Slow Ride

A big 'boy howdy' to everyone,

I think it was Foghat who sang, Slow Ride, take it easy. I am finally resigning myself to the understanding that the work of God in growing a people for himself is truly a slow ride. And that reminds me of another song this one by Cat Stevens – Father and Son- Most of my life I have been like the son in that song saying:

How can I try to explain, when I do he turns away again. It's always been the same, same old story. From the moment I could talk I was ordered to listen. Now there's a way and I know that I have to go away. I know I have to go.

All the times that I cried, keeping all the things I knew inside, It's hard, but it's harder to ignore it. If they were right, I'd agree, but it's them They know not me. Now there's a way and I know that I have to go away. I know I have to go.

But these days the words of the father in that song are ringing more and more true:

It's not time to make a change, Just relax, take it easy. You're still young, that's your fault, There’s so much you have to know. Find a girl, settle down, If you want you can marry. Look at me, I am old, but I'm happy. I was once like you are now, and I know that it's not easy, To be calm when you've found something going on. But take your time, think a lot, Why, think of everything you've got. For you will still be here tomorrow, but your dreams may not.

I know that there is a way I should go but I’m learning (slowly) that the speed of my activity doesn’t increase the speed of my arrival. Life seems to be a hurry up and wait game. Ideas take time to implement. Plans take time to develop. Soup gets better the longer it cooks.

While I am beginning to learn these things that doesn’t mean that I am always so good at applying them. Part of the reason for that is the demand for immediacy upon my life. People don’t want jobs stretching out for all eternity.

In all of this I am learning the need for balance: to be diligent in work and yet patient for the plan to unfold. I think it is important that we learn to understand that we have no control over the plan whatsoever. It is God’s plan to unfold not ours. Our task is to do the work at hand. What ever your hand finds to do: do it with all your might as unto the Lord. It is the task at hand that is our calling. We are called to the mundane so that we might end up in glory.

Now I have probably said all of this in a different way a hundred times before but I say it again because I need to hear it. I need to hear it in the midst of the plan crawling by like a snail while my life speeds by like a blur. The tasks at hand were created by God for me to do from before all eternity and if I am going to make it to the end of this race and cross the finish line then I have to take the step that is next in line.

I think that in our culture we have developed an urgency mentality that may very well destroy us. We find a problem and we think that it needs to be fixed now, no, yesterday. Be that global warming or population growth, or the deficit, or crime, or disease – the ors could just keep coming. Something always has to be done about a problem now. But the truth is just because we see with short term eyes doesn’t mean that the problem has developed short term or that it can be fixed short term. Just because we think there’s a problem doesn’t even mean that there is a problem. Part of our need for urgency stems out of the fact that we think the plan is ours. But it’s not.

Yes, the deficit is a horrible problem. I was talking to one of my grandsons the other day (two of the others haven’t even started talking yet – you’d think they could learn that in six months) and he is more than a little concerned about the deficit. And he should be concerned but at the same time we need to try to see it with a biblical lens on our eyes. What if the total collapse of our economy is the only thing that will bring us to repentance as a people? What if what we need to learn is to stop deficit spending at the personal level? What if the melting of the ice caps is a thing that is supposed to happen ever 10 thousand years to restore balance to the ecosphere and as a reult of our limited data we destroy the world as we know it with good intentions?

The place to make a change for me is in my next step. If I press on in walking the path of life with all of my heart focused on the step that I am taking now; If I stop deficit spending, if I stop whatever it that I like to do to destroy myself, I will find, over the course of time, that I am on a totally different path than I used to be. I was on the path of destruction, more often than not I prefer the path of destruction but my calling is to the path of life. Grace puts me on the path of life, and it keeps me on the path of life. It’s important to understand that getting on the path of life isn’t the end goal – staying on it is. My call is to humbly walk on the path of life even though I don’t want to. It’s not time to make a change. Well, that’s not true; it is time to leave the destruction of disobedience and walk in the path of obedience. If I will focus my attention on that then the scriptures promise good things.

Now if you multiply my walk with all of your walks – that may be 50 or 60 walks in the US and from what I can tell another 30 or so in Denmark, Finland, Poland and Asia (I am global you know) and we all make the choice to humbly walk the path of obedience that leads to life then we are making a change for the better; a change for blessing instead of cursing. (I know some of you don’t believe those things apply any more but truth is if they don’t apply who gets to determine if the New Testament still applies? It’s an all or nothing thing in my opinion.)

Change begins at the micro level. It begins with a cell. Cancer doesn’t begin with a huge tumor. It begins with the changing of a single cell and that cell multiplies. A healthy body begins the same way; with a single cell that multiplies.

All I am longing for is to be a cell of life instead of cancer. If you choose to do the same then by God’s grace we can all move together in the pursuit of life. U2 has a great song that says: I still haven’t found what I’m looking for. That is true. I haven’t found it yet. I still live in a world where death prevails. I’m looking for a world full of life. I am on the path of life and I want to see more and more life as I ease on down, ease on down the road (The Wiz). I want nothing more than the living dead world that we reside in to be turned fully and completely into a world of life.

All I can say is Come Lord Jesus and help me stay on the path of life today.

May the same apply to you as well.

Brad