specific example, if God’s grace and will were completely irresistible then why did the New Testament church degenerate into what we see today?

Well, I’m going to cut this off before it gets any longer.  I invite my Reformed friends to respond, as once again all I seek here is an open discussion.  I want to reiterate that neither Arthur nor Eric has ever made their Reformed theology a quarreling point with others, as far as I have read.  I have never seen them make it a point of dissension or division, and neither do I seek to do this.  Again I would stress that I agree with much of Reformed theology, so my goal is not to slander or malign it, or those that hold to it.