Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Trust

As an American citizen living in a suburb of Michigan with a Walmart just within driving distance, I am extremely blessed and privileged. That sentence alone covers just about every basic need I have. I don't have to worry about where my food will come from, where I will sleep tonight, whether my family will be safe, or even how to get an education.

And you know what? I trust God for all of it.

Sounds pretty grand of me. That's like a level 316 Christian statement. I should take a trip to Israel or start a devotional Instagram account now (you know, because my devotional life is different than my real life, but that's another blog for another time).

But really, we make statements like this all the time, and they're slightly ridiculous. Have you ever seen a mob movie where someone brings in a suitcase full of money, sets it on the table, and the mob boss says, "I don't know if I trust these guys to follow through on this money sitting right here"? No! So why then, when we vocalize our "trust in God," do we default to trusting Him merely for everything we can go home and find in our houses already?

I've questioned myself on this for a few weeks now, actually, and this Sunday I figured it out. I think my life is too complicated for God's provision. The Bible says not to worry about our clothes, our food, or our homes because God cares for all of His creation. He provides for the birds and the grass, but what about us? What about our medical expenses? What animal has those? Or the electric bill after you've been laid off? What about that credit card debt? Is the grass of the fields living paycheck to paycheck as well? What about where I'm going with my life? What about these new ideals and cultural shifts? What did the birds do with those?

As Matthew 6:25-34 states,

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life[a]?

28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Sometimes, as Christians, we bring our problems to God, but fail to really trust Him to provide. We pick through our struggles and realize how the Bible never mentioned this, or that. But it is through this mistrust that we harm our own faith. To question God’s nature of provision overtime is ultimately to suggest to ourselves that the Bible IS dated, and there is a “relevancy” expiration date on the New Testament. Sure, maybe the writers of the Bible never anticipated our world evolving like it has, but God absolutely did.

No matter what time we live in or the struggles we have, we are instructed to not worry about the tomorrow (Matthew 6:34). Like the Israelites trusting God for the manna and quail, we should stand firm and confident in the knowledge that God has provided for us TODAY, and will do so again tomorrow.


This week, let's all reflect on what areas of our lives we thought were too complicated for God, and put our trust somewhere it can actually do something.

Written by: Brianna Vanderveen
Edited by: Tamara Sturdivant

Thursday, June 18, 2015

Wisdom

Does any among you need wisdom, brethren? Let him seek it -- from one William S. Preston Esquire, and Theodore Logan.

Bear with me a minute.  You may not recall the heinous protagonistic dudes of Bill and Ted’s excellent cinema franchise, unless you were also in high school when those films landed in theaters and caught Pastor Marcus’ message Sunday on 1 Kings as well. But if you’re going to talk high schoolers and ageless wisdom, well, middle age doesn’t bring everyone to maturity and some of us are going to go there in our minds.

Solomon in Proverbs 9:10 tells us, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” A surprisingly similar conclusion is found in the vein time-travel of Bill and Ted. They discover their history book as they search ancient Athens for Socrates (or So-Cratez) and learn that, “the only true wisdom consists in knowing that you know nothing.” To which Ted exultantly replies, “That’s us, dude!”

Waiting for the connection? Here it is. Fearing the Lord, and seeking his counsel and wisdom, often begins with our own realization and acceptance of how little we know without Him. Recall in 1 Kings 3:7, after God tells Solomon to ask Him for whatever he wants. The new king replies, “God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David. But I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties.” Pastor Marcus parked on this sentence briefly in the message, and I want to do the same for a minute. This moment of humility is the beginning of Solomon’s greatness, and only in this state is he able to receive God’s amazing gift.  This works much the same as His other gifts – who receives salvation without first knowing you’re a sinner, or is able to minister effectively without first knowing our brothers and sisters need His help more than ours? Why should the gift of wisdom be any different?

Now if you went to school at any other time period and got a less dude-ified take on Greek history, you may recall Socrates a little differently. He begins his philosophy career after someone reportedly asks the Oracle at Delphi who has the most wisdom in Greece, and is told no one is wiser than Socrates of Athens. The incredulous Socrates, a stone-cutter by trade and recent veteran of military service, doesn’t believe this omen and spends much of his life trying to disprove it. Why? Because Socrates knows he knows nothing – and this self-awareness, as he tests the knowledge and beliefs of others through his famed dialectic method, gives him the advantage over other Greeks’ whose knowledge is founded on poor assumptions.

Be honest with yourself, about your need of God’s help and how far beyond your own thoughts His always are. That also came up in the message, and I find that principle best illustrated in an interlude of Job that reads, “When He (God) he made a decree for the rain and a path for the thunderstorm, then he looked at wisdom and appraised it, confirmed it and measured it out. And to the human race he said. ‘The fear of the Lord is wisdom. And to depart from evil, that is understanding.’ “(Job 28:26-28). A startlingly simple truth, from an infinite Creator who carries thoughts in His mind you and I could never grasp.  No one has understanding more than He who created it all – and such is his grace, then when you and I begin to shed our vain and feeble thoughts we can actually receive some of His own.
That’s us, dude!

Written by: Chad Halcom
Edited by: Tamara Sturdivant


Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Transformed- Vocational Health

 I have a weird confession.

Many, many mornings over the course of my work history, I have stumbled out of bed toward the coffee pot with the words of Todd Rundgren’s 1983 Bang the Drum All Day playing in my head:

I don’t want to work
I just want to bang on the drum all day…


I know….that’s really weird on many levels. It’s an annoying song, I don’t play the drums, it doesn’t make sense, it’s from the 80’s, and the list goes on. Obviously, work isn’t something we always bounce out of bed in excitement to accomplish each day. 

