by Joel Bates She was standing there shaking. Oh, I knew she didn’t want to go, but I wouldn’t enable her fear by even hinting that she step back from the challenge. I calmly and simply, called her to my side as if she had no choice but to obey. I knew full well that I could not force her, manipulate her, or require her by some rule. No, she would have to make the decision, and in the moment between my call and her response, the crucible of choice would unveil the outcome like the last pages of a compelling novel. I didn’t relish the moment because I wanted for all the world to see her look fear in the eye and reject this thing that had held her back so many times before. This moment of truth required submission and trust on her part, and as I asked for trust, it meant I would relinquish my own control to her decision. Would she go through with it? In that moment of time, I prayed for God to intervene, for the spirit of fear to be vanquished once and for all, and victory in this trembling girl’s battle which had been raging in her mind all day. Right from the start, she had vowed that she would not be doing anything remotely hard or scary outside her comfort zone—a space about the size of a postage stamp! With an accusing finger, she pointed first at her climbing instructor and then at the rock face and said, “And I’m definitely not going down the rappel!” The DM facilitator giving the instruction talk was as resolute as the stone he stood upon when he calmly responded, “We’ll see about that.” Now, hours later, here she stood before me at the top of the rappel, the day’s activity—the success of her friends, the encouragement of the instructors, and the proven quality of the equipment—having withered her determination to forbid challenge to confront her. I could see the spirit of fear struggling to gain footing in her mind as she hesitantly stepped toward me and stood at the edge of the cliff. It occurred to me in that moment that I was dealing not with a timid child but with a false spirit—a spirit of fear. Fear can come from our enemy, Satan, at least in a form of a spiritual element that affects our minds. I see it all the time at DM because here we use teaching tools incorporating high, perceived risk with low, actual risk. Take rock climbing for instance. It’s a perfectly natural phenomenon to feel fear when standing atop a high place. That’s not necessarily from the enemy, rather that is a God-given awareness of our safety. Its normal to want to move away from the edge. We call that common sense. So, what’s the problem? When we encounter a fear moment and refuse to have faith in something more powerful and knowledgeable than ourselves, we make ourselves the authority. And when this happens, we sometimes succumb to the enemy’s tactics. In the ministry work at DM, we give a credible replacement for fear by presenting people with the choice to place their faith in reasonable experiences. When we rock climb, we are not asking people for blind faith and ignorant obedience. We are asking them to place trust in something reliable, but all the truth in the world won’t make people faithful. Faith boils down to the willful decision to trust even what one can neither see nor fully understand, and here is where the spirit of fear makes his attack. For some, fear is a thing that they learned as a child, parents or mentors having modeled it. It may have increased as they heard people speak of fearful situations that are confusing to understand or that carry a stigma of danger. For many, it is an ingrained habit of making decision after decision only trusting in what they know--much like the person who has learned to let anxiety reign in him based on an unfettered imagination even before he’s thought about the realities of what’s in front of him. For most, fear boils down to a loss of control--like my petrified girl felt as she was about to rappel over the edge of a cliff. This battle is nothing new. It’s an age-old war found throughout scripture. The second, most often stated command in scripture is DO NOT BE AFRAID. It’s there because we are not alone in our anxieties and fears. And Jesus has a word for you and me. I was reading in scripture recently about the time Jesus was on a mountain overlooking the Sea of Galilee, praying. He’d just fed five thousand people and sent the disciples on ahead of Him across the lake. During the night, He watched. Mark 6:47-48 tells it like this: And when evening came, the boat was out on the sea, and He was alone on the land. And He saw that they were making headway painfully, for the wind was against them. And about the fourth watch of the night, He came to them, walking on the sea. Engaged in this mind-blowing occurrence, we see how Jesus deliberately allows circumstances to evoke fear, strike terror, and compel daring. But why? First, He just sat and watched them fight the storm all night. Why did He not go to them and take away their discomfort and struggle? We read that He was about to pass by them as He glided and bobbed over the tops of the breakers. Why not go directly to them? Then, as they looked on in pensive terror Jesus invited Peter, at his own brazen request, to step out onto the water. What was Jesus attempting to accomplish in the hearts of His followers?
