Here we get into the details about faith and life

Running Lessons: Abide

I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. John 15:5

This past Saturday, my husband, my son and I ran in the Greater Louisville Battlefrog Obstacle Course Race. Now what I absolutely don’t want you to do is read that and think I’m some kind of super athlete. Because I’m not. I was just following through on something that sounded like a great idea back in January when we were eating Pizza Hut and watching football. Anybody can compete, they said. If you can walk five miles you can finish the Battlefrog race. This one was three weeks after the 10 mile River Run. I figured I was good to go.

Well, yes it’s five miles. Through the woods. Up and down hills. Through creeks and mud. Then every so often they throw in some obstacle, like the Confidence Wall or the Delta Cargo Tower or the Wreck Bag Carry, or more mud, just to keep it interesting. But what makes this race different is that you are allowed, even encouraged, to help each other. And quite frankly, if my husband had not stuck with me, I wouldn’t have finished the course. He walked ahead of me, constantly giving me feedback. “Stay to the left. The mud’s not as deep. It’s slick there. Grab here to pull yourself up.” He gave me a boost when I was too short to reach the first foothold on the 8-foot wall, then he ran around to the other side, so I could grab his shoulder and not have to drop so far. He sacrificed his time and final ranking to make sure I reached the finish line.

Wow, what an object lesson.

In John 15 as Jesus is giving His last teaching before the cross He tells them plainly, “Without Me, you can do nothing.” On the other hand, if they abide in Him, and by extension, if we abide in Him, we bear fruit. Lots of it.

Abide is one of those words we pretend like we know what it means and we read over it. So I looked it up. It has a range of meanings.
1. To wait for – I waited for Jon to go ahead of me in the race. I wait to follow Jesus’s leading.
2. To withstand, to bear patiently – I had to get through some killer obstacles. Jesus is going to throw some challenges my way as well.
3. To accept without objection – Signing up for the race meant following the course laid out. If Jesus is Lord like I say He is, I follow where He leads.
4. To remain stable in a state – I didn’t follow Jon for a bit, then follow somebody else. By the same token, I need to stick with Jesus the whole way.

The Message translates abide as “joined with” and then elaborates, “the relation intimate and organic.” It was completely natural for me to trust Jon and look to him for help, because of our relationship. How much more naturally should I trust and follow Jesus?

See, I don’t run because I’m good at it. Far from it. Honestly, it was Wednesday before I could walk up and down steps without a lot of pain. Running always teaches me something, though. Always. In this case, it’s a lesson that will stick with me even longer than the mud. (It’s never washing out… Never.)

(And in case you were wondering, my son ran his own race, finished #28 in the killer 15-19 age group.)

A Mirror

By Paula Wiseman

But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does. James 1:25

We have telescopes so we can peer into the depths of space and study galaxies, stars, planets and other bodies. We have binoculars to bring natural wonders up close. We have microscopes so we can see what can’t be seen with the naked eye. We marvel at all the details each of those bring out. We celebrate each observation and discovery.

Many times we treat Scripture like a pair of binoculars, or a telescope or a microscope. We want to use it to expose the failures of others, to highlight the shortcomings of society and culture and politics. We spend our time dissecting statements and motives and actions, and we report on our findings.

But mirrors are a different matter.

We often shy away from mirrors. Mirrors make us face our flaws. They destroy our illusions about the pounds or the wrinkles or the gray hair. They cause us to evaluate and take inventory.

Scripture is meant to be a mirror. It’s personal. I can use to it measure my progress as I work towards my goal. I can review what’s behind me. Each and every day, it confronts me. It challenges me.

Until the image looks more like Jesus and less like me.

Honesty and Grace

By Paula Wiseman

“Come now, and let us reason together,” Says the LORD, “Though your sins are like scarlet, They shall be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They shall be as wool. Isaiah 1:18

Who hears your deepest, darkest secrets? Who knows all about your biggest failures and regrets? Who has seen the “real” you? Only the people you’re sure will love you anyway, right?

See, there is a connection between honesty and grace. If I am not certain, absolutely positive, that a relationship is founded on grace, I won’t risk total honesty, whether it’s with a friend a family member or even my husband. The possibility of rejection and the threat of exposure are too much. I’m guessing you are the same way.

This affects our relationship with God, too. We have a mental grasp that He is loving and gracious, but until that gets hold of us at our core we hide from Him just like Adam and Eve did. Even though He invites us to come to Him dozens of times over and promises us rest and acceptance and love when we do, we still struggle with being honest with God.

