Take Me to the River

Greetings,

There are times when I just don’t want to hear words being sent in my direction. Something about this week has been that way and so I’ve been listening to a lot of instrumental Jazz this week – especially a new live double disc from Return to Forever.

I’m not sure why the avoidance of words is such a big deal for me this week, but it is. I think it started Sunday when I felt moved to throw out the words I had written on the page and take off in a totally different direction. I haven’t done that in years. But out of the blue and somewhat against my will, an hour before the sermon, I found myself praying like Robert Duvall in the movie ‘The Apostle’ .

As you know if you are a regular reader of this blurb, my heart has been heavy over the last few weeks for the condition of the church, for the shallowness of the faith in people’s lives, for the unwillingness to truly change. Well, none of that has changed and yet in the midst of my prayer scream on Sunday morning I realized (duh) that we are in the midst of Spiritual warfare and to be honest some people seem to be going down in the cross fire.

I have to continually remind myself that my responsibility is to proclaim the truth to the best of my ability. I have no control over the outcome of people’s lives. But I want to. I want to just slap people into submission. I want to turn a switch and make them be new people. I want to solve the problems of the world with the twitch of my nose. Yes, I want to be Samantha Stevens instead of Brad Stephens. I want the gospel to be magic but it’s not.

I’m tired of hearing empty words when it comes right down to it. I’m tired of hearing the word change without seeing change. I’m tired of people saying the word 'repent' right before they turn and run in the opposite direction. I’m probably just tired of me, who can be the embodiment of all of those things without much effort.

I’m not sure why I am this frustrated because good things really are happening, extraordinary things. Just this week I was called to baptize four women who made professions of faith last week when I spoke at the local jail. I haven’t baptized an adult in 25 years. The joy that flooded my soul at the sight of those women coming up from the water shivering with excitement (and frigid water), the excitement that was in their faces, was tarnished for me by the knowledge of the difficulty of the journey that lays before them. To rehash a saying from awhile back, will their baptism take?

Will gang life, addiction, abuse, and dysfunction overwhelm what has happened in their lives the last couple of weeks? Truthfully? Not if it was for real. If Christ has truly sent his Spirit to abide in them then nothing can stop their transformation. They are new creatures and they will always be new creatures even if the life they used to lead tramples them down and leaves them for dead.

It’s the ‘for real’ part that has me worried. When was the last time I saw a ‘for real’ conversion. Part of that inquiry is due to a blurring of lines and dumbing down of the good news into tidy packages because if I am honest with myself I see conversion in my life on a regular basis. Compare the me of 5, 10, 15 years ago to the me of today and you will see night and day difference but you have to spread it out over time to see it. Compare me yesterday and today and not much seems to have happened.

Salvation is not a one time shot. It is a life time shot. I’m finally beginning to see that I was saved before the foundation of the world but that salvation has been working its way out in my life since before I was born. Yes, I was born dead in my sins but the plan of God had secured me in spite of my condition. Even when I didn’t have a clue, God had a plan. At 5 when I walked down the aisle because the kid next to me did, God had a plan. On December 11, 1971 at the age of 11 when I was told to remember the date of my salvation, God had a plan. He began the process of saving me before I was a glimmer in my parent’s eyes.

Did he show me the fullness of my salvation all at once? Not on your life because if he would have shown me the pain that salvation would bring into my life I would have turned and run away. But God took me where I was and saved me from myself in a way that I could understand at the time. Was I any less saved at 11 than now, not at all, I was just different. I was immature I was a babe in every sense of the word. In many ways, I still am. but maybe I’ve moved from newborns to pull ups. It’s hard to tell when you can’t really see what grownups are supposed to look like.

So while I can feel for those women and for all the others who are in the midst of facing repentance on a day to day basis, I still have hope. I have hope that my baptism will continue to take after all these years. I have hope that he who began a good work will be faithful to complete it. I have hope that the gates of hell will not remain standing against the onslaught of the Kingdom of God. I have hope that of all the ones that the Father has given to the Son he will not lose a single one.

I have hope because God is God and I am not.

In the immortal words of the Reverend Al Green: Take me to the river, drop me in the water.
(and keep it up til the old man is good and drowned).

Grace and peace,

Brad