Where Does God Want Me To Work?

Article by David Mathis

How do I find God’s will for my life? It’s always a pressing question on the college campus, and especially in our day of unprecedented options. Like never before, in an anomaly in world history, students loosened from their community of origin, “going off” to college, now make decisions about their future with minimal influence or limitation from their adolescent context.

“God wants to take you by the heart, not twist you by the arm.”

Before asking, “Where is God calling me?” we would do well to first ponder, “Where has God already called me?” — not that your current callings won’t change or take a fresh direction in this formative season of life, but for a Christian, our objective calling from God always precedes our consciousness of it. If it is from him, he initiates. He makes the first move. This is true of our calling to salvation, and also true of any “vocational” assignment he gives us in the world.

Consider Three Factors

For the college student or young adult who may feel like a free agent — considering options and determining for yourself (and often by yourself) which direction to take — it’s important to acknowledge you are already moving in a direction, not standing still. You already have divine callings — as a Christian, as a church member, as a son or daughter, as a brother or sister, as a friend. And from within the matrix of those ongoing, already-active callings, you now seek God’s guidance for where to go from here.

Given, then, that you are already embedded in a context, with concrete callings, how should you go about discerning God’s direction after graduation? Or how do you find God’s will for your work-life? Christians will want to keep three important factors in view.

1. What Kind of Work Do I Desire?

First, we recognize, contrary to the suspicions that may linger in our unbelief, God is the happy God (1 Timothy 1:11), not a cosmic killjoy. In his Son, by his Spirit, he wants to shape and form our hearts to desire the work to which he’s calling us and, in some good sense, in this fallen world, actually enjoy the work.

Sanctified, Spirit-given desire is not a liability, but an asset, to finding God’s will. The New Testament is clear that God means for pastors to aspire to the work of the pastoral ministry. And we can assume, as a starting point, that God wants the same for his children working outside the church.

“Desire is a vital factor to consider, but in and of itself this doesn’t amount to a calling.”

In 1 Peter 5:2, we find this remarkably good news about how God’s heart for our good and enduring joy stands behind his leading us vocationally. The text is about the pastoral calling, but we can see in it the God who calls us into any carefully appointed station. God wants pastors who labor “not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you.” How remarkable is it that working from aspiration and delight, not obligation and duty, would be “as God would have you.” This is the kind of God we have — the desiring (not dutiful) God, who wants workers who are desiring (not dutiful) workers. He wants his people, like their pastors, to do their work “with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage” to those whom they serve (Hebrews 13:17).

So also, when the apostle Paul addresses the qualifications of pastors, he first mentions aspiration. “The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task” (1 Timothy 3:1). God wants workers who want to do the work, not workers who do it simply out of a sense of duty. Behold your God, whose pattern is to take you by the heart, not twist you by the arm.

Desire, though, does not make a calling on its own. It’s a common mistake to presume that seeming God-given desire is, on its own, a “calling.” Aspirationis a vital factor to consider, but in and of itself this doesn’t amount to a calling. Two additional factors remain in the affirmation of others and the God-given opportunity.

2. Do Others Affirm This Direction?

The second question to ask, then, after the subjective one of desire, is the more objective one of ability. Have I seen evidence, small as it may be at first, that I can meet the needs of others by working in this field? And, even more important than my own self-assessment, do others who love me, and seem to be honest with me, confirm this direction? Do they think I’d be a good fit for the kind of work I’m desiring?

Here the subjective desires of our hearts meet the concrete, real-world, objective needs of others. Our vocational labors in this world, whether in Christian ministry or not, are not for existential release or our own private satisfaction, but for meeting the actual needs of others.

“You may feel called, and others may affirm you, but you are not yet fully called until God opens a door.”

Our desires have their part to play, but our true “calling” is not mainly shaped by our internal heart. It is shaped by the world outside of us. We so often hear “follow your heart” and “don’t settle for anything less than your dreams” in society, and even in the church. What’s most important, contrary to what the prevailing cultural word may be, is not bringing the desires of your heart to bear on the world, but letting the real-life needs of others shape your heart.

In seeking God’s will for us vocationally, we look for where our developing aspirations match up with our developing abilities to meet the actual needs of others. Over time, we seek to cultivate a kind of dialogue (with ourselves and with others) between what we desire to do and what we find ourselves good at doing for the benefit of others. Delight in certain kinds of labor typically grows as others affirm our efforts, and we see them receiving genuine help.

3. What Doors Has God Opened?

Finally, and perhaps the most overlooked and forgotten factor in the discussions on calling, is the actual God-given, real-world open door. You may feel called, and others may affirm your abilities, but you are not yet fully called until God opens a door.

Here we glory in the truth of God’s providence, not just hypothetically but tangibly. The real world in which we live, and various options as they are presented to us, are not random or coincidental. God rules over all things — from him, through him, to him (Romans 11:36). And so as real-life options (job offers) are presented that fulfill an aspiration in us, and are confirmed by the company of others, we can take these as confirmation of God’s “calling.” Not that such a calling will never change. But for now, when your own personal sense of God’s leading, and good perspective and guidance from others, align with a real-world opportunity in the form of an actual job offer in front of you, you have a calling from God.

“It is finally God, not man who provides the job offer.”

And we can say this calling is from him because God himself, in his hand of providence, has done the decisive work. He started the process by planting in us righteous desires to help others; and he affirmed the direction through our lived-out abilities and the affirmation of friends. Now, he confirms that sense of calling by swinging open the right door at the right time. It is finally God, not man who provides the job offer.

