Call Me Ishmael

Call me Ishmael. Herman Melville opens his classic Moby Dick with these haunting words, classified as one of the most memorable opening sentences in the literary world.

Reading Chapter 2 of The Story we read about Ishmael. God promised Abraham that he would become the father of a great nation, children more numerous than the stars in the sky. A problem arose, however, at least in the minds of Abraham and Sarah. After waiting for 15 years this incredibly unbelievable promise still hasn’t occurred. At 85 and 75, the promise was becoming not only unbelievable, but more and more improbable. God was obviously busy, or had forgotten the promise. Sarah calls Abraham with this brilliant idea, “Hey, let’s give God a hand and get this ball moving. Abraham, sleep with my servant girl, Hagar.” I can imagine Abraham just shrugged his shoulders and with a big grin said, “Well, if you think its best…OK.” 

How’d that work out for them? Hagar gave birth to Ishmael and immediately the boy was an outcast. Sarah was jealous (go figure) and sent momma and baby out to the desert with a canteen. God, hearing Hagar’s sobbing, sends them back to Abraham where they remained until the birth of Abraham and Sarah’s son, Isaac. Once again the ugly head of jealousy raises and once again Hagar and Ishmael are in the desert this time never to return.

God promised Abraham that his offspring would be a great nation. Although Ishmael was not part of the plan, he was part of the promise. God told Hagar that Ishmael’s descendants would also be more numerous to count but Ishmael was going to have a serious character flaw; he and his descendants would be against everyone and everyone would be against them, even family. In other words, Ishmael would not play well with others. (Genesis 16)

Fast forward the calendar 4000 years. Over the past week we have watched, read or heard about the protests throughout the Middle East aimed toward the west, primarily the USA. With all this happening, be mindful of one very important historical fact; Ishmael does not play well with others…not even his own brothers.

There is a very important lesson to be learned from the story of Ishmael. In God’s Upper Story, His plan is well laid out and if we are obedient and stick with the plan, things will go swimmingly. But, when we decide that maybe God is going too slow, or has forgotten or needs our assistance, things begin to go south. The course deviation may be ever so slight, and possibly unnoticeable, but over time, that small, insignificant deviation from God’s plan, unless corrected, gets further and further off course.

All of us get off course.  All of us deviate from God’s plan, but here’s the good news. All of us can very easily get back on course; it just takes recognition of where we strayed and commitment to get back on the path.

While watching the news and you hear about Middle East uprisings, Arab Spring or Iran with a nuke, remember that one, seemingly small and understandable miscalculation, over a long period of time is responsible for all of the mayhem. 

Call me Ishmael. Oh, and one more thing, I don’t like ANYONE!

Its all HER fault!

“Every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, of who you are, into something a little different from what it was before. ~ C. S. Lewis Mere Christianity

It’s really easy to sit back and point our fingers and say, “It’s all Eve’s fault!”  I know, I know, I do it regularly…actually I did it a couple minutes ago. Life is so much easier when we let ourselves off the hook for our choices, decisions, and thoughts. It happens all the time, almost everywhere you turn, the finger is pointing outward, deflecting any consequences (or acknowledgement of consequences) towards events, people or situations.  How about turning on your TV this evening and watch approximately 22 minutes. I can almost guarantee in those 22 minutes you will hear at least one politician pointing his/her finger at their opponent. Now, some politicians may actually be blameless, but that would be because they had never held a political office before.

Catch the drift here?  Our fingers are so busy pointing elsewhere that we are blinded by the fact that OUR choices define who we are…our decisions, our mindset, our directions. That is the beauty of C.S. Lewis’ quote above. Every time we make a decision, a choice, we are ever so slightly different than the moment before the choice was made.

Sure, Eve had a choice to make, and as a result of her choice, the entire sum of humanity points their collective boney fingers at her with the thought, “I couldn’t help it, it’s all HER fault!” Now, some of you may be a bit more benevolent and point to Adam who, as we read in Genesis 3:6, “…She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.” (Emphasis mine)  Yes, you read that correctly. It’s a surprise to some of you I know. The entire time that slick exotic fruit salesman was doing his best Billy Mays impersonation for Eve, Adam was standing right there, listening, watching, doing what most of us finger pointers do best…nothing.

So, we can all point to Eve, or to Adam…maybe we all can collectively point our fingers at the slick fruit salesman…but to do so means you miss the point of the story, entirely.