A moment came when Peter was actually walking on the water, but he faltered in his terrifying circumstances despite Jesus’ standing in front of him. Jesus was there, and amid the waves and wind, He reached out to the sinking apostle, asking, “Why did you doubt?” Peter doubted because the waves rose high. Lest we chastise Peter, we must remember that the disciples in the boat didn’t even have the courage to take one step out of the vessel. Then Jesus, finished with the Sunday school lesson, simply got into the boat. When He did so the wind and waves calmed, and the disciples are utterly astonished. Their shields of faith had become stronger and bigger, and they would depend on this strengthened faith when they would struggle in a few short years to build a church, spread the gospel, and turn the known world upside down for Jesus. That girl standing at the top of the rappel, like Peter and like you and like I, was really caught up in the same battle. So, we didn’t talk about her fear as I secured her to the ropes and directed her to the ledge. Sure, she had said she would not do hard, scary things, but that didn’t matter now because she was about to overcome her fear, proving her earlier declaration false. In my care and at the mercy of the stalwart ropes and anchors, she denied fear a victory and chose to back out over the cliff’s edge, making herself vulnerable to the expanse between her and the ground. About four feet over the edge, just past the point of no return, I encouraged, “You certainly have been victorious over fear.” She halted a moment and said, “It’s like the fear is just…gone!” By the end of the day she had climbed two crags, rappelled three times, and added size to her shield of faith. I have to ask: What victories have increased the size of your shield of faith? Will you choose to trust Jesus? How is your faith?
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by Joel BatesNone of us really wanted to be stuck behind a broom or bending over a dirty toilet, but for the sixth time in a week, we were cleaning the camp facilities. The summer intern assigned as my cleaning partner paused from sweeping river sand off the common-room floor and leaning on his broom said, “This sure doesn’t feel like what I signed up for.” He was thinking of the day he applied for an internship at Discovery Ministries. Back then his brain was full of the idea that working at an adventure camp would be all thrill seeking and daring, expedition leading mixed with the subtle glamour of being a bona fide, rock-climbing instructor. Canoeing, camping, climbing…YES! Plunging toilets, restocking paper towels, and sweeping up the place…NO! This young minister-in-training had a point, and as I considered the discrepancy between his expectations and reality, I shared one of the most valuable lessons I had received as a Bible college student. My college courses had teemed with learning opportunities to the point where even decades later my mind swam as I remembered the fine oration of top-notch professors, the mentorship of such a godly cloud of witnesses, and the depth of biblical learning the courses presented. However, as I vacuumed another bunkroom floor, littered by candy wrappers left by idling teens, I remembered one of the best learning opportunities afforded me in Bible college—the day I hired on to the campus custodial crew. My first day they put me with two veteran custodians, James and Bill. Well past middle age, James had been a successful Iowa farmer, and Bill had worked on the assembly line in a tire factory. Both men had come out of retirement to make a little extra income, and both men brought experience along with a seasoned work ethic. James seemed to approach every job as though it was of great importance, and from Bill I never heard an irritated word, just saw a happy smile. They trained me how to spray down toilets and sweep up dust and showed me the best times of day to vacuum the dorms, but the most important lesson was one they modeled for me. I would be cleaning the bathroom when, in the next stall over, I would hear one of them scrubbing away grime and softly singing hymns from his childhood. In this simple act, I witnessed a real-life trade secret of the Kingdom that all my expensive college classes had been trying to teach me in theory: at the core of our life in Christ resides not merely a willingness to do the dirty acts of service, but to actually find enjoyment in it. Jesus is a jovial custodian at heart. I wonder if he felt like this was what he signed up for. Instead of entering the city of Jerusalem upon a muscular steed, the conquering hero, the Son of the Living God Almighty he ministered to ignorant masses in backwater villages and obscure countryside’s mentoring low pedigree country bumpkin disciples. And what he did was so unexpected, often flipping the script on His hearers. Remember the times He reached out to touch untouchables? Or the time He said to allow the little children to interrupt a meeting? Jesus wasn’t scrubbing a latrine, but the humility He expressed on those occasions is the same. Oddly, he seemed to enjoy himself immensely as he humbled himself before humanity. Similarly, there was the time described in John chapter 13, just before He went to the cross. The table was set, everyone had gathered in the room and the providential pieces of God’s plans were in place. That’s when Jesus, knowing He had the full attention of heaven, got up from the table, took a towel and basin, and became a janitor. The disciples thought they had seen it all, but before their very eyes, Jesus stooped to new levels to wash the mud from their toes. In this confusing and lowly scene, the main character demonstrated yet again the essence of God’s heart. God, who deserves to be seated on a throne and worshiped by everyone and everything that ever was, is, or will be, instead took His place as the meek and lowly custodian. As strange as this seems, it is deep godliness. As the camp intern and I continued cleaned, we reminisced about how God the Father actually cleans and re-cleans our hearts. Our