God not only makes overseers (Acts 20:28) and gives pastors (Ephesians 4:11–12) and sends out laborers into his global harvest (Matthew 9:37–38) and sends preachers (Romans 10:15) and sets wise managers over his household (Luke 12:42), but he makes dentists and plumbers. In his common kindness, he gives school teachers and entrepreneurs and social workers for the just and unjust. He sends executives and service workers. He gives you to the world in the service of others.

David Mathis (@davidcmathis) is executive editor for desiringGod.org and pastor at Cities Churchin Minneapolis. He is a husband, father of four, and author of Habits of Grace: Enjoying Jesus through the Spiritual Disciplines.

Article originally posted at:  https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/where-does-god-want-me-to-work

twelve Tips for Parenting in the Digital Age

Article by Tony Reinke, Senior Writer at Desiring God

Who is iGen?

Kids between the ages of 6 and 23 fall into a generation now getting labeled Post-Millennial or Gen Z or iGen. I want to introduce you to the research on this generation, then process the implications for pastors, leaders, and parents: How do we steward teens in the digital age?

To be honest, I don’t know which sin is worse: the arrogance of speaking in generalities about an entire generation, or the sin of ignoring data-trends. With God’s help, we can avoid both.

iGen is a recent label given to those born between 1995 and 2012. It is 74 million Americans, or 24% of the population, and the most diverse generation in American history. It is also the most digitally connected and smartphone-addicted generation. iGen’ers were born after the Internet was commercialized in 1995. They have no pre-Internet memories. Each entered (or will enter) adolescence in the age of the smartphone. As parents, we face many challenges in shepherding these teens in the digital age.

Trends Among Teens

Jean Twenge, a psychologist at San Diego State University, has written the most systematic study about iGen. She ran the datasets, conducted the interviews, and has now voiced her concerns — first published in a feature article for the Atlantic, under the bombshell title “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?” The article was an excerpt from the book that soon followed, iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy — and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood.

“Teens are statistically less likely to go to parties, drink alcohol, smoke tobacco, or experiment with sex.”

If Tom Hanks represented a generation in the movie Big— children impatient for adulthood — iGen is the exact opposite: children with the ability to postpone all transitions into adulthood.

Twenge’s extensive study summarizes the observations: iGen’ers are safe. They are the first generation to grow up with active shooter drills at school since kindergarten. They are the most protected generation by parents. By preference, they are the most self-cloistered generation of teens. Taking all the evidence together, iGen teens are more likely to be homebodies. Compared to previous generations, iGen teens are statistically less likely to go to parties, to go on dates, to get their driver’s licenses, to drink alcohol, to smoke tobacco, to ride in a car without a seat belt, or to experiment with sex.

Now many of these trends are good, and we should celebrate the turning away from foolish behavior. But as Twenge says, taken together, these trends offer a portrait of behaviors that mark a generation of delayed adulthood and prolonged adolescence.

Five Marks of iGen

Along with this delayed adulthood and prolonged adolescence, the iGen is marked by a few other things:

1. They are smartphone natives.

According to one study, the average age for children getting their first smartphone in the U.S. is now 10.3 years old. Many of these phones are hand-me-downs from mom or dad, but between 12- to 17-year-olds, nearly 80%identify as smartphone users.

2. They are always online.

iGen’ers are spending less time working jobs, volunteering, engaged in student activities, and doing homework. The result: they’re spending massive amounts of time at home and online. They’re virtually never offline — driven to their devices by social promise, by friendships, and by relationships.

3. They are secularizing.

Among iGen, about 1 in 4 do not attend religious services or practice any form of private spirituality. “iGen’ers are more likely than any generation before them to be raised by religiously unaffiliated parents” (Twenge, 121). Obviously there are many believers in this generation, but 1 of 4 is thoroughly secularized.

4. They perceive one another through fractured bits.

“The average age for a child getting their first smartphone in the U.S. is now 10.3 years old.”

Using a skill Clive Thompson calls “ambient awareness,” it turns out that teens are good at taking little fractured fragments of social media — discrete images, texts, tweets — and fitting those bits into a better understanding of one another (Smarter Than You Think, 209–244). For me, it feels weird to connect someone’s online life to their real life when I meet them in person. Teens are more natural at this. Though separated, through screens they connect through this ambient awareness. They learn about one another, digitally, in fragments.

5. They are woke.

Twenge argues that Millennials are, at heart, optimists. iGen’ers, who grew up during The Great Recession, are more pessimistic, more sensitive to social tension, and more compelled to protect anyone they believe to be vulnerable. As we’ve seen, they can act on this woke-ness, too, evidenced in the Parkland rally, the March for Our Lives, the National School Walkout Day, and the #NeverAgain movement. iGen’ers may be homebodies, but they can rally. (Of course, this is not without layers of problems, as teens can get used to push the political agendas of adults, as pointed out in Alan Jacobs’s recent piece, “Contemporary Children’s Crusades”). Nevertheless, iGen’ers are socially woke, and this will play a major role in the 2020 election, as it shapes how pastors and parents interact with this generation.

What Challenges Does iGen Face?

