John Eldredge

A Quart in my Tank

2009-06-25T11:23:31-07:00

So, we try and build some margin into our “season” at Ransomed Heart. We are very aware of the danger of burn-out in ministry. It seems like the number one occupational hazard for Christians. So common it seems inevitable. But no. We set a calendar that has some margin in it, and we do our best to stick to it.

But try as one may, you can never predict the inevitable crises that come our way. Or the intensity of warfare. Or the myriad of other draining things that show up unexpectedly. It has been a brutal year. I arrived at June spent beyond all reason. Running on fumes.

Thank God, we do build a sort of sabbath into June and July, where not all activity shuts down – still gotta pay the bills, answer email, finish edits, carry on – but we do get some breathing room to rest and recouperate before our season kicks in again mid-August.

What will I do with this time?

I feel like a man with three dollars in my pocket. Maybe a quart in my tank. And what astounds me is how quickly I think about spending what little I have. I get a little bit back in my soul and I start thinking about advancing the Kingdom. People that need my help. I get a little bit of God back in my tank and I start thinking about who I need to pray for.

Lord have mercy.

I made it to the station on fumes, but the process of re-fueling takes time and I’ve got less than a gallon in my tank now, and here I am thinking about hitting the road.

No wonder God commanded sabbath rest. He had to demand it, insist on it, make it an issue of moral consequence, otherwise we wouldn’t do it. It is so easy, dangerously easy to get caught up in the pace of this crazy world that rest feels uncomfortable; doing nothing feels awkward; as soon as we feel even a little bit refreshed, we’re back out on the highway, blasting ahead.

No.

I’m not going to do that.

I’m going to listen to God. Let him set the pace. Let him re-fill me.

There is a time for action, and a time for restoration.

God give us the mercy to accept the time he has us in. Especially when it is time for restoration.

Old Friends

2009-05-15T12:32:00-07:00

I was looking for some reading the other day to feed my soul, to supplement my time in the Scriptures. Browsing the bookshelves in my office, I sort of picked up one book then another, opened it, read a little, and set it back down. Nope, that’s not what God has for me. I can’t altogether say why I knew. Partly because it fell flat; partly because I wasn’t interested. But over time you recognize that gentle prompting of the Holy Spirit. Here, this is what I am saying.

I found myself moved to grab two books: No Little People (a collection of sermons by Francis Schaeffer) and God in the Dock (a collection of essays by C.S. Lewis). I hadn’t picked up either of these volumes in a long time. For Schaeffer it had been a very long time. Both have played a vital role at different points in my spiritual journey. They feel like old friends.

Schaeffer was huge for me nearly thirty years ago, when I first became a Christian. I came to faith in Christ out of a very pagan background, and I wasn’t looking for a religion or a church. I was looking for the Truth. Schaeffer gave me a worldview, showed me how the truth of the Bible applied to every area of human culture. But he also gave me a beautiful understanding of “true spirituality” (the name of one of his books). Over time I moved on. I would recommend Schaeffer to thoughtful friends, but they didn’t seem to resonate with his philosophical approach.

Anyhow, back to the moment. I was preparing to go on this whirlwind Tour we’ve been doing across the US, and stepping into it already tired from a Boot Camp and an Advanced retreat for men and many other projects. We had prayed hard about this schedule; I did not trust it at all. I’ve preached against busy-ness and drivenness (in a CD called The Spirit of the Age) and I hate that way of life. But over and over I felt Jesus say, “This is what I want you to do.”

So I sit down, flip open Schaeffer to no place in particular, and begin reading. This is what my eyes fell upon:

“Both the Scriptures and the history of the church teach that if the Holy Spirit is working, the whole man will be involved and there will be much cost to the Christian. The more the Holy Spirit works, the more Christians will be used in battle, and the more they are used, the more there will be personal cost and tiredness. It is quite the opposite of what we might first think. People often cry out for the work of the Holy Spirit and yet forget that when the Holy Spirit works, there is always tremendous cost to the people of God, weariness and tears and battles.”