sanctification process requires a diligent and consistent heavenly Custodian who will identify the blots and stains and apply the elbow grease to disinfect our soul. We understood then that when we repeatedly and joyfully do our cleaning jobs well, we are becoming more like God in His character. There is a day coming when every knee will bow and tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. The sky will peel back, the thunder will roll, and everyone who is on the Lord’s side will shout for joy. Those who are not will still bow, and they will regret that they, too, did not make this custodial King their God. We will kneel then as we kneel now with the opportunities to complete simple and mundane acts of worship, like cleaning toilets. When we serve cheerfully, our knees will be familiar with this posture—the posture of kneeling to clean a toilet, bending low to sweep up the dust, preparing for a coming King. The intern and I went back to our cleaning. He took up his broom, smiled, and began sweeping dirt in the far corner of the chapel. As he swept, I could hear him singing. “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men,
knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.” Colossians 3:23-24 By Joel BatesSweaty forms huff and puff, doubled over gasping for breath as perspiration drips from furrowed brows. Succumbing to fatigue, some simply flop down in the dust of the camp entrance. Most moan, groan and beg for water. No, this is not a zombie, apocalypse or a reenactment of a P.O.W. camp. It’s the scene twice a week following the camp instructors’ training run. And one things for sure, even if we aren’t all in top physical shape at least we’re unified in our collective suffering. I like to think of it as training for perseverance sake, but to most of our first-year interns, they are reconsidering their decision to come to DM! They will usually ask me the inevitable question that people going through hardships ask “Why are we doing this?” That’s a good question, one I try to answer by pointing out lots of great reasons such as: this will build your stamina, and you may need to run for help when you are leading an expedition, or running will build character. These are good reasons, but to be honest, to keep running the race, to keep applying the discipline required to get up early and go for a jog, one needs more than an externally focused reason. To push through when the going gets tough we need a reason that hits deep. We need something to take hold of—a prize. One of the reasons I love the writings of the apostle Paul is that he uses many analogies to which I can relate…like running. He mentions running and racing quite a few times in scripture. In Philippians 3:12-14, he bids us “Press on, to take hold of the prize.” As a long-time distance runner, I find this passage has become one of my favorites, and what Paul is saying resonates in me with deep encouragement. Here Paul is admitting that he’s not arrived at the finish line yet. He’s still in the race, but he’s figured out how to endure. First, he says to let go of the past and look toward the future. I’m reminded of another reference to running in scripture. Hebrews 12:1-2 instructs us “…to throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles us and run the race with perseverance, fixing our eyes on Jesus….” That’s letting go of the past and looking toward the future—a future with Jesus. I’m encouraged because I can easily become haunted by a past riddled with mistakes, failures, and regrets. Without the liberty I have through Jesus, I would find myself existing only in the errors, never learning and growing from them. The Lord is such an optimist when it comes to our redemption and sanctification. He wants to draw our attention to the blessings of the future, the finish line. The importance of the morning running came apparent for two of our instructors recently as they told the story from DM’s latest expedition. The first few days on the trail were pleasant—too pleasant by their estimation to make for a good challenge. The participants needed something more to awaken spiritually, but the instructors didn’t know what to do until near the end of the expedition. The group, struggling to find their way with maps and compasses took a wrong turn that resulted in their being totally disoriented in the wilderness and far behind in their itinerary schedule. The instructors lovingly but firmly informed the group that they would need to press on together and do whatever it took to reach the next destination before making camp. The result was a very long hike that took most of the night. What the exhausted group didn’t know was that at this destination awaited a beautiful valley with a little creek. It was there they would spend the next 24 hours in a restful, intentional time of spiritual solitude. The instructors were particularly glad they had trained themselves physically by completing the morning runs, but even more encouraged about why they needed to press on…so they could help the group capture the prize, a rare and precious time with God. Continuing in Paul’s message in Philippians, the reader finds an answer to the deeper reason for us to press on. We press on not just to leave behind the past mistakes and not entirely so we can embrace that heavenly home, but to take hold of Jesus in a way similar to how he has taken hold of us. We are not running for ourselves or by ourselves. We are with Jesus. He finished the race at the cross, bridging a way for us to take hold in unity with the Father, and He stepped out of the tomb leaving it empty so that we could take hold of real life itself. This is relationship, and He’s not just inviting us to it; He’s holding onto us in it. So in this race as you press on, are you taking hold of him? “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect,
but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.” Philippians 3:12 |
Come along side us as we journey in and out of the wilderness, discovering our Creator in creation.
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