The Story begins with this simple, but widely missed point; God desires nothing less than to have a close, personal, Father/Child relationship with us, but we must choose to enter into, develop and maintain that relationship. The entire point of creation is US!

Yes, Adam and Eve chose poorly…Cain messed up royally…Noah apparently had a drinking problem…Ham, Noah’s son was a gossip and trouble maker – all these folks made really bad decisions, and serious consequences followed.

Here is the exciting thing about The Story, even in light of all those mess ups and all the additional mess ups throughout history, God still desires a relationship with each one of us and has provided the way for that relationship to be restored.

God’s core passion in all the beauty of His creation is US! We are still His core passion, and the rest of The Story is about how He will hold nothing back to get you back.  Now, that is a decision that will “turn us into something different that we were before.”

An Introduction…The Story

Thank you for dropping in! It’s been years since I’ve attempted to write weekly. With River Run Christian Church beginning to study The Story this blog will reflect on what we have read and studied together. If you are not familiar with The Story, allow me to let Randy Frazee and Max Lucado introduce it to you from their forward:

This book tells the grandest, most compelling story of all time: the story of a true God who loves his children, who established for them a way of salvation and provided a route to eternity. Each story in these 31 chapters reveals the God of grace-the God who speaks; the God who acts; the God who listens; the God whose love for his people culminated in his sacrifice of Jesus, his only Son, to atone for the sins of humanity. ~ Randy Frazee and Max Lucado

Unlike any version of the Bible, The Story is written in a way that gives us a seamless, chronological telling of God’s Story, directly from Scripture with few transitional statements to provide continuity.

We will begin our study of The Story this Sunday, September 9 in our Sunday services (9:30, 11:00 am and 6:00 pm). All age groups, from pre-school to our adult Life Groups, Women’s and Men’s studies and WAVE student ministries will be studying the same material. Our entire family of faith will walk together through The Story of God’s love and His never-ending desire to have a relationship with His grandest and most glorious creation.

In this age of technology, even if you are unable to attend services at either our Seminole or Brevard locations, you can follow along with us through this blog, our web page (http://www.riverruncc.org/#/brevard-campus/the-story) and also on Facebook. Messages, outlines, study questions and parent resources will all be available on a weekly basis.

I am confident that everyone that joins in on this journey through God’s Word will look back over the previous 8-9 months and see a beautiful transformation has taken place. When God’s children dive deeper into His word, incredible things are expected!

Enjoy the journey as we “find our place in God’s story together”.

dan

Be Perfect, Therefore...

Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:13-14

This past June I delivered a series of messages based upon Richard Foster’s book, Celebration of Discipline. The intent of the series was to encourage and possibly guide all of us into developing a lifestyle of constant communication with Our Heavenly Father through Meditation, Prayer, Fasting, Silence, Solitude and Simplicity among other “disciplines”.

As I prepared for this series I found that my own personal devotional time was severely lacking in practically all areas. If I was going to teach “Spiritual Discipline” wouldn't it be necessary for me to actually learn myself?

One of the commitments I made was to memorize the Sermon on the Mount because 1) this is how Jesus formally introduced Himself to the world and 2) it was the basis for His entire ministry.

Since I have just begun my ministry with River Run Christian Church – Brevard, I could see no greater way to learn how to minister than sitting at the feet of my Savior, as His disciples sat at His feet when He began teaching The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:1,2)

I have completed my memorization of Matthew Chapter 5 and my mind of late has been totally consumed by the very last verse of Chapter 5.  All of Matthew 5 is underscored by this one verse:

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Matthew 5:48

Reciting the first part of The Sermon on the Mount (Matt.5) repeatedly has deeply transformed my thought process. When evaluating who I am, what I do, where I go, I am reminded continuously how far I have to go to mirror what Jesus was teaching His disciples.  And then, oh my Lord, then I read Matthew 5:48 and realize that not only do I miss the mark of how I should live my life significantly; I miss the ultimate goal completely.

Reading what the Apostle Paul wrote, which I began this blog, I have a clearer understanding of what he is saying. I am nowhere close to where I need to be in regard to my relationship with my Creator or His creation, but I cannot let what I did yesterday, last week, last month, the years gone by to determine what I do today. I need to have one goal…one objective…one purpose and that is to press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

I pray that my eyes, today, can be focused with laser intensity on where I need to go.