I'd intended to devote two separate posts to both a quick excerpt of Eugene Peterson's "Eat This Book" as well as some reflections from this weekend's service at Lakewood with John Maxwell.
By way of an incredibly brief overview of Maxwell's sermon, we were treated to a great message on the importance of confidence and passion in our walk of faith. In particular, there were three elements of Maxwell's message:
» Confidence is a function of following your passion.
» Confidence is the result of us finding our "strength zone."
» Confidence comes from knowing God's will for you.
The video from yesterday included one of the more humorous aspects of this. Maxwell's gift is clearly communication. His wife's gift is not. At least not with regard to public speaking. There is, however, something to be said for those with a sense of style being communicators in their own right. But clearly, our spiritual gifts suffer when they are utilized without confidence.
Maxwell's example in this regard was Paul at Agrippa (Acts 26). In Maxwell's summation, he has Paul asking "How could I turn away from a vision" like the one he saw on the road to Damascus. Reading through the chapter, you get a sense of Paul's cool demeanor - nevermind that he's on trial with the penalty being death. Indeed, throughout Paul's writings, we see another great communicator often put under stressful situations - pleading for his life, finding joy in times of imprisonment, speaking to people of different faiths and reasoning with them according to their own understanding. If I were to be so bold as to suggest another example for Maxwell to relate this to us, I might offer one of my favorites: Acts 17, which demonstrates that last point.
So with that, I crack open a little morning reading and start in with this ...
From "Eat This Book" (pg. 23)
Our lives, that is, our experience - what we need and want and feel - are important in forming the Christ-life in us. Our lives are, after all, the stuff that is being formed. But they are not the text for directing the formation itself. Spirituality means, among other things, taking ourselves seriously. It means going against the cultural stream in which we are incessantly trivialized to the menial status of producers and performers, constantly depersonalized behind the labels of our degrees or our salaries. But there is far more to us than our usefulness and our reputation, where we've been and who we know; there is the unique, irreproducible, eternal, image-of-God me. A vigorous assertion of personal dignity is foundational to spirituality.
The whole point of maximizing those gifts that we have within us is to allow that Christ-likeness to shine a little more.
Maxwell did just fine with his own example of Esther having doubt about whether or not to do anything about Haman's plot to destroy the Jews:
Esther 4:14:
And who knows but that you have come to roytal position for such a time as this?
Esther had a purpose ... she just lacked confidence up until this point. Channeling Peterson, we sometimes get lost in the formation of our lives. So much so, that the moment we were called for is not always apparent to us.
Nearly a year ago, I mentioned a similar example taken from the movie Kingdom of Heaven. It's just fascinating how fundamental confidence really is in our lives.
Kudos again to all involved in making John Maxwell's stop at Lakewood a memorable one. It's weird how we get so accustomed to Joel, who's easily a great communicator and pastor in his own right. Getting an up-close glimpse of John Maxwell is just a rare treat, however. We'll get back to appreciating Joel next weekend.
June is still a big month at Lakewood. We've got Gary Trent coming up for a Wednesday sermon at the end of the month. Koinonia has a very special musical guest coming up on the 23rd that I'm bursting at the seams to blurt out ... but I'll wait to see it in the bulletin and might have a graphical "bursting" instead of my own brand of rambling. The Newsboys, of course, have a special performance at Lakewood on the evening of the 17th.
This week sees a few of our own head off to a missions cruise to the Bahamas. A lot of people put in time to create bracelets that will be used to minister in the schools in the Bahamas. When they get back, I'm sure we'll have a lot of great success stories to hear from them all. In the meantime, keep them and the entire cruise in your prayers.
And in case that sounds like an eventful enough month ...Joel & crew head to Britain & Ireland in July. I hope nobody was thinking summer was going to be dull.
