Driving with the Brakes on

Hey Everyone,

I heard an old Del Amitri song yesterday from the mid 90’s that I hadn’t heard in a long time. The words to the chorus always stirred something in me: When you're driving with the brakes on When you're swimming with your boots on, It's hard to say you love someone And it's hard to say you don't.

I wonder sometimes if that is how I live my life. I wonder if that is how I treat my Lord; never committing myself fully, always holding something back. Never laying my life down on a level where I can’t pick it up again at a moment’s notice and regain control. Is that love? Is that salvation or is that looking out for number one?

If I treat my Lord like that, well, it probably only gets worse as we go down the relationship chain, which is probably a lot like the food chain. I think of these things as I get closer to the day we have set aside for our Solemn Assembly before God on the 29th and 30th of this month. I have high expectations mixed with high doubt. The story of my life I guess.

But in the midst of all of this I am more aware than I have been in a long, long time of the spiritual warfare that is all around us. And in one of those rare moments of clarity I understand that this is no game, this isn’t a rehearsal, this is it. This is war; no matter which direction I choose to look. It is war even if I close my eyes and pretend it’s not. And here I am trying to be a navy seal with my boots on, rushing to the front lines with my foot on the brakes.

I think about the last 10 years and all that has gone on to get me to where I am, and at the same time all that has gone on to get me to stop moving ahead and I understand that I have a calling, we all do, but the enemy is working overtime to try and make that calling come up short. With every trick that he can muster he is trying to get me to put my foot on the brake more and more. He tries to get me to put on heavier and heavier boots. He tries to make me conclude that I really don’t love.

Most of the time those attacks come in the form of relationships. In the midst of relationships it doesn’t take much for me to be discouraged and let the train get derailed. In fact, a five minute conversation a couple years ago nearly caused me to lay down my pen and stop writing. It took me a year to recover from that. And now I’ve just about made up all that lost ground but it wasn’t easy and it wasn’t cheap. There was a great cost to me, financially and personally. Growing up is always expensive.

It’s easy in the midst of what we see as ‘just life’ to miss the fact that there is something deeper than relationships going on – there is warfare. The enemy knows every nook and cranny of our dysfunction and he uses that information often times to get us to put the brake on with the hopes of stopping our journey.

If that doesn’t work, well , there are other methods. In my own life, I see it as people I try to minister with, get sick or get distracted to the point where they are unable to work with me. I see it in the mail system not working properly. I have been trying to work with a marketing person since before thanksgiving but one thing after another has kept us from beginning a new phase of operations. It began when books I sent her never arrived. I sent another set of books at the same time to someone else and they were there in no time at all. But her Priority package obviously wasn’t somebody’s priority because it is still floating in the mail system somewhere. She finally received the second package after Christmas. We made plans to talk last week after she had read the books. Then she went into the hospital. I haven’t heard from her in over a week and that tells me she is not doing better.

I know that we have all been thoroughly entrenched in the humanistic concept that there is no meaning or connection to events that occur in our lives, they are random and non personal. I would disagree. Because this is God’s world everything is personal because he is personal. He created this world to be personal and meaningful. Everything has meaning even if we can’t see it, it means something to God. It was planned by God.

It’s easy to forget that. It’s easy to believe the lie of impersonal. It’s easy to believe that nothing matters. It’s hard to remember that we are called from before the foundation of the world for good works that were especially prepared for us.

It’s time to begin to remember.

Back to Del Amitri’s song, the bridge offers me some hope and encouragement when it says: But unless the moon falls tonight, unless continents collide, nothing's gonna make me, break from her side. I know (mostly because the word of God that does not change tells me) that nothing and no one can pluck me out of the father’s hands. Nothing has the power to keep me from the calling that God has placed upon my heart. It will be completed exactly as God planned. The enemy’s plans will be foiled.

In case you forgot how the story ends: God Wins and nothing that he has planned will be thwarted even by me driving with the brakes on and swimming with my boots on.
I find myself more grateful for that everyday.

Dysfunctionally yours,

Brad