By far, the most concerning takeaway from Twenge’s research, and confirmed by others, is the spike in teen depression. Between 2012 and 2015 — in just three years — depression among boys rose 21%, and depression among girls rose 50%. These upticks are reflected in suicide rates. “After declining during the 1990s and stabilizing in the 2000s, the suicide rate for teens has risen again. Forty-six percent more 15- to 19-year-olds committed suicide in 2015 than in 2007, and two and a half times more 12- to 14-year-olds killed themselves” (Twenge, 110).

“Between 2012 and 2015, depression among boys rose 21%, and depression among girls rose 50%.”

It is “the paradox of iGen: an optimism and self-confidence online that covers a deep vulnerability, even depression, in real life,” writes Twenge (102), going so far as to say, “It’s not an exaggeration to describe iGen as being on the brink of the worst mental-health crisis in decades. Much of this deterioration can be traced to their phones” (source).

Who is iGen? They are woke. They have ambient awareness. They appear confident online. They are never offline. Technology conveniently buffers and brokers their relationships. And technology feeds their loneliness and the toxic comparison that hollows meaning from their lives. Parents know most of this. They saw these problems long before we had books about iGen.

Twelve Tips for iGen Parents

When talking about teens and screens — or “screenagers” — we need to get concrete. So let me offer twelve practical suggestions to stir into the discussions you’re already having in your churches and homes.

1. Delay social media as long as possible.

Social media poses a dilemma. Journalist Nancy Jo Sales wrote a fascinating (and frightening) book titled: American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers. There she recounts a conversation when one teen girl said to her, “Social media is destroying our lives.” Then Sales asked her, “So why don’t you go offline?” The teen responded, “Because then we would have no life” (Sales, 18). Social media is where teens look for life, and it’s what costs them their lives. We must help our kids see this paradox. Social media, unwisely abused, will cost them something precious.

2. Delay smartphones as long as possible.

Once you introduce your child to a mobile-connected smartphone, with texting and apps like Instagram and Snapchat, parental controls are virtually futile. I’ll offer one example of how this plays out.

“Social media is where teens look for life, and it’s what costs them their lives. We must help them see the paradox.”

Your kids can be exposed to sexualized conversations and nude selfies and you may never know it. Again, in her book, Sales investigates the troubling phenomenon of girls receiving unsolicited nude selfies from boys in texts, often as a first step of showing interest in them. And boys often ask the girls for nudes in return. Obviously, we must warn our kids of this phenomenon before it happens. But there are virtually no parental filters to prevent a nude selfie from arriving on your child’s smartphone via text or Snapchat, even if your child does not ask for them. And 47% of teens use Snapchat, a premiere app to send and receive expiring images and “throwaway selfies.” In the smartphone age, sexting has become “normative” to the teen years. These are potent devices. Resist the pressure to give your kid one. And don’t leave old phones around.

3. Inside the home, take control of the wifi.

In our home the default is to keep wifi off until needed. Many routers allow you to pause service in a home. I’ve been impressed with a device called “The Circle,” which sits beside our router at home, and gives me the power to cut off the wifi entirely, or to a specific device, based on content filters, ratings, time limits, and bedtimes. It breaks a wifi connection between the router and the device or computer. Instead of setting up parental controls on each device, you can control the flow of data to every device. It’s brilliant. In fact, I can pause the wifi at home with my phone — our 2 smartTVs, 3 computers, iPods, iPads — all disconnected from wifi with one button, from here. When a child in our home wants to use the computer, they make a request and explain why they need it. More can be said here, but it’s a small way to help them to bring clear purpose to tech use, all made possible because the wifi is not always on.

4. Outside the home, connect without smartphones.

For ages 6–12, consider something like the Verizon Gizmo watch. The Gizmo is a smartwatch, with speakerphone, that receives and makes calls to a limited number of phone numbers set by the parent. It has a GPS locator built in for the parent to see via an app on the parent’s phone.

Parents want phone technology to deliver three things: (1) to call their kids whenever, (2) to be called by their kid whenever, and (3) to know where their kid is via GPS. You don’t need a smartphone. The Gizmo offers each of these things, and not much more — which is a good thing. Ask your mobile carrier for the latest options to meet these three criteria. And for ages 13+, consider a flip phone. They are inexpensive, and in many cases you lose GPS, but ask around for a phone with only the features you want. And be prepared for cellular salespeople to look at you like you’re an alien. As my wife says, go into the store of your mobile provider and ask the salesman for the “dumbest phone they have.”

5. Stairstep technology over the years.

I think the most common mistake parents make is in assuming that the smartphone is an isolated gadget. It’s not. The smartphone is the culmination of all the communications technology a child has been introduced to from birth. To be given a smartphone is a sort of graduation from several steps of technology mapped out beforehand.

“Once you give them a smartphone with a data plan, you move from having strong parental control to virtually none.”

Here’s how my wife and I outline those steps: Once you take control over the home wifi — that’s crucial — then you can begin to introduce technology that your kids can only use inside your home. On paper draw a big box. On the top-left side, write age 0, and on the top-right side, write age 18. Left to right, this is your child’s first 18 years with technology. Now, draw stairs diagonally from the bottom-left to the top-right. At some early point, you might introduce a tablet with coloring and educational games. Age 3 maybe. Or 5. Or 8. Whenever. One stair up. Then you introduce a tablet with educational videos, maybe age 6. Next step up. Then at some point you introduce a family computer in the living room for writing projects. Maybe age 10. Step up. Then you will introduce a phone like the Gizmo, or a flip phone. Step up. Then you allow Google searches on the computer, for research. Maybe age 12. Step up. Then perhaps at some point you introduce Facebook or messenger apps to connect with a few select friends, from the computer. Step up. And then comes the capstone, the smartphone — the final step up. Age 15 or 16 or 17 or I would suggest, 18. But you decide.

