“I must try harder” comes from the set of beliefs in which Jesus, at most, is our (distant) coach, giving direction, encouragement, and a good tongue lashing from the sidelines while we try to compete, without much assistance, against someone clearly more skilled than we are. Victory is never really possible. We just hope to avoid an embarrassingly lopsided loss.

“Life in Jesus is restless rest.”

Life in Jesus, however, is restless rest, with the accent on rest. Faith, which is the primary human response to God, means that we trust him and not ourselves. More specifically, faith means, “Jesus, help!” And this is very different from a foundational belief, “I must try harder.”

“We, however, look for and are not much shocked by, political eccentricities and heresies in South Carolina.”

(I figure I can get away with this given that your red neck friends won’t realize that one does not need a passport to travel to Alaska…)

“When our lack of faith meets with our fear we start to ask questions that just shouldn’t be asked.”

This was the lead into a good message regarding the disciples freaking out in the boat during the storm while Jesus was asleep–in the same boat. His point was that Jesus told them before they got in the boat they were going to the other side.  But, even though He was with them the whole time, they got so scared during the storm that they actually thought the boat was going down.  The wind and waves so overwhelmed them that they were convinced that they were going down–and by implication Jesus was too.

By extension, we tend to be the same way.  We’re clipping along just fine in our Christian walk until the storm hits.  Then we freak out and forget in the dark what Jesus told us in the light.  So,  we run to Him asking if He cares/understands/will bail us out/why is this happening to me?!

I expect He just shakes His head…”Why are you asking Me a question I’ve already answered? Again?!”

I returned a call last week to a former employee who is finishing up his Masters degree in Public Administration.  He called for a class assignment, which was to talk to someone he respected in leadership and to find out what books they had read on the subject of public administration that they would recommend.  I was honored that he called me, but have to confess that it took me a week to think of what I’d recommend.  In the end, I told him that there was only one assigned book from my entire degree program that I’d recommend, but that it shared the life of a man that absolutely defied the principles of public administration as taught in academia today.  But, he got stuff done.  And, the rest of the books I could recommend were outside my degree program…not sure about what that says of the program…

Still, not willing to leave it at one book that defied all they taught me in my MPA program, I provided the following list of the books that mattered to me when I was in the public administration career path…

1. Proverbs 16
2. Psalms
3. The above reference book: The Power Broker, Robert Moses (get it done book)
4. The Nursing Father: Moses as a Political Leader, Aaron Wildavsky (non-authoritarian leadership)
5. Ruthless Execution, Amir Hartman (get done what matters book)
6. Trust Me, Hastings and Potter (principled leadership modeled on Jesus)

While I’m at it…here’s the current reading list:
Luke, Psalms110-120 series, Colossians 2, Ephesians 6, Romans 8
We Wrestle Not, Pastor Marvin Smith (spiritual warfare)
The Christian Atheist, Craig Groeschel
In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day, Mark Batterson
A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, Donald Miller
The Vertical Self, Mark Sayers
Recently finished:
The Hole of No Hope, Tom Sooter
The New Commodity Trading Guide, Kleinman
The Holiness of God, R.C. Sproul (fantastic read!)
John’s Story, LaHaye
Wild Goose Chase, Mark Batterson (he’ll change the way you think)
The Best Things in Life, Peter Kreeft
The Visitation, Frank Peretti
Forgotten God, Francis Chan
Skin, Ted Dekker
Grace Based Parenting, Tim Kimmel (the last half of the book is particularly good)
Waking the Dead, John Eldredge
The Unaborted Socrates, Peter Kreeft

Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.” 14 Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this. 15 But the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?”  Acts 19:13-15

Says Smith:

“We have spent so much of our time trying to get earthly fame, when we should spend out time getting our name known in the dark realms…”

So much of “the trip” was to find You Jesus.  To really find You.  I did.  Now I see You. Because of this, this week weighs so heavy on me.  I know that this isn’t where You will leave me this week–sad, ponderous, thankful, overwhelmed with the tragedy and inhumanity and cruelty that You suffered.  But, for now I can’t think of much other than what You were going through during this weekend a couple thousand years ago…

I slept late, having forgot to set my alarm clock to ensure I had my early time with You, while You watched Barabbas, the guilty one, walk free and heard the screaming, demon-infused crowd of religious leaders demanding crucifixion.

I ate a late breakfast of chocolate chip muffins while you were being stretched and nailed, literally nailed with spikes and a small sledge, to a beam of rough wood by crude, mocking, pagan, foreign soldiers that spared You no disgrace or granted any reprieve from the torture they conducted with such vigor and efficiency.

My late lunch, which followed a morning of routine house projects, took place after You’d missed lunch and breakfast.  You were now suspended in agony and in the dark, experiencing two things of great horror that You neither deserved nor had ever experienced before: the ugliness of sin and complete separation; and these on a cosmic scale that we could never understand because we’ve never known anything else…

I slept, taking a nap, when the Father turned His back, You cried “It is finished!”, the ground shook, and the temple was “desecrated”.

I ate pizza and watched Air Buddies with my kids while Joseph, having talked with Pilate, was pulling down Your bloody, depleted, lifeless body so that it could be placed quickly into a hole in a rock.

I watched a movie, a comedy of no redeeming value, while the apostles, your Mom, and your closest friends were shell shocked, ashamed, crushed, and completely devastated by the reality of how quickly all had been lost.

Over and over my spirit wonders…why me?

I know the doctrine and can teach the theology, but my spirit ponders, why me Jesus?!

My Jesus, I love thee,
I know thou are mine.
For Thee all the follies
of sin I resign.
My gracious redeemer,
my Savior art thou.
If ever I loved thee
my Jesus tis now.

“It is one of the greatest proofs of the depravity of man’s heart that he will no more obey the gospel than the law, but disobeys his God, whether he speaks to him in love or in law.”