It was a consolation. There certainly have been weariness and tears and battles. The consolation was that this is part of the deal, part of what I signed up for when I gave my life to God, and when I asked to be used. The consolation was also Jesus saying, “You didn’t blow it; I asked you to do this. I am in this.” God used the words of this old friend (I had long ago underlined this passage) to speak to me what I needed to hear.

Quite a Beginning

2009-04-16T21:18:32-07:00

So, we take to the road tomorrow for the Fathered by God tour. Really excited to be heading out.

Except, a blizzard is descending on Colorado, so we are scrambling to get to Denver tonight, in hopes of still catching our (re-scheduled) flight to Atlanta in the morning. Provided they don’t shut the airport down.

I thought driving up tonight would be safer. Except, the storm has hit and it is hailing really hard right now.

Then the washer broke down with the two pairs of pants I was going to wear in it. Tried rinsing them off in the shower.

While working on my talks this afternoon my computer froze. Went to my laptop. It froze.

You know, when you get this much opposition, you know you are doing something really important for the Kingdom.

SO, I hope you can join us at one of the Tour stops!! Check out www.fatheredbygod.com for tickets and info.

Oh, and a few prayers our way would be mighty appreciated. I mean, we’re two days away from the event and the battle is heating up. Must be something mighty good coming.

Air Travel and Sanctification

2009-04-06T10:56:27-07:00

Stasi and I were flying back from New York’s La Guardia airport last Friday, scheduled for a 10:30am departure. Foul weather grounds our plane, due in from Washington Dulles. First an hour goes by, then two. Okay, we can handle a delay. But at four hours we begin to grow weary. It’s such a roller coaster when hopes are raised every time they announce the plane will be here at such-and-such a time, but then that times goes by and they push it out another hour. At five hours a rainstorm hits New York, and it’s coming down so hard the roof of the old terminal begins to leak. “You folks will want to move; this ceiling tile here sometimes caves in.” A rank odor fills the crowded terminal, now crammed with passengers from many delayed flights. It smells like cat piss. Six hours go by, then seven. After eight hours of waiting the plane finally gets through and we board.

Part of the tension is that we are trying to beat a winter storm into Denver, get home to re-pack and pick up our boys for a 9am departure Saturday morning for the west coast, to see our son Sam.

We take our seats aboard the plane.

Then they hold us at gate for another hour.

Nine hours now we’ve been sitting, waiting, praying. Did I mention we slept poorly all week, and we are utterly exhausted to begin with?

Then the captain comes on to announce, “I have some good news and some bad news.”

The good news is we get to depart. The bad news is that we will have to make an unscheduled fueling stop in Omaha because we can’t take off with a full fuel load. That means another hour and twenty minute delay. Will it never end?

We finally reach Denver. As a sort of last cruelty there is no gate agent there to open the gate, so we simply sit on the plane for another half an hour, freedom so tantalizingly close.

Then we can’t make it home because of weather, and have to stay in a hotel in Denver. After 17 hours of travel we fall into bed so tired we are almost delirious. Sleep sounds like the best thing all day. Certainly the easiest, given our condition. But warfare keeps us up most of the night.

Now, everybody has bad days.

The question is, what do we do with stuff like this?

Well, for one thing, you pray like mad. When a pattern like this begins to develop (and I spared you several other stories just like it from the past two weeks) we must look for the enemy’s hand in it. This is not coincidence. Pray. Ask others to pray for you.

But we did pray, and still had the day from hell. The enemy would like nothing more than to not only make life miserable but to also tie us in knots, to discourage and dishearten. So, we also have to let it go. Just give it all over to God. Find joy in the things he is giving. Perplexed, as Paul said, but not despairing. Struck down, but not destroyed. If we can keep heart, and receive the mercy God is giving, the enemy loses whatever our circumstances might be.

So deliver us, Lord, from every trial that can be shut down. Teach us to pray and not lose heart. And give us the grace and mercy in those we cannot change.