The advantages to this are twofold:

(1) You can accordion out the steps as needed while also showing your child where the smartphone fits into a digital trajectory you’ve set for him. As he proves reliable and wise on wifi in the home, he is stepping toward mobile outside the home. It shows him that being faithful in small things leads to faithfulness in big things.

(2) It also reminds parents that once you give a child a smartphone with a mobile data plan, you move from having strong parental control over your child’s Internet experience to virtually having none. You can draw a bold black line between all the steps on the left (wifi at home) and the smartphone on the right (mobile web everywhere). That’s a graduation — a major transition.

6. As a blanket rule, for all ages and all devices: Keep screens out of bedrooms.

Or, at the very least for 12 hours, like from between 8pm to 8am. Make a set rule here. No TVs, gaming devices, tablets, laptops, or phones. Break off the endless social demands. Break gaming addictions. Preserve sleep patterns. Make sure all devices are charged overnight in one place, not in a child’s room. A simple charging station in mom and dad’s room is a good solution.

7. Write a smartphone contract.

When you move to the smartphone, write a contract of expected behaviors, curfews, and family expectations that come along with the phone. Have your child share their login info. And get familiar with the steps necessary to temporarily pause or deactivate the phone. Most carriers make this easy. For parents who made the mistake of introducing a smartphone too soon, as well, it’s never too late to set in place a phone contract.

8. Watch how each child responds to the digital age.

This has been so fascinating for me. My wife and I have three iGen’ers, including two teens, and each of them uses digital media completely differently. I have one kid who will endlessly watch every Dude Perfect video 40 times and waste hours. I have another child who will buy a new music instrument, watch 30 minutes of YouTube, and master the basic chords without any paid lessons. She’s done this with the ukulele, then the keyboard, and then the clarinet, and those introductions led to formal training classes. I’m fascinated by YouTube’s power to unlock new tactile skills in my kids — and quite frankly, I want my kids to learn from YouTube tutorials as soon as possible, but not until they are ready.

“Smartphones do not invent new sins; they simply amplify every extant temptation of life.”

Each child responds differently. Some teens will want social media so that they can follow 5,000 people. Other kids will want social media so that they can follow 5 close friends. Those are radically different uses. Parent each child uniquely based on what you see in them. And when your kids claim unfairness, refer back to the stairsteps, and explain why each child in the home is on different steps in the same progression.

9. Re-center parenting on the affections.

Smartphones do not invent new sins; they simply amplify every extant temptation of life, and manifest those temptations in pixels on HiDef surfaces. Old temptations are given new levels of attraction and addiction and accessibility. Which means that the tension and anxiety parents feel in the pit of their stomachs in the digital age comes from the realization that we are waging an all-out war for the affections of our teenagers. This is what’s so frightening. Parenting has always been a war for our kids’ affections, but the digital age exposes our parental laziness more quickly.

If our teens cannot find their highest satisfaction in Christ, they are going to look for it in something else. That message has always been relevant — it just comes like a hammer today because the “something else” is manifested in smartphone addictions. We are not just playing word games, or just saying that Christ is superior on Sunday. We are daily pleading with the Holy Spirit to open the hearts of our teens. They must treasure Christ above every trifle of the digital age or those trifles will overtake them. That’s why parenting seems so urgent today.

10. Take up digital discipleship.

It is not enough to isolate a handful of Proverbs and scatter them like general seeds of wise counsel. Discipling teens in the digital age requires all of Scripture planted and cultivated in all of the heart. And this is because we are dealing with all the facets of what the heart wants. This war for the affections in the digital age holds unprecedented new opportunities for discipling teens, if we can move from temptation to biblical text to Christ. This is our challenge.

Our parental passivity has been exposed in the digital age. I will not belabor this point, because that’s what my book does in taking 12 ways that our phones change us (and de-form us) and then showing us how to be re-formed from Scripture. Once we as parents (and pastors) are humble to self-criticize our own smartphone abuse, then we can turn and help our kids, too. The digital age is scary and exhausting, but it opens up phenomenal new opportunities to disciple teens.

11. As a family, redeem dinners, car rides, and vacations.

Make the dinner table and car rides together and family vacations phone-free zones. I am regularly amazed how the pressures of life get voiced at the dinner table. Unhurried time together, decompressing from the day, is very fruitful. What happened at school? Getting to know my kids happens so often at dinner. This fellowship carries over in more intense ways on family vacations.

12. Keep building the church.

The stats are in: iGen is now the loneliest generation in America — lonelier than the 72+ demographic. Twenge believes smartphones cause iGen loneliness. But perhaps it’s wiser to look at larger phenomena predating the iPhone.

Surround yourself with enough technology, enough machines, and you’ll need nobody else. Get the right gadget, and you can do anything. Dozens of sci-fi novels have already walked out a robot-saturated planet to its furthest consequences and it is pure social isolation (e.g. Asimov’s The Naked Sun). But once the tech age has rendered everyone else unnecessary to you, you soon discover that you have been rendered unnecessary to everyone else.

“The digital age is scary and exhausting, but it opens up phenomenal new opportunities to disciple teens.”

