John Eldredge

i Motive

2009-10-31T10:14:38-07:00

Most of you have probably seen by now the commercials comparing the Mac to the PC. “Hello. I’m a Mac.” “And I’m a PC.” (If you haven’t, you can watch them on the Apple website.) They are funny; they are clever; and they are absolutely brilliant.

The Mac is hip, laid-back, dressed for the times, tolerant, “authentic,” the ultimate postmodern. The PC is awkward, dressed for the office climate of the 50’s, goofy, overweight, fumbling, and clearly not authentic. C’mon now, admit it – you want to be the Mac. Even if you don’t own a Mac or ever care to own a Mac, in that commercial, you want to be the Mac. Who wants to be the idiot?

Let me back up. Let’s begin with motives.

I was just reading a passage in the Gospel of John, how many of the Jewish leaders actually did believe in Jesus, “But because of the Pharisees they would not confess their faith for fear they would be put out of the synagogue; for they loved praise from men more than praise from God” (12;42-43). It is a very human passage, so true to life. Think high school peer pressure.

I mean, c’mon. You know it’s true. Look at everybody jumping on the “Green” bandwagon. Green is in, Green is enlightened, Green is the cause de jour. Every corporation from coffee to cars now sells itself as Green. Huh. They didn’t do this five years ago. How come they’re suddenly touting their Green credentials now? Do you honestly think this is all in the humble interest of a better world? Then why don’t they just do it, and not tell anyone about it? (Isn’t that what Jesus said, in the Sermon on the Mount?!)
So, motives are essential, and motives are often shall we say, questionable.

According to Jesus, anyone wanting to pursue a true life, anyone wanting to live with integrity and authenticity has got to be honest about their motives. This is core to his teaching.

Back to the Mac ads. Surely you are aware what a powerful motive “wanting to be liked” is. It shapes what you wear every day. The way you talk. The way you present yourself to the world. What you say. What you won’t say. How you want to be seen. Your opinions. This defined high school. Did you really simply wear whatever you wanted and say whatever you wanted when you went to school? Heaven’s no; you’d have been eaten alive. Cast out. We made sure we dressed like and spoke like and held the opinions of the group we wanted to be part of. It might have been the jocks, the cool kids, the academic crowd. Regardless of the details, we all lived a very calculated life.

We still do.

Good grief, the Jewish leaders in John 12 choose fear of man over confessing Christ. “What people think of me” is a VERY powerful motivator.

Thus the brilliance of the ads. In the powerful riptide of current opinion, laid-back is in; uptight is out. Tolerant is in; dogmatic is out. Enlightened is in; holding onto old ways is out. This goes way beyond computers. It shapes our theology, our politics, our values. It is shaping you more than you know.

Call it i motives.

Our New Website is Up!

2009-10-14T09:59:09-07:00

Have you noticed – things always seem to take longer than you expect (and certainly longer than I ever want). But finally we are getting to release some new great stuff out of Ransomed Heart I think you’re going to love. First, check out our new website! We’ve been working on it for some time now, and though this is a “soft” launch (we have a number of new pieces yet to come) we are really excited about it.

Some of the new things you’ll want to notice are:

Love and War! Stasi and I wrote a marriage book (yikes) that releases December 15. Friends who have had a sneak peek tell us they love the manuscript (whew). With that, we are also doing a Tour in January and February, and we’ll be podcasting and so lots of great stuff for couples coming your way.

New resources! One of our deepest passions here at Ransomed Heart is to continue to provide you with great teaching to help deepen your intimacy with God, and through that find the healing, freedom and life he intends for you. We’ve just released a new batch of wonderful stuff, including a teaching on The Life of Jesus that’s my personal favorite, along with five other audio projects.

Stories! The best thing about Ransomed Heart is the phenomenal stories people have to tell of how God is coming for them. We’re going to start featuring those on our new home page, which will be so encouraging to you, and, you’ll find there a way to share your story, too!

More to come, as we seek to uncover the treasure buried in the field and share it with everyone we possibly can.

Memory

2009-09-28T15:02:14-07:00

One of my favorite quotes comes from Nathaniel Hawthorne:

“Our Creator would never have made such lovely days and given us the deep hearts to enjoy them, above and beyond all thought, unless we were meant to be immortal.”

I love it for a couple of reasons. One, it reminds me that the beauty of the earth and the golden days we do experience are gifts from a loving God, telling us what his heart is like. It also helps me with the dilemma of “but why do they pass so quickly?”

I have a photo on my cell phone. It is an evening shot of the Tetons, taken during our summer vacation this past August. Like so many other things in my life, I have already grown used to the photo and don’t see it anymore, even though it is there every time I pick up my phone.

But I saw it again the other day, actually saw it, stopped, took it in, and was taken back to the lovely evening. A sweet summer moment with my family in a place I love. I was reminded of how good it was. But I was also struck by, “and how quickly these beautiful moments pass.”

It got me thinking about memory. I think God gave us the capacity of memory to help us enjoy the moments that in and of themselves pass so quickly. I mean, summer seems so long ago already, and though the time in the Tetons was a sweet gift from God, life has swept us downriver and the event itself is way back upstream, already faded from view. Except, I have the photo, which stirs my memory. And there I can enjoy it again, drink from it, linger longer than the event itself.

We are immortal, meant to live above time, beyond time. But we live in time while we are in this chapter on earth, and we are uncomfortable with it. Stasi and I dropped off our middle son, Blaine, at college a month ago, and it was such a bitter sweet moment. His boyhood is over. The river has swept on and all those sweet days are upstream now and we are racing further on. Why must the days pass so quickly? I want to enjoy them far more than I am able to.

Which brings me back to memory. I’m beginning to realize that I do not take advantage of this gift from God, this capacity that enable me to “linger at the table” in the moments of life I long to draw more out of. For they are always with me, and I can return there if I will make room for a moment to do so.

Epic and Intimate

2009-07-18T11:37:55-07:00

I have been thinking about the Christian life, and my own life, thinking about the essential themes, experiences and needs, and I have landed on these two words to describe it: Epic and Intimate. Somehow these resonate deeply as the core of life with God.

As I thought about this, I remembered something that happened more than ten years ago, when my best friend Brent was killed in a climbing accident. I went to the mountains to seek solace, and solitude, beauty, and time with God. I was high in the Holy Cross wilderness, surrounded by majestic peaks and valleys. But the grandeur – the Epic – did not meet me as it normally does. I walked; I wandered. As I was descending back to my camp one afternoon, I came across a very small patch of very small flowers, tiny little white flowers so delicate and intricate they could have been lace. The dam broke; the grief poured out; I wept for the first time deeply. Because what I found in those flowers was the Intimate – the love of God, the mercy of God, the tenderness. Intimately.

A few weeks ago Stasi had some music on the stereo, a soundtrack to a movie and it was very sweeping, moving, Epic. It stirred me deeply, woke me from the mundane, called my heart up. It was just what I needed.

But on the whole, I tend to spend a lot of time in the Great Battle, and relish the Epic, find in it my life’s purpose. So again this summer, as I took to the mountains, I found it was the Intimate my soul most deeply needed. We were hiking in the Flat Tops; there was a 100 foot waterfall. It was awesome (Epic). I loved it. But what I lingered over were the smaller things – dew in the meadow, the tiny flowers (this time pink ones), the particular leaves and bark on a tree.

Epic and Intimate.

I think you could take these two categories and find them helpful in many ways. Those of us who tend toward the Epic need to balance that with the Intimate. And the opposite is also true – those who tend towards the Intimate need to awaken to the Epic and live in it.

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.