Time Out

2009-03-27T11:40:21-07:00

It’s been Spring Break for my boys this week, and our family has been trying to catch our breath and just take it easy. Get some r & r. Watch some basketball, eat out, sleep in, goof around.

It hasn’t gone so well. The city decided this was the week to do major digging outside our house. Starting at 7am each day. The weather has been lousy. While there has been some rest this week, there’s also been a lot of disappointment. And a ton of warfare. Our plans haven’t gone the way we wanted.

And I’ve noticed something crucial about the way I see the world.

I’ve been more than a little peeved about the way life turns out. As if I could say when and where the battle will come and go, and more importantly, as if I could simply take a time out from life.

What I’ve realized is that I believe there are three kingdoms in this world instead of just two. In addition to the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness, I think there is a third place that is sort of neutral ground, “normal life,” that place we can go to when we just want to get out of the fray. There’s God stuff, there’s the darkness, and then there’s going out to eat or taking a day off and all that stuff we call normal life that doesn’t really impinge on God or the enemy.

I’m embarrassed by the naiveté of my thinking.

And by how deeply ingrained it is. Really, I think I can jump into Kingdom stuff like ministry or writing or Bible study, fight the necessary battles involved there, and then jump out into this third place where I just get to watch the NCAA games or go get some tacos in a sort of benign reality that is neither really about or with God, nor evil. A kind of time out place. Then I get miffed when life doesn’t work out like that.

I know I have this mindset all the time, but it is especially noticeable during those times when I think I ought to be able to check out. Like during Spring Break. Really, for some odd reason I think that because I want to check out the collision of the kingdoms ought to pass me by. But instead I have to pray because the enemy is coming on strong and we can’t sleep, let alone sleep in, and I’m ticked about it.

I don’t think I’m alone in believing (or wanting to believe, holding fast to the belief) that there are sort of three places in the world: the Kingdom of God, the kingdom of darkness, and this third place we call “normal life” or just living or especially time out.

But you can’t find that third place in the Bible. The view of reality presented there allows for only two kingdoms. Any life or joy or rest comes only as we abide in God, and walk with him. Not through this mythical time out I want to cling to.

Blog Shame

2009-03-18T15:02:40-07:00

So, I try and call my parents every Sunday. We live states apart. (Actually, we live worlds apart, making even a phone call kind of weird.) So over the years we’ve kind of fallen to Sunday evenings as the best time to catch up. I think a lot of people do this. Call your parents Sunday.

But then you know what happens.

Life gets busy. I travel all weekend and get home late and just don’t have the energy to call. Or, some friends invite us to dinner and the evening slips away and suddenly it’s too late to call. The same thing happens the following week. Then I feel guilty. I’ve missed two weeks. Which makes me hesitant to call because I’m ashamed I haven’t called my parents. Suddenly three weeks go by and it becomes really hard to pick up the phone because you’ve got to start with the apologies and the explanations. It’s hard to get back on track.

Now I have blog shame.

I know I’m not the faithful blogger. Life sweeps in, sweeps me away, and I forget. Then, I have SO many flippin stories to tell of so many ways God is working I don’t know which one to share. My brain overloads. Two (or three) weeks go by and blog shame begins to set in, making it even harder to blog. “Hi, it’s me. I know, we haven’t talked in awhile. The kids have been sick and I’ve been on the road but I’ve been meaning to call and well…how are you?”

So, this is my act to overcome blog shame.

There. I blogged. I’m even feeling better. I won’t wait so long next time.

Finding Church

2009-02-05T13:43:04-08:00

One of the most common questions we are asked here at Ransomed Heart is, “What do you do for church?”

Sometimes the question is posed as a sort of test – somewhere, somebody got the idea we are opposed to church. Not at all – we love the Church with a capital C, the people of God; we fight hard for the bride of Christ. We also believe in church with a small c; we attend church and we encourage others to do so. But where, when, how – I think that is behind the question when most people ask it. The question reveals a dilemma for the asker; a dilemma I think many people share. It is something we have wrestled with ourselves. What is church supposed to look like? Where do we find the kind of fellowship church was meant to provide?