When no one needs you, we see catastrophic spikes in social loneliness. iGen teens feel this. The elderly feel this. Midlife men feel this. And into this age of increasing isolation and loneliness, social media “offers a rootless remedy for diseases incident to rootless times” (Kass, 95). The smartphone becomes a “painkiller” — promising to solve our loneliness problem, but only cloaking the pain for another moment.

The greatest need of our teens today is not new restrictions and new dumb phones and contracts and limits. Their greatest need is a community of faith where they can thrive in Christ, serve, and be served. They need to find a necessary place as a legitimate part of a healthy church. Keep building faithful families and churches. Listen to teens. Don’t mock them. Don’t laugh at them. Envision them for risk-taking mission — online and offline.

Originally posted at: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/twelve-tips-for-parenting-in-the-digital-age?utm_campaign=Daily+Email&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=63046704&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9Zn0nmtCQTdjfMlHO0xzXNZWkGJpuCOczF-2pKcN43VMvuuLUqjnsBI84uIPIMut_M38Nke4t71dhbZ3zPidq8UDV6wQ&_hsmi=63046704

What's right with that?

“What’s wrong with that,” This question has become a standard method for determining whether a particular action is acceptable. If you can’t see anything wrong with doing something, then it must be okay. However, using this question as a guideline is not a wise way to make decisions.

Families lead busy, hectic lives. Decisions about what should or shouldn’t be done are often made on the run. For example, a decision about which movie to stream tonight might be asked and answered via texts as mom travels between a doctor’s appointment and an after school soccer match. The criteria most likely will be, “Is there anything wrong or bad about the movie?” No one seems to recall anything bad about this one, so the decision is made.

However, there is a more important question to be asked than what is “wrong with that?” Even though it is good to determine if there are negative influences–is an activity safe, does someone else we know have any problems with the activity, etc.– there is another more important question to consider. You must also ask, “what is right with that?”

Philippians 4:8-9 is a wise guide for thinking about what to do. The practice of using excellence as a benchmark for evaluating activities has become a lost art. The Christian life is much more than avoiding negative things. We should be driven to do good things. We should be engaging in thoughts and activities that bring honor to God – things that enhance His reputation here on earth. Our focus should be on pursuing the honor of God in all we do, rather than simply avoiding negatives. Look at Colossians 3:17 in this light:

“And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

All is to be done in the name of Christ. This includes more than just deciding if there is anything wrong with things we consider doing. Doing things in the name of the Lord Jesus means a vigorous pursuit of Philippians 4:8-9; thinking God’s thoughts after him! Asking only “what is wrong with that,” minimizes the opportunity to do something excellent for Christ.

Asking what is right with that could be a life changer for your family. Hectic schedules and a survival mentality push us to find the quickest way to resolve the daily stream of decisions of life. The quickest way is often found by asking “what is wrong with that.”  God calls you to more and better than that. He wants you to ask what is right. Yes, it will take more time. But your answers will bring joy and purpose to your actions. If anything is excellent or praiseworthy, focus your thinking on these things. This will encourage you to do all that you do in the name of your Lord, Jesus Christ!

Find delight in asking what is right!

Originally posted at:  https://www.shepherdpress.com/whats-right-with-that-2/

When God Interrupts Your Plans

Article by Christina Fox

We were recently on a vacation when God interrupted my plans. My family and I had traveled hundreds of miles to stay at a hotel on the beach. I had made arrangements to spend one day visiting with friends. But then, in the middle of the night, the night before my scheduled day out, one of my kids woke up sick. I spent the whole next day stuck inside, staring out the hotel window at the long stretch of beach that was just outside of my reach.

An Interrupted Life

My life is filled with interruptions, inconveniences, frustrations, and unexpected events. Things break. Accidents happen. The phone rings just as I climb into bed. Traffic makes me late. Just when we don’t need another added expense, an appliance breaks. Unexpected illnesses change my carefully crafted plans. I could go on and on. You probably could too.

The problem is, I usually handle these interruptions to my life poorly. I react with frustration and anger. Like a young child, I want to stomp my feet and say, “It’s not fair!” I blame others for inconveniencing me. I’ll even throw my own pity parties.

“Small frustrations and interruptions give us opportunities to rely on God.”

Though these interruptions are unexpected and catch me off guard, they do not catch God off guard. They are not random, meaningless events. In fact, these interruptions are divinely placed in my path for a reason. God uses these interruptions to change me to be more like Christ.

Slow traffic, a sick child, or a costly home repair may not seem like important tools in our sanctification, but they are. We often overlook these interruptions and inconveniences and instead expect God to work in our lives through huge life-changing circumstances. But the reality is, we often won’t have major events in our life that cause us to trust God and obey him in some deeply profound way. We won’t be called to build an ark or take an only child up Mount Moriah. Rather, it’s in these small frustrations and interruptions, the little things in our life, where we are given opportunities to rely on God, to obey him, and to bring him glory.

Paul Tripp puts it like this:

You and I don’t live in a series of big, dramatic moments. We don’t careen from big decision to big decision. We all live in an endless series of little moments. The character of a life isn’t set in ten big moments. The character of a life is set in ten thousand little moments of everyday life. It’s the themes of struggles that emerge from those little moments that reveal what’s really going on in our hearts. (Whiter Than Snow, 21)

Interruptions of Grace

These ten thousand little moments come in the form of our children asking us to play a game with them when we are tied up with something else. They are moments like when we get stuck behind a school bus when we’re already late to an appointment, or when we have a flat tire on the way to work. They are in all those moments all throughout the day when things don’t go our way, our plans fail, and our life is interrupted.

