Every Journey Has a Story - An Introduction (Part 1 of 5)

It is with fear and trepidation that I write this blog. Not the kind that makes your knees buckle and your lip quiver at the sight of an advancing army. Not the kind that causes you to hide under your covers at the thought of monsters lurking beneath your bed. It’s the kind that comes from a humble servant, realizing with ever-increasing awareness that he is standing on the holy ground of his King.

And his shoes are still on, which is a sacred mistake.

Although I have since removed my shoes, as it were, and have fallen to my knees, and then to my face, I feel the trembling in my limbs. I feel the rush of adrenaline as my situation is as real as reality can ever get. Even though they are closed, pinched shut actually, it is as if my eyes are being opened again for the first time.

I once knelt before God as I do now. Many years ago. Why I ever chose to get up, put my shoes back on, and walk down the side of the mountain, believing God was directing my path is a sad mystery to me. Why I didn’t remain in His presence in those early days is a regret with which I now have to live.

Forgive me, Almighty Father, for the years I have wasted.

There are several reasons why I feel this way.  However, the main reason is rooted in my personal relationship with Almighty God. The truths contained in these posts are truths I believe the Holy Spirit was teaching me years ago as a new believer. I had that child-like faith we all long to keep. I took God at His Word. I just believed His Word. If anyone argued against it, they were wrong. If any system of belief attempted to usurp the Word of God’s authority and believed itself to be a better way, it was to be shunned. If any human platitudes or self-help gurus were touted as the equivalent of the Paraclete, to come alongside God’s Word and help “make it better” or accomplish more by adding to it, they were to be analyzed through the lens of God’s Word so their falsehoods could be exposed.

As the years progressed and I felt God’s call on my life to join the ranks of pastoral ministry, I did what I had to do: I went to college and studied scripture, among the other subjects needed, to acquire my Bachelor’s degree in Bible, along with a minor in theology. I did all this while shepherding a small country church in the middle of a large tract of state land with my wife and our then two small children. Daughter number three would come along later, three years into my four-year college student-slash-pastor experience.

I look back now and recognize how I drifted away from Him. It was a slow drift, mind you. Caught on the currents of life, like a raft on the sea. Just a mere hundred feet off the shore in the beginning, like so many other rafts around me in those days, I could see land plainly. I had an anchor. I had oars. I even had a compass. What I didn’t notice, though, was how my anchor dragged along the sandy bottom of those shallow and non-threatening waters. I never noticed how far down the coast I had traveled in those four years. Before long, the shoreline was nothing but a speck, but I wasn’t afraid. I knew there were other lands to explore. Other lands to conquer. More knowledge to obtain.

♪ For the Christian liberal arts college tells me so. ♪

Oh, the ignorance.

I followed man’s ways of becoming “Godly.” That’s never a good thing. The system of higher learning has its flaws, as one would expect. Many pastoral leaders wishing to follow in the footsteps of Jesus have to acquire debt to earn their degrees in order to be ordained. In many of these cases, a liberal arts format is used in the acquisition of a bachelor’s degree. Classes on subjects unrelated to the Bible, like “Literature of the Western World,” for example, cover many writings, few of which have much to do with scripture or anything righteous, for that matter. Other classes, ticking the boxes of the liberal arts requirements, like three credit hours of “Modern Math” (which never used a number, only symbols) and “Music Theory” seem innocuous enough. As a result, time and money is spent, all in the name of a well-rounded, “liberal arts education.”

Now, just so we are clear, I’m not advocating the dissolution of the college and university systems, nor am I bashing them, per se. I’m also not beginning an “anti-intellectual” diatribe, urging everyone to run away from “learnedness” and stop earning various degrees from said colleges and universities. I actually learned a great deal going through the process. One of the things I value the most was how the college I attended taught a person “how to learn,” which was not a skill taught much in the K-12 public school system of my day.

I’m simply asking this: Are these systems God’s way of training pastors and leaders for His Church, or are they the world’s way of training, jammed to fit into God’s way (or maybe it’s vice versa), like the proverbial square peg in a round hole?

Prodded by my desire to know more about God’s Word, and how this world interacts with it, the lure of education encouraged us to climb the ladder, literally, by degrees. Of course, in such a system, why would it not? The world tends to listen to “Doctor So-and-so” much more willingly than someone who only has a high school diploma or even a bachelor’s degree.

The Church is no different. We like our “rock stars” too.

Having said that, I understand that in certain areas, having the extra training and letters behind one’s name is important, even comforting. The field of medicine is one such area. Very few people, if any, wish to allow just anyone to operate on them. They want the best. They want someone who has spent the time studying in that area. And more importantly, that doctor had better possess a Doctor of Medicine degree. If he or she is a “specialist,” so much the better.