The question usually comes following a re-alignment.

When we turn to God from the heart, seeking to recover our first Love, we awaken to the Gospel as a romance. Not a set of principles to be mastered, not a roster of programs to get involved in. First and foremost, the Gospel is a love affair with God. What a wonderful revelation; it opens up a whole new world before us. We soon discover that the heart is absolutely vital to the Christian life – the heart of God, and our heart, too. We begin to taste a bit of what Jesus meant when he said he came to give us life. A second revelation usually follows hard on the heels of the first – that we live in a spiritual war. Anyone seeking to know God deeply and truly suddenly finds that the romance is opposed; we have an enemy.

Which leads us to wonder, “Where will I find allies? Who can I take this journey with?”

The dilemma is that what you get when you walk into a church depends on what they believe the Gospel is.

There are many “gospels” being preached out there (as there was in Paul’s day) and they are not all the same. Many churches do not make the heart central, do not believe in warfare, do not see the Gospel as a romance. They do not actually teach people how to be intimate with God, or hear his voice. Intimacy with God is not promoted; most folks don’t know how to find it.

We’ve spoken to a number of good people, mature believers who sincerely love God and dearly want to join him in his battle for this world, but who have found church to be an exercise in frustration. The number of these folks continues to grow; it is a very significant trend. These are not simply malcontents, who really just want to sleep in on Sundays. These are sincere followers of Jesus and they want a genuine place of church; they just don’t know where to find it. So they ask us, “What do you do?”

Let me first say what we have done – we have been a part of many different church expressions, from liturgical to conservative Bible to charismatic. And we have benefited richly from all of them. God can be found in many different expressions of “church.” Most recently we have found the house church model to be particularly focused on what we believe are a few of the absolute essentials.

Read the various urgings toward “church” in the epistles, and ask yourself, “How could this take place in an hour on Sunday morning in a group of 500 or 5,000? How can we pray for one another, really? How can we encourage one another, really? Bear one another’s burdens?” It can be a rich experience to worship with a large group of people, and hear the word of God taught by a gifted teacher. But there is simply no way that the fellowship urged in the Scriptures can be expressed without involvement in a small group.

Look at Jesus – he had an intimate fellowship in the twelve (and even more intimate in the three). If Christ lived this way, maybe we need it too!

We have a number of resources to help you find your way to true community. Stop by www.ransomedheart.com and see what we offer.

The Battle is heating up, dear friends; whatever you do, you do not want to walk alone.

Those Sneaky Agreements

2009-01-26T10:46:35-08:00

So, Stasi and I have been writing a book together for the past many months. (It’s on marriage). Through the holidays I was pretty much chained to the computer, trying to get it done by January 15. I took Christmas Eve and day off, and New Years day (which is my son Blaine’s birthday), but the rest of the time it was write, write, write. I felt like I barely saw the holidays.

Now, I love writing. Of all the things I do, I enjoy it the most and I think it might be where I shine best. But I noticed that my heart was getting heavy when I woke up in the morning; I found my energy to write had slipped away.

I was sitting at my desk, feeling blah. But instead of just muscling through the malaise, forcing myself to write, I stopped and asked God, “Lord, have I made some agreements here about this book?”

Bam.

Right away I could sense the Spirit revealing some things to me. “That dam# book” was one of them; not said in malice or cursing, but more in the spirit of resigantion, “Well, I’ve got to get back to that dam# book.” Another agreement was, “I don’t really enjoy this.” A third was, “I don’t really like the subject of marriage; I wish I was writing on something else.” NONE of these were true. But they had snuck in, over time, and I had very subtly made an agreement with them.

Sneaky. Very sneaky.

Knowing how damaging agreements can be, knowing how they pin our hearts down and give the enemy a place to work in our lives, I stopped and broke them. Each of them. Out loud. “I do like this; I love writing. I do care about marriage; I reject that agreement” and so on.