It’s these moments where the rubber meets the road — where our faith is stretched and we look down to see whether we are standing on rock or sand. Do we really believe that God is in control of all the details of our life? Do we really believe that his grace is sufficient to get us through the day? Do we really believe that the gospel of Christ is powerful enough not only to save us for eternity, but also to sustain and strengthen us in the midst of life’s interruptions? Do we really believe that Christ is enough to satisfy all the deepest needs of our heart?

These interruptions are acts of God’s grace. They force us to work through these questions. They make us face our sin. They are God’s way of taking off our blinders and making us see that we need the gospel in every moment of the day. They are a light that shines on the darkest recesses of our heart, revealing the truth of what’s really there — the sins and idols that we’ve pushed off into the corner, thinking that if we can’t see them, they must not exist.

The Reminder We Need

These interruptions remind us that we don’t have life figured out and that we can’t do it on our own. They are like the Shepherd’s rod, pulling us back from our wandering ways, back to our Great Shepherd. We need these interruptions. Like nothing else, they push us to the cross of Christ where we must remember the gospel and receive his grace and forgiveness.

“Christ cares more about our transformation than about our daily comfort.”

It’s hard to see all the little frustrating events and interruptions in our day as divinely placed opportunities to grow in grace, but they are. And seeing them as such helps us take our eyes off ourselves and put them on Christ, who cares more about our transformation than about our daily comfort. Rather than giving us a life of ease, he interrupts our lives with grace and shows us what we need most of all: himself.

How about you? Is your life filled with interruptions? Do you see God’s hand at work in them?

Christina Fox (@christinarfox) writes for a number of Christian ministries and publications including True Woman, ERLC, and The Gospel Coalition. She is the author of Closer Than a Sister: How Union with Christ helps Friendships to Flourish. You can find her at www.christinafox.com and on Facebook.

Article originally posted at:  https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/when-god-interrupts-your-plans

You Must Disappoint Someone : How to Say No to Good Things

Article by  Jon Bloom Staff writer, desiringGod.org

Why do you spend your time doing what you do? Why do you say yes to doing some things and no to doing other things? Are you saying yes and no to the right things? These are unnerving, exposing questions to ask.

Most of us would like to believe we say yes and no to our time commitments based on objective, logical assessments of what appears most important. But that is very often not the case. Very often we make these decisions based on subjective assessments of what we believe others will think of us if we do or don’t do them.

“Who are you unwilling to disappoint?”

How other people perceive us — or how we think they’ll perceive us — has an extraordinary influence on how we choose to use our time. Coming to terms with ways we seek people’s approval or fear their disapproval will force us to face humbling truths about ourselves and may require repentance and uncomfortable change.

But given how brief our lives are, and how limited our energy and other resources are, we need to heed what God says to each one of us through the apostle Paul:

Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. (Ephesians 5:15–17)

And one way to carefully examine our use of time and energy is to invite the Holy Spirit to search our hearts and see if and where we are inordinately influenced to say yes or no out of a fear of man.

A Surprisingly Clarifying Question

I attended a conference recently where ministry leaders on a panel were asked to describe how they remain focused on their core calling while deluged with demands. One of the speakers posed this question to us: “Who are you willing to disappoint?”

At first this might seem like a negative and perhaps unloving way to decide what we should or shouldn’t do. But it really isn’t. It’s actually a clarifying question. It isn’t asking us who are the people we will choose not to love. It’s asking us what we are really pursuing in our time commitments. Whose approval are we seeking? God’s? Other people’s? Of those, whose?

I think this is what Jesus was getting at with Martha in Luke 10:38–42. Martha was “distracted with much serving” (Luke 10:40). I imagine nearly everyone in her home that day thought she was doing a good thing. Martha herself thought this, which is why she requested Jesus’s support in exhorting Mary to get busy helping. She didn’t seem to be aware of her own motivations. But Jesus was. He saw the deeper motivations in both Martha and Mary.

Martha was “anxious and troubled about many things” (Luke 10:41). Martha’s time commitment was being motivated by anxiety, not love. Given the context, it’s reasonable to assume her anxiety stemmed from what all her houseguests would think of her if she stopped waiting on them and did what Mary was doing.

Mary had “chosen the good portion” (Luke 10:42). Superficial observers of the situation might have concluded Martha chose the good portion and Mary was being inconsiderate. I would guess Mary felt this irony. She knew Martha very well. I imagine she knew she was disappointing Martha by listening to Jesus instead of helping serve the guests. But in that moment, Mary was more willing to disappoint Martha than to disappoint Jesus. And Jesus commended her.

The exposing question for Martha was, who was she willing to disappoint?

We Serve Those We’re Unwilling to Disappoint

And that’s the question for us too: who are we willing to disappoint? Or, who are we unwilling to disappoint?

We all choose to serve those we’re unwilling to disappoint. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, though it certainly can be a bad thing. God actually designed us to function this way. He made us to be motivated by what we love, and we always fear to disappoint the one(s) we love.Now, I know the apostle John said, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18). But he was addressing a different kind of fear, the fear of “punishment” or condemnation. John meant that God’s children no longer need to live in terror of God’s wrath.