Unfortunately, we translate that philosophical reasoning to all fields, believing someone with a doctorate has more to say than someone with a lesser degree or no degree at all, particularly when it comes to that word being “authoritative.” Yet, in so many cases, this simply is not so. The degree doesn’t make one worthy, and having an “education” doesn’t always bode well in every field. We see it all the time. We wonder “how that person ever got the job,” or why “that person hasn’t been fired yet,” due to incompetency, despite their learnedness. It’s the “Peter Principle” coming to life before our very eyes.¹

Interestingly, things really haven’t changed that much over the centuries. In the days of Jesus, the chief priests, the teachers of the law, the scribes, and ruling religious groups called the Pharisees and Sadducees would have been the “D.Mins” in pastoral ministry and the “Ph.Ds” in religion and theology. They were the experts on the Old Testament, and they wrote the “books” on religious living for the people of Israel, called the Talmud and the Mishnah.

Jesus, on the other hand? All He had was a diploma from Nazareth Technical High School, specializing in carpentry.

Hence, the arrogance of the teachers of the law and the chief priests that we see in scripture. How dare a hayseed from a town where no good can come challenge the learned and wise teachers of Israel (cf. John 1:46)?

The teachers of the law and the chief priests thought their religious status, their religious education, and their religious upbringing somehow etched a special standing in God’s list of chosen people. It is evident in many of the dealings they had with Jesus throughout the four gospel accounts.

I know a little of this because I once believed as those teachers of the law and chief priests did. So much so, that I chased the Americanized version of this educational dream too. I allowed influences to steer me away from what I knew in my heart to be true and right concerning God’s Word. To lure me, away from what I know now was terra firma—a terra firma in which God planted me—and into that raft I mentioned earlier. I willingly uprooted myself to get in the raft with the oars and compass of learning. A raft with no captain because God wasn’t in those plans. Instead, they were plans designed to follow a path that all good Christian pastors are supposed to follow.  Plans to go to seminary. Get more education. Learn more about culture. Learn more Hebrew and Greek. Understand more theology. It all sounded biblical. It all sounded right. It all was approved by every denominational headquarters in the land. So, how could I go wrong?

I’ll tell you how.

I had supplanted my love for God with a different kind of love. I was in love with ministry. And the idea of ministry. In love with serving others. I was also in love with the teachings of Jesus. And the truths they contained. Additionally, I was in love with learning. The knowledge I had acquired made my heart swell with “Biblical pride” (which I know is an oxymoron, for sure, but we have it more than we care to admit). These things made me fall in love with the promise of Salvation, with the prospect of Heaven. The fact that I could be a pastor proclaiming the gospel, teaching others to love God’s Word, helping to build His church, was the ultimate goal. I know it all sounds good on paper, but without a proper focus, even the best cameras in the world only take fuzzy photos.

* * *

Thought for This Week:

Have you ever supplanted God with anything? Or anyone? It didn’t have to be a rebellious, God-hating, anti-Christ action on your part, like bowing down to Baal or rejecting Christ in front of a crowd. It could have been a very well-intended, “godly” endeavor that looks like anything you’d find in a body of believers today. Subtlety is one of Satan’s best weapons. He uses it against everybody. He can take the best God has to offer and twist it into something damning (cf. Gen. 3). He can make something ungodly seem very holy (like false religion, for example). He can make something holy seem perverted or out of touch with society (like circumcision or attending church, for example). He’s in the business of lies and confusion because it is his very nature (John 8:42-47)

Regardless of the intent of our hearts, however, if the thing or the person takes the place of God, then you’ve broken the very first commandment, “You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them;…” (Exodus 20:3-5a). 

It can be very subtle. It can even be applauded by folks who attend church. It can look, smell, taste, sound, and feel very Godly. However, Jesus warned us in Matthew 7:13-14 and 7:21-23. There will be many who think they are “on the straight and narrow.” However, they will be unrecognized by Jesus, and their good deeds will be rejected. Why? Because their relationship with God is all wrong. Somewhere, in the path they chose, they took a wrong turn. They looked at the wrong map.

Broad Road?

 

Narrow Road?

Which one are you traveling? Is your life right with God in every aspect? Or have you fallen prey to one of Satan’s subtleties? Examine your path. Examine God’s Word. Seek first God’s Kingdom and His righteousness (Matt. 6:33). You do not want to be one of the “evil doers,” one of the “workers of lawlessness,” mentioned by Jesus in Matthew 7:23. If you hear those words, it will be too late to change the outcome. 

NEXT WEEK:

We will continue with this “chapter” and examine our thoughts on how we “do church.”

 

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ENDNOTES

 

¹ “The Peter Principle,” a theory and 1969 book by the same title was put forth by Canadian sociologist Laurence J. Peter, who claims that people in an organization are promoted up the proverbial ladder, based on their success and competence in a previous position. However, as they move up the rungs, they eventually reach a position for which they are not suited, thus they become incompetent, and in many cases, remain there because they are not able to continue the climb toward the top of their field. Therefore, the Peter Principle dictates that at some point, unless employees vacate their positions within the organization making way for others to climb, the entire organization will be run by a bunch of incompetent people who have maxed out at their job.  

Pictures courtesy of  Pixabay and the following photographers:

"Man Praying" by JKitchen.org

"Jesus Teaching in the Temple" by Algemeiner.com

"Broad Road" by Islandworks

"Narrow Road" by Tama66