The effect was almost instantaneous. In but a few moments, my heart was light, I was looking fortward to the day, my inspiration for writing returned.

Take agreements seriously, dear friends. Ask God to reveal to you the ones you’ve been making. Sometimes the “revealing” will come when you make the agreement again, you catch yourself saying it out loud and you realize, “Wow – that’s an agreement.” Sometimes it’s something that plays “in your head,” in your thought life. Sometimes the Lord will speak to you what it is, or show you the topic you’ve got to look at. However it comes, he will show you.

Then, break them. It’ll do you a great good.

We finished the book, by the way. On time, even.

A Christmas Devotion

2008-12-18T13:43:40-08:00

One my all time favorite Christmas carols is “O Holy Night.” I look forward to the soloist singing it at church on Christmas eve. I was thinking about it again this year, and discovered the most stunning and disruptive line…

O holy night! The stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of our dear Savior’s birth.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
'Til He appear'd and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.
Fall on your knees! O, hear the angels' voices!
O night divine, O night when Christ was born;
O night divine, O night, O night Divine.

The line that absolutely stops me is this: “And the soul felt it’s worth.”

I don’t know that this happens a great deal at Christmastime actually. You hear a Christmas carol, you see a manger scene in someone’s yard, your attention is turned for a moment to the nativity of Jesus – does it naturally follow in that moment that your soul feels it’s worth? And why not?

I think we celebrate Christmas in a vacuum.

We do our best to turn our attention to Jesus. We meditate on his coming, the circumstances, the gift. But I think we forget what his coming was for.

Christmas is a rescue. God coming to rescue us. It is an act of humility, love and sacrifice unparalleled in the history of the world. But the act does not take place in a vacuum. The act is not primarily to show the greatness of God. It does show his greatness. But the act has a fierce intention to it, the whole drama is fiercely intentional, and the object of this act is you and me; the purpose is our rescue and restoration, to bring us back to God.

Why have we lost sight of that?

I think in part it’s because of a doctrine we’ve embraced – call it the doctrine of “the worthlessness of the rescued shows the surpassing greatness of the rescuer.” It is a very popular doctrine. I think it got in under the belief that in order to promote the glory of God we must give no quarter to any idea that human beings have intrinsic worth. Thus the popular phrase, “I’m just a sinner, saved by grace.” Or, “It’s not about you; it’s about Jesus.”

The doctrine is deeply ingrained in the church, and deeply damaging to our relationship with God. Because it is untrue.

You ask a father to show you pictures of his children. “They are profoundly unworthy,” he says to you. “That is what makes me such a great Father. I love such worthless creatures in order to prove what an awesome Father I am.” What would we think of such a man? What would you think of a person who said to their children, “You are lucky to be here. You ought to thank me because I even care about such a worthless creature as you.” Wouldn’t we call that child abuse? (Even now we bristle at the analogy, because of how deep the doctrine has been ingrained in us. But isn’t it true – wouldn’t you call that kind of parenting abusive?).

Of course we are to worship God. Of course he is worthy to be worshipped. But something has slipped into the Church that is deeply and profoundly damaging, both to our view of God and our relationship with him.

Consider a simple daily kind of rescue. Your car battery is dead; you need a jump. But it’s late at night, and snowing. You call a friend, hating to bother them but in need of help. They jump out of bed and race to your aid. Doesn’t it help you to realize how much you matter to them? Doesn’t it deepen the friendship? And wouldn’t it be death to the relationship if they said to you, “You don’t deserve this. I do this to demonstrate my goodness.” Would you want to call them a second time? Does the relationship even have a future?

Or take the simple words, “I love you.” Doesn’t it do something to your soul to hear those words? You begin to realize how much you matter to the one who spoke them in love. And what would happen if they went on to explain, “It’s nothing in you that makes me love you. It’s my goodness that causes me to love. In fact, your utter unworthiness of my love only proves how good I am for loving you. Keep that in mind.”