But perfect love does indeed produce a certain kind of fear:

“And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.” (Deuteronomy 10:12)

This kind of fear is not merely the terror of wrath, but the fear we have when we don’t want to disappoint the one(s) we really love. The kind of fear that “serve(s) the Lord with gladness” (Psalm 100:2) is the fear that comes from the thought of disappointing the one we treasure most. We fear to lose the treasure.

Choose This Day Whom You Will Serve

But serving those we’re unwilling to disappoint can be a very bad thing, even a tyrannical thing, if our loves are idolatrous. If, whether out of anxiety, selfish ambition, narcissism, or some other sinful love, we are motivated by someone else’s approval over God’s approval, our service can become our destruction.

And the thing is, like Martha, we might not be fully cognizant of our own motives. We might think we’re doing good things when we’re not. One indicator to look at is how often we feel “anxious and troubled.” Notice I didn’t say “weary.” It’s clear from the New Testament that a heavy workload, and even suffering and persecution, can be given to us by God. But an anxious, troubled spirit might mean what’s motivating our busyness are efforts to please the wrong persons.

“Life is too short, and God too precious, to give our years and our strength to the fear of man.”

If that’s true, we’re likely due for a reevaluation of our time commitments. We should ask the Holy Spirit to search our hearts and try our thoughts (Psalm 139:23). We should ask ourselves the hard question: who are we willing to disappoint? Or who are we unwilling to disappoint? Are we unwilling to disappoint God? Are we unwilling to disappoint others? Are we unwilling to disappoint our own selfish preferences? These questions can help us untangle motivational knots.

And if we’re tempted to avoid facing the answers, let’s remember that life is too short and God is too precious to give our years and our strength to the fear of man. Joshua exhorts us from the ancient past: “Choose this day whom you will serve” (Joshua 24:15). Let’s respond with him, “We will serve the Lord” with all our heart and soul in the gladness of love-inspired fear (Deuteronomy 10:12; Psalm 100:2).

Jon Bloom (@Bloom_Jon) serves as author, board chair, and co-founder of Desiring God. He is author of three books, Not by Sight, Things Not Seen, and Don’t Follow Your Heart. He and his wife live in the Twin Cities with their five children.

Originally posted here: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/you-must-disappoint-someone

How Does God's Sovereignty Not Violate Our Decision-Making?

Podcast by John Piper

Audio Transcript

How does God’s sovereignty over every life not make each of us robots? Where is the place for human willpower and decision-making? And how does God govern over it all? Great questions from a listener named Max in Lincoln, Nebraska.

“Pastor John, thank you for all your episodes over the years. This podcast nourishes my soul. But I am also thickheaded, and a lot of important theological points come to me very slowly. Can you explain again how God’s sovereignty over human decisions and actions comes through his control over our affections, such that we are not robots responding moment by moment to individual commands and prompts in situations, but he is in control of our decisions as we freely choose what we want? I think I’m on the verge of understanding you and Edwards and the Reformed tradition on this, but can you make this all clear in ten minutes (so Tony doesn’t scold you for going long again!)?”

Well, the likelihood that I could put in ten minutes what two thousand years of church history has not succeeded in completely clarifying for the best of minds is not very likely. But there aren’t many things more important than the sovereignty of God in our personal lives and how we make choices.

The way we think about this does have implications for how we worship and serve and persevere as Christians, so let’s make a stab at it. I’m going to lay out seven points in what I think is a biblical view of the relationship between the human will and God’s sovereignty. Each one could have a book written about it, so these are simply pointers with biblical passages to think about.

1. Devastating Bondage

Until someone is born again by the power of God’s Spirit, all human beings, ever since Adam, are spiritually blind (2 Corinthians 4:4). They are darkened in their understanding, hardened in their hearts (Ephesians 4:18).

“This deep evil in all human hearts does not limit the complete sovereignty of God over all things.”TweetShare on Facebook

They cannot grasp spiritual truth (1 Corinthians 2:14). They are rebellious against God (Romans 8:7), spiritually dead in trespasses (Ephesians 2:1), enslaved to sin (Romans 6:6), and unable to please God (Romans 8:8). That’s point one. Pretty devastating bondage.

2. Loving Darkness

All people are still responsible in that condition — accountable to God. They are liable to judgment because this darkness that they are in, this slavery, holds them and has its power over them not against their will or against their desires, but precisely because of their will and because of their desires. In other words, they love sin.

Jesus said in John 3:19, “The light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works for evil.”

The problem is not that we lack light, but that we love darkness. This is not a bondage against people’s will. This is a bondage because of their will.

3. Unhindered Sovereignty

This deep evil in all human hearts does not limit the complete sovereignty of God over all things, including the fallen human will.

• “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hands of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will” (Proverbs 21:1).

• “The Lord had made them joyful and had turned the heart of the king of Assyria to them, so that he aided them in the work of the house of God” (Ezra 6:22).

• In Genesis 20:6, God said to Abimelech, the pagan king who had not committed adultery with Sarah, “It was I who kept you from sinning against me.” In other words, God was ruling in the will of a pagan king.

• “The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord” (Proverbs 16:1).

• “In this city [Jerusalem], Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, [gathered together] to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place” (Acts 4:27–28).

God is profoundly, thoroughly in control of the fallen will of man.

4. A New Will

By the sovereign, regenerating, life-giving, blindness-removing, hardness-replacing, light-shining work of the Holy Spirit, God replaces blindness with the light of reality. He breaks the deceptive bondage of sin and sets people free.