And “work,” or this concept of “vocational transformation,” can be an emotionally complicated idea. It may be easy to check out of this final week of Transformed if you don’t view yourself as fitting into an area in the traditional workplace.  However, I view “work” as a broader concept than the morning commute, the 9-5 or the business owner. I encourage you to do so, also.

While, yes, work is made up of the things I mentioned, it is also school, an internship, stay-at-home parenting/managing of a household, etc. The concepts we learned on Sunday, the small group sessions and the devotional can help us transform the way we view all of these areas of our lives.

Sometimes, we are living the dream. The internship turned into a full time position for a company you really believe in! Your children are thriving and your home is in order! Your business venture has really broken through to the next level!

But more often than we care to think about, work just feels like work.  You feel dispensable. Your kids are struggling to make good choices. You’re not doing fulfilling, fruitful work. And the days start to run together. You feel like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day.

The Giants in the workplace loom large:

Delay. When will your dream job finally come to fruition? When will work feel meaningful? When will the day-in-and-day-out of laundry, Cheerios and diapers end?  I went to college for this?!

Discouragement. You were overlooked for the promotion again. Your review was not as “glowing” as you thought it would be. The principal called for another meeting about your child.

 Disapproval.  You got let go for poor performance. Your child was excluded from the play date because he plays too rough. Your group is angry with you because your lack of effort cost them the project grade.

Doubt.  I can’t do this. I’m too old. I’m too young and inexperienced. I’m too exhausted and worn out.

We were given four ways to face the vocational giants in our lives.

1.       Remember how God has helped you in the past.
2.       Use the tools God has given you.
3.       Ignore the “dream busters.”
4.       Expect God to help me for His glory.

While all of these are excellent points, I want to focus on the first one: Remember how God has helped you in the past.

When I first graduated from college and got married, I entered a series of “unfulfilling, low-paying, dead-end, entry level jobs.”  As I type those words, I’m embarrassed. Such ugly words. Because at 22, fresh out of college with no experience, I deserved so much more, right? But that’s how I viewed those jobs at the time. They were “below me.” I was “too educated” for those positions. I was waiting for the better gig to fall in my lap.

The Bible has a few things to say about pride, no? So, I wandered in the wilderness of those jobs while God worked those ugly things out of me and I learned dependence on Him. I look back at that time and reflect on how God helped me. He taught me humility and hard work. He showed me how to be reliable and punctual. He enabled me how to work well with others.

Aaron and I got to a place in our life together where I needed to launch out into a different line of work with a higher salary. So, we began to pray. An opportunity presented itself. I submitted my resume and was called for an interview. The interview seemed promising.

We joked about what the offer would look like. “Wouldn’t it be ridiculous if they offered me $___________?” we laughed. The amount was nearly double what I was currently making.

Several days later, I received the offer.

It was the exact amount we had laughed about.

I worked for that company for almost six years. The boss was generous with raises, flexible with hours, liberal with maternity leave and even transformed my position into a part-time thing with an unbelievable hourly rate so I could be home with my daughter more. That job was a gift-wrapped, hand-delivered present from the Lord.
But of course there were days when the stupid song about the drum played in my head. Management changed. Policies tightened. My job description morphed into something I didn’t like.

And I started to gripe and complain about the manna and quail God had provided. I needed to remember how God had helped me in the past. We forget this so easily.

I need God to help me daily to remember what he has done for me vocationally in the past so that I don’t get blinded by the temporary unpleasantness of the present. My hope is that this week you, too, will learn a significant way to become transformed in your vocational health!

Written by: Jaime Hlavin
Edited by: Tamara Sturdivant

Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Transformed-Financial Health



To possess some sense of security, we must rely on a source for finances. This is inevitable. I think most of us know this and act accordingly. However, I have found that it is so easy to fall into the trap of believing that our finances determine our future, and money dictates our decisions. Although there may be some truth to that statement, it is bypassing our most significant source of provision and stability-- God.

Our possessions are fleeting, but God is everlasting. Our finances may fail us, but God never leaves us. God has given us everything we have, and He could take it all away. Therefore, we must trust in Him to provide for our needs, as He has trusted us to steward our money.

In the book of Job, every possible health and financial burden is illustrated. Job, a follower of God, is stripped of all his possessions, his family, his health, and his friends. Throughout the book, Job gets angry with God (as pretty much anybody would given the situation). Meanwhile, his “friends” relentlessly point out all the reasons they believe he has been “punished.” My initial thought in reading this book was, “Why would God allow such a faithful servant of Him to suffer so greatly?” However, I think God was testing Job on a truth we all need to remember. The truth is that whether we have nothing or we have everything, God must remain Lord over all. Job, although he was angry, did not veer from holding his trust and stability in God.

The story concludes with Job repenting for questioning God’s wisdom, and declaring that God is in control (Job 42:2-6). After this, God chooses to bless Job with twice as much as he had before (42:10). Although I would never want to go through what Job did, my hope is that I, too, would remain faithful to God despite all of the challenges.

Being good stewards of our finances is essential to our well-being. Likewise, in order to be good stewards we must remain faithful to God with (and despite) our finances.

Therefore, let us give control of our finances and possessions to the One who gave us them in the first place. For He is our provider, and He is our source. 

Written by: Tamara Sturdivant
Edited by: De Ann Sturdivant