Maybe it conjures up images of an interrogation room with bright lights forcing us to a sweat-drenched confession. Maybe it’s more like a swath of red marks when we’ve tried, only to fail miserably. Or maybe we hear God in a voice that sounds far too much like someone else, someone we could never please or satisfy.

Genuine honesty with God isn’t like that at all. In fact, it is a supreme expression of our faith in His goodness. It underscores our utter trust in His boundless grace. It demonstrates a desire for deep intimacy with Him in our willingness to turn loose of anything and everything that might stand in the way of that.

In Isaiah, God offers one of His many invitations.
“Come now, and let us reason together,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” Isaiah 1:18

It’s an invitation to honesty and it’s backed with a promise of grace. An invitation worth accepting.

Define Good

By Paula Wiseman

“Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips. Job 2:10

What is good?

Job defines it just the way we would. Good is what pleases us. It’s what is satisfying to us. It makes us comfortable. It makes our life easier, less complicated. It benefits us.

By the same token, adversity is anything uncomfortable or painful. It causes us difficulty or runs contrary to our plans or our wishes.

We avoid adversity whenever possible, and chase after good.

But sometimes, especially in the middle of the situation, we don’t know which is which. If my dog gets out and makes me late, maybe that’s not adverse, but it is at least contrary to my plans and definitely annoying. If I find out later that the delay meant I missed being in a four-car pileup at the on ramp, then maybe it was good after all.

It’s that inability to see and know everything that skews our view of what’s good and what’s bad.

God isn’t bound by those same limitations, and He is the very definition of good. Therefore, by extension, anything that drives me to a deeper dependence on Him, or brings my thoughts and actions more in line with His, is good. Anything that feeds my selfish instincts, my laziness or my apathy is bad.

More often than not, it’s the comfortable and the easy, the very things I strive for, that are bad. And it is the uncomfortable or difficult, the things that I avoid, the things I usually ask God to relieve me of, that are working in my ultimate favor.

Fear or Victory

By Paula Wiseman

Therefore, tell the people, ‘Whoever is timid or afraid may leave this mountain and go home.’” So 22,000 of them went home, leaving only 10,000 who were willing to fight. Judges 7:3 NLT

In Judges 7, we read the story of Gideon. You probably remember the amazing story of the three hundred soldiers who defeated a Midianite army who outnumbered them 400 to 1. Before the battle, Gideon stands with his army of 30,000 men and God says to send home everyone who is afraid. Twenty thousand men–inexperienced soldiers who have done the math and knew they are facing over a hundred thousand professional soldiers–go home.

God doesn’t berate them, or shame them. Gideon doesn’t beg them to stay or offer incentives. Just a simple announcement, “If you are afraid and want out, you are free to go.” And they did.

It seemed like a rational decision. I’ll be honest, if my husband had been in that number I would have more than glad to see him home early and in one piece.

But here’s the thing. Yes, the fearful survived unscathed, but they didn’t get to participate in the victory.

I know I have had plenty of opportunities present themselves, doors that God has unmistakably opened, and I’ve gone home rather than go forward. I’m afraid I won’t measure up. I’m afraid of what it will cost. I’m afraid it will be hard.

And I miss a victory.

Here’s what I know about fear, though. It makes us take our eyes off Him. It distracts us from what He calls us to do. Fear never comes from God. Paul stresses that in 2 Timothy 1:7 “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”

John reiterates it 1 John 4:18 “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.”

Perfect love, that’s the kind that God has for each of us. Fear is a sure sign we don’t grasp or trust that love or the God who demonstrates it.

Millstones

By Paula Wiseman

But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea. Mark 9:42

Prom was this past weekend, and my son was one of the scores of tuxedoed young men with a Cinderella on his arm. After enjoying the paparazzi treatment and a dinner with food that didn’t come in a wrapper, my son and his date arrived the main event. He came home disappointed and disillusioned, not with his date, but with a number of the kids around him. He recognized many of them from various youth meetings and had heard their testimonies. Prom night, they were testifying to something completely different.

And I’m not writing this post to condemn those kids, but rather as a caution to all of us. We hear all the time that the world is watching our behavior, and they are, but young believers are watching us as well. They don’t expect us to be perfect. Far from it.

But they do expect us to be authentic.

They expect our Saturday nights to look just like our Sunday mornings and our Tuesday afternoons.
They expect our conversation and attitude to be consistent no matter where we are or who we’re with.
They expect us to show them it’s worth taking a stand even if it means standing out or standing alone.
They expect us to choose holiness over worldliness.

Whether we realize it or not, they are following us. Let’s take care where we are leading.