Priorities

I have sat down to write about the importance of setting and keeping priorities several times but have been unable to complete my thoughts. It is because it is an area where I still struggle. Our oldest daughter began college this year. It was easy for me to see she was putting way too many activities on her plate. My best friend does not know how to say "no". His calendar makes you want to laugh, then cry. A young woman I work with strains to hear her calling through the cries of needs surrounding her.

It is easy for me to identify the mistakes of others, much more difficult to recognize my own. I was talking to my mom last weekend (one of my priorities, one I have neglected), she offered the same advice to me I offered my daughter, "stop trying to do so much". I was shocked, part of me who believes I am doing too little. It wars with the need to set and maintain priorities. It reacted to my mother's words with a dismissive, "she doesn't know what she is talking about, you can handle it." I imagine my words to my daughter and friends fall prey to a similar dismissive spirit. What harm is there in having a full plate? Shouldn't we seek a full life? If we are aware of a need and do nothing to fix it, are we shaming God? 

I offer my plate to answer these questions. I work full time for the Homeless Coalition as their outreach worker. I am planting Connections. I am a husband, father of three, and son to parents who just relocated 300 miles to be nearer. I have friends who I enjoy, count on and want to be apart of their lives. I am undecided on selling our home or refinancing. I am responsible for managing the finances of two businesses and our household budget. I am a member of Freedom Church. 

There are plates more full than mine. My first reaction to my list is,"I should be able to manage that load", but I confess, I can not. My priorities are out of balance and it is hindering my efforts and causing damage. It shows in every area of my life. God has given me a great capacity for compassion and it serves me well. As I share His love I witness hope restored and purpose discovered. However, when I become unbalanced sincerity is lost. 

Yesterday I visited inmates in jail. I am allowed to meet with them one on one in a comfortable office setting. I receive and compile a list of fifteen to twenty names each week. As I reviewed the list yesterday I recognized two or three names. When we met I discovered I had visited most of them before. I did not recognize their faces and struggled to remember our previous conversations. They deserve better. Giving the impression of caring without doing the work of caring is wrong. Poor care is a clear sign unbalanced priorities. A crowded plate creates false expectations and inhibits our ability to serve.

The solution is simple but not easy; define your priorities and purpose. What has God called you to do? Does your current schedule reflect your priorities? If not, shape it until it does. Remember, you are part of the whole. God's gift to the world is not you; God's gift to the world is His Church, the Body of Christ. You do not shame God by not answering each need personally. You shame God by attempting to operate outside your purpose, independent from the whole. 

Connections will provide sincere compassionate care, not by the efforts of one, but many. Each member of our launch team will be encouraged to define priorities and purpose. Connections will clearly define our scope. Emerging needs will be brought before the body and new hands will be added when warranted.


 ^14-17Dear friends, do you think you'll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it? For instance, you come upon an old friend dressed in rags and half-starved and say, "Good morning, friend! Be clothed in Christ! Be filled with the Holy Spirit!" and walk off without providing so much as a coat or a cup of soup—where does that get you? Isn't it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense?

 ¹⁸I can already hear one of you agreeing by saying, "Sounds good. You take care of the faith department, I'll handle the works department."
   Not so fast. You can no more show me your works apart from your faith than I can show you my faith apart from my works. Faith and works, works and faith, fit together hand in glove.  (James 2:14-18, The Message)


¹¹ And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, ¹² for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, ¹³ till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; (Ephesians 4:11-13, New King James Version)

Immeasureable Love

I love my children, they are the best part of me. If not for my children I would have self destructed long ago. Each is unique yet each shares my best characteristics. They are my underserved blessing and my joy. I would gladly give my life to protect them. Nothing is more precious to me than their lives. I would not sacrifice them to save the best person imaginable or millions innocent children. 

Now I consider the sacrifice God has made for me. His sacrifice was greater than I am willing to commit therefore his love for me must be greater; deeper than I can comprehend. The greater the love the greater the sacrifice, leading to a place of unimaginable pain and sorrow. Yet, God was willing to give his only child for my me. 

Who am I? I am far from righteous; I have spent most of my life pursuing pleasure and self gratification. Yet God sacrificed His son for me. Jesus willingly gave his life for the sinner, the scoundrel, the self involved fool. God endured tremendous pain and sorrow for his enemy, those who hate him, see no purpose for him, and deny his existence. He sacrificed His son for you. His love for you is immeasureable. Allow yourself to be loved.

 ^7-10My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God. The person who refuses to love doesn't know the first thing about God, because God is love—so you can't know him if you don't love. This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they've done to our relationship with God.

 ^11-12My dear, dear friends, if God loved us like this, we certainly ought to love each other. No one has seen God, ever. But if we love one another, God dwells deeply within us, and his love becomes complete in us—perfect love! (1 John 4:10-12, The Message)

¹⁶ And when the scribes and Pharisees saw Him eating with the tax collectors and sinners, they said to His disciples, “How is it that He eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners?”
¹⁷ When Jesus heard it, He said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.” (Mark 2:16-17, New King James Version)





 

Misfit

I am a misfit. I have always been a misfit. I never understood why, and often blamed circumstance. If only_______ , I would be like everyone else, I would fit in. We moved often when I was growing up.  I was always the outsider. The kid from private school in public school, the kid from the South living in the Northeast, the kid from the burbs living in the country, the kid from the country living in the city. The pattern continued into my adult life. The sheltered kid away from home, the married twenty something, the stay-at-home dad, the awkward social networker, the wannabe redneck. With each new circumstance the same feeling, "I don't fit".

I hated being a misfit. I would have given most anything to conform and it wasn't from my lack of trying I failed. Was I cursed? Quite the opposite, I am blessed to be a misfit; once frustrated, now grateful. It was not circumstance which kept me from fitting, it was God. He loved me so much he never let go. Had I ever managed to fit into the world I may have been lost forever. We can not fit into the world and have a relationship with God, we must choose.

You and I were born misfits and marred by sin into a broken world. There is a vulnerable state between life and death, where we are unable to be one with God but desire to live. Our enemy offers many attractive diversions; promises of fullness, satisfaction, and pleasure. They mask the emptiness for a time, but there is a nagging uneasiness which is hard to ignore, something is missing. Jesus is God's answer to the uneasiness. Through Jesus' death and resurrection God created a way for us to fit with Him. Jesus paid the cost of our brokenness and restored us so we can be one with God. We don't fit this world because we are designed to fit God.

I am a misfit, I do not fit into this world even though sometimes I am tempted. The ways of the world are attractive and full of promise, but I will not allow myself to be fooled. I celebrate my misfittedness and place my trust in God. He will faithfully continue to bring other misfits into my life and we will discover we fit extraordinarily well together. I am blessed to have a misfit wife, misfit children, misfit friends, a misfit pastor, and a misfit ministry. Praise God for misfits.

Be proud to be a misfit. Find a relationship with God through the biggest misfit of all, Jesus Christ, your savior and God's answer. Connections will be a lover of misfits because God is a lover of misfits, come find where you fit in.

 ² And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. (Romans 12:2, New King James Version)

  
¹⁵ Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. ¹⁶ For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. ¹⁷ And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever. (1 John 2:15-17, New King James Version)

 ¹⁷ These things I command you, that you love one another.  
¹⁸ “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. ¹⁹ If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. (John 15:17-19, New King James Version)

 ¹⁶ For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. ¹⁷ For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.  
¹⁸ “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. ¹⁹ And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. (John 3:16-19, New King James Version)