“But…but…we sinned. We fell. We didn’t deserve God to come and rescue us.” That is true. But it does not follow that we are worthless, and that it is our utter worthlessness that makes him worthy of praise. The child who turns their back on the family, runs away, winds up in jail doesn’t deserve to be bailed out. But love doesn’t think in terms of deserve or not deserve. Love thinks in terms of precious value – you matter too much for me to leave you there. The lost child matters still to their parents. Matters very much. They may be in a sorry condition, but they have tremendous value and worth. And when they are bailed out the child knows that they matter. They know they are prized.

I think Jesus was speaking directly into this distortion about the heart of God, this doctrine of worthlesness when he told the parable of the prodigal son. The son has a speech about his unworthiness. “Father, I have sinned. I am not worthy to be called your son.” He says it twice. The father pays no attention to the speech at all. He doesn’t even acknowledge it. He says, “Kill the fatted calf! We must celebrate! My son who was dead is alive!”

Something profound takes place in the soul of a person when they know they matter; when they know they are prized. It changes them. All questions of tit-for-tat are swept away; there is no longer any room for fear in the relationship. They know they are loved, and it evokes love in return. Someone who is recued has a deep and profound gratitude to the rescuer. “You would do this for me?” But if their rescuer said, “I did not do this for you; I did this for me. I did it to prove my greatness. In fact, your complete unworthiness to be rescued is part of my plan to show my greatness.” Could you imagine the relationship having any sort of future?

Christmas is the most stunning rescue story of all time. Under cover of night, in a remote village in Palestine, in a world held captive by the dark prince, God comes to earth as a human being, a little boy. He invades the human race in order to rescue the human race. Satan is furious, he lashes out desperately to try and stop the invasion. The angels go to war. But God cannot be stopped. He will ransom and restore his beloved. The beauty of the act cannot be adequately expressed.

And what are we to think of the ones God would go to such lengths to rescue, and at such a price? How precious they must be. They must be worth a great deal to him. Inestimable worth. And that is why the soul felt its worth. At least, that ought to be the effect of Christmas upon us.

When a great King rescues his beloved, we all know she is precious to him. And we see his greatness. We also see her worth. If that great King were to rescue a potato, we would not think him great at all; we would find it bizarre. So away with this doctrine of “the worthlessness of the rescued shows the surpassing greatness of the rescuer.” That is not how Jesus saw it. That is not the language of love at all. This nativity had an object in mind. That object is you and me.

I think this will help us to celebrate Christmas for what it is – as a daring rescue. Not in a vacuum. In the context of love. I think it will allow us to be stunned at the way God goes about things. To fall in love again with his amazing heart. And to allow ourselves to experience some deep shift in our soul, as we come to feel our worth. We must really matter.

We look at the manger. We see the angels, the wise men. We see the little boy. And then we boldy sing, “and the soul felt it’s worth.”

Christmas Cards

2008-12-11T09:56:48-08:00

Stasi corralled me yesterday into helping her with the Christmas cards.

In our home, as in every marriage, we have a necessary division of labor. I hang the lights. Christmas cards are Stasi’s domain. But, I was home yesterday, resting from our mission to Australia, and so I jumped in. Lick, stuff. Lick, stuff.

A line in the card (“Let heaven and nature sing”) got me singing the whole song, which I haven’t sung for quite awhile. I guess, a year, now that I think about it. Anyhow, my favorite line in Joy To The World goes like this:

“He comes to make his blessings flow, Far as the curse is found…”

This might be one of the most beautiful, hopeful thoughts in all the world. It reminded me of the truth of the Gospel, and the Kingdom of God – that Jesus fully intends restoration in every aspect of our lives, and of this world. I had just been watching the night before a very hard film on war children in northern Uganda (War Dance – a very good movie) and it left me deeply burdened for all the heart broken in the world.

Then God speaks through a Christmas card.

It reminded me that whatever else Christmas might be, it is a celebration that God’s Kingdom has come, and will prevail. His love, his life, his power to heal and restore. Far as the curse is found. Which is pretty dang far.