“We are not controlled or coerced against our desire or against our will, but by means of new and powerful desires.”TweetShare on Facebook

That’s what it means to be saved; that’s what it means to be converted or born again. Second Corinthians 4:6 reads, “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” That’s the meaning of conversion.

Romans 6:20–22 says it this way: “For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.”

This slavery to God — now in the regenerate, in the born again — is the same kind of slavery that we had to sin, in this sense: It’s not a slavery contrary to our will. We were enslaved to sin because sin looked so good and desirable to us. Our will was all in with sin. Now, we are enslaved to God because God looks so good and so desirable to us. Our will is all in with God. That’s what happened in the new birth.

5. True Freedom

This new slavery to God is true freedom for three reasons.

• Like slavery to sin, it is completely willing. We are not controlled or coerced against our desire or against our will, but by means of new and powerful desires.

• These new desires, unlike the desires for sin, accord with — agree with, are in harmony with — what is true and beautiful and lasting: God’s righteousness. They align with God’s way. According to John 8:32, we’re not being deceived. We have been set free from deception.

• This new slavery to God is true freedom because our former so-called “freedom” ended in everlasting death. Our new freedom, our slavery to God, ends in eternal joy. You’re not really free if you’re doing what you want to do, and you are miserable because of it for all eternity. You’re free if you do what you want to do and don’t regret it a million years.

6. According to Plan

This new freedom does not limit the complete sovereignty of God over all things, including the redeemed human will. God is working in us that which is pleasing in his sight. God is doing this through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory (Hebrews 13:21). Yes, not to us, but glory to him forever and ever.

This doesn’t mean we can’t grieve the Spirit of God (Ephesians 4:30). But it does mean that God lets himself be grieved as part of his larger purpose, which always comes to pass. It says in Ephesians 1:11 that he works all things according to the counsel of his will. In this new freedom, God is still sovereign over our wills.

7. Mystery Remains

God’s way of ruling the redeemed will not compromise our responsibility or nullify the freedom which is true freedom. How can this be? That’s probably the nub of the question that’s being asked: How can this be?

“When you see Christ, it awakens such an authentic savoring of Christ that the Bible says, ‘There is freedom.’”TweetShare on Facebook

I doubt that we will fully understand that until we get to heaven. There is a glimpse of how it might be in 2 Corinthians 3:17–18: “Now the Lord is the Spirit [Jesus is the Spirit], and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed [this is what freedom looks like] into the same image from one degree of glory to another.” Then he adds again, “For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”

He begins with, “The Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” That’s where he begins in verse 17. Then he ends, “This comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” In other words, it seems like he’s saying this: when the Spirit of God transforms us to God’s will — to love God’s will and to conform to God’s will and thus reflect the glory of God — this is true freedom.

The reason it is true freedom is that this transformation is happening through beholding the glory of the Lord, not by any kind of coercion, but by beholding the glory of the Lord. We’re compelled by savoring Christ. That compelling savor is awakened by seeing Christ. That seems to be at the heart of what freedom is in Paul’s understanding.

When you see Christ for who he is, it awakens such an authentic, freeing, savoring of Christ that he says, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”

Of course, there are many more questions. For some of them, I doubt that we will have answers until we see Jesus face to face. But I think these seven points are biblical and crucial for enjoying our freedom in Christ and living worshipfully under the glorious sovereignty of God.

What’s right with that?

Article by Jay Younts, Shepherd's Press

“What’s wrong with that,” This question has become a standard method for determining whether a particular action is acceptable. If you can’t see anything wrong with doing something, then it must be okay. However, using this question as a guideline is not a wise way to make decisions.

Families lead busy, hectic lives. Decisions about what should or shouldn’t be done are often made on the run. For example, a decision about which movie to stream tonight might be asked and answered via texts as mom travels between a doctor’s appointment and an after school soccer match. The criteria most likely will be, “Is there anything wrong or bad about the movie?” No one seems to recall anything bad about this one, so the decision is made.

However, there is a more important question to be asked than what is “wrong with that?” Even though it is good to determine if there are negative influences–is an activity safe, does someone else we know have any problems with the activity, etc.– there is another more important question to consider. You must also ask, “what is right with that?”

Philippians 4:8-9 is a wise guide for thinking about what to do. The practice of using excellence as a benchmark for evaluating activities has become a lost art. The Christian life is much more than avoiding negative things. We should be driven to do good things. We should be engaging in thoughts and activities that bring honor to God – things that enhance His reputation here on earth. Our focus should be on pursuing the honor of God in all we do, rather than simply avoiding negatives. Look at Colossians 3:17 in this light:

“And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

All is to be done in the name of Christ. This includes more than just deciding if there is anything wrong with things we consider doing. Doing things in the name of the Lord Jesus means a vigorous pursuit of Philippians 4:8-9; thinking God’s thoughts after him! Asking only “what is wrong with that,” minimizes the opportunity to do something excellent for Christ.

Asking what is right with that could be a life changer for your family. Hectic schedules and a survival mentality push us to find the quickest way to resolve the daily stream of decisions of life. The quickest way is often found by asking “what is wrong with that.”  God calls you to more and better than that. He wants you to ask what is right. Yes, it will take more time. But your answers will bring joy and purpose to your actions. If anything is excellent or praiseworthy, focus your thinking on these things. This will encourage you to do all that you do in the name of your Lord, Jesus Christ!

Find delight in asking what is right!

Originally posted at: https://www.shepherdpress.com/whats-right-with-that-2/