Create a Crisis for a Change
“Is it okay that I read your wife’s blog? Her writing challenges me every time I read.”
—recent comment from a man friend
Kari’s husband Jeff here. She’s off at another commitment and under my watch right now our kids are scurrying from the yard to driveway pretending to be a peregrine falcon and Thompson’s gazelle, respectively, so we’re safe to write for a few minutes. Until a playful predator comes. That would be a crisis to their uninterrupted play time.
That’s what I want to talk with you about: crisis. Crises in fact. Lots and lots of mini-crises, created from our own hands.
A crisis is when you need God to come through, because otherwise you’ll fail. You don’t have what it takes, so you take what He alone can give.
Of course, we cannot create anything ourselves, but all of our creative powers — our creativity — is on loan from the Creator, borrowed to be used well. Whether we steward these powers for good or spend them foolishly on self, we better know what kind of power we’re dealing with. Too many people use their supposed “power” to play it safe, seek comfort, take no risks. That’s some kind of tragedy. (Others create all sorts of drama for themselves and every moment seems like a crisis. That’s sad but not in view here.)
Humanity has been made in God’s image. We may not look like Him in outward appearance, or take a representative form too often, but our essence, our createdness, is in the similitude of God. Makes sense, since He’s our Father.
God has created us for crisis. We were made to shine brightly in dark situations. Yet a person will only know if he or she is ready to trust Him in the inevitable big, unplanned crisis, if they’ve first learned by experience to trust Him with many mini-crises.
That is one secret to Jesus’ life. He is the definition of true humanity, coming to recreate what has been broken lost in us. Yet He did not do it by Himself. Jesus the Son depended moment by moment on the love, approval, and power of God the Father. He imaged the Father well. Perfectly, in all manner of crises. Never hurried, ever-present, calm and collected to unleash the power of God on the situation of Their choosing.
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I hope soon Kari can tell you about the many mini-crises she encounters each week, and as you can consider yours, each one can find perspective to keep on creating these crises and growing as people. It is because of her steadfastness in the face of these crises, forged in fact by each crisis itself, that each us gets to read on the Sacred Mundane. That’s why many men I know read her blog. There’s meat here, substance more than mere style. Using the mundane moments of each life, what seems at first so unspiritual, she makes connections to the Gospel. Every man, woman and child can benefit from that. Kari makes public many private details, though each is processed in prayer and with her husband (me), and together we sense the Spirit’s leading for her to share. Frankly, it would be easier to not share anything personal. Just “write about God,” but while the words would be true, they would not be real.
Realness is where the crises happen. Realness is what we’re after.
There is a gap for each of us between the ideal and real, between what we say we believe and how we really live it out.
Most men I know … scratch that: every man I know likes to do things he feels confidence about it. Some only do the things they feel confident about. It’s why some don’t search for a better job, and why others like to fish. Confidence makes one work on their own car, and for the same reason others take it to the dealer to get serviced. Confidence. One can have the appearance of confidence with mere talk, yet to truly reveal one’s confidence, a crisis has to do it’s work.
Down the dusty road
It’s been quite a week.
I mentioned sailing … and sometimes we have to sail through storms.
Sometimes visibility is low, if you know what I’m saying.
Late Wednesday night I lay in bed. Sleep wouldn’t come. So many unknowns. I turned over, faced the other way, adjusted my pillow, closed my eyes. There were just as many unknowns when I faced that direction.
A lot of what concerned me was waiting, looking again at the phone, worried for a friend. Waiting. Waiting. I closed my eyes.
My phone buzzed.
I quickly flipped over and looked at the lit screen. Not who I’d expected, but another friend. A lifelong one. Out of the blue, late at night, with no greeting or opening line, with no idea in the least what I was concerned with, there was the picture with the following text:
Today I followed [my husband] home from our campsite. As we exited the campsite we had 2 choices — turn to the right or turn to the left. Turning left would take us on a smooth paved route (the familiar route I took to the campsite). Turning right would mean driving on gravel for 5 miles (a narrow gravel road with a steep cliff on one side).
He knows I don’t like driving on gravel. I don’t like dust & I don’t like rocks chipping away at my car. But he turned right anyway — because his love of nature & fondness of roads less traveled were his guide.
So I followed him on a path I wouldn’t have chosen, but I trusted him anyway. Trusted him to set the pace & trusted him to keep an eye out for oncoming traffic. Trusted him to wait for me even if I lagged behind and drove slower than he would have liked. We twisted and turned on that windy road.
If I followed him too closely, his dust cloud was too thick & I couldn’t see where I was going. If I fell too far behind I could lose sight of him as he twisted & turned on the windy road. As I watched him & trusted him & followed him I realized this is what submission looks like. Following and trusting even when the road is covered in a hazy cloud of dust. Following and trusting even when I find myself on an unfamiliar road. Following & trusting even when I seem to be going in the exact opposite direction I would have chosen. Following & trusting & seeing beauty around every corner–the mountains, the cliffs, the rivers, the streams, the forests.
The quiet solitude of those country roads soothed my soul & gave me opportunity to pray & feel peace. And with my eyes fixed ahead, I just kept following him as he led me home.
I gulped up these words, so parched for their truth, and so grateful for a God who is good (and powerful!) enough to send His truth through a text.
I thought of the dusty road ahead, of my good and perfect Guide, then closed my eyes and drifted peacefully off to sleep.
{In case you’re traveling this road too. May my friend’s words encourage your heart. Thank you for reading.}
Set the sails, wait for wind
I waved goodbye to the kids, walked straight to the room where I’d be staying, collapsed on the bed … and sobbed. Gasping-for-air sobs, tears streaming, snot running, can’t-see kind of sobs, hoping no one could hear me.
What NOW, Lord?
Sure, I had prepared for this conference. I had 37 pages of notes, it’s not like I’d been napping all summer, but something still hadn’t clicked, I didn’t have the same sense of readiness, confidence, and anticipation that I’d always had before.
I remember Beth Moore saying she often had to face the fear, “Oh no, what if THIS is the one, the one where God doesn’t show up?!!!”
I could relate. I’d recently had lunch with a lovely woman of God, also a speaker, and we’d related about the fact that we, like everyone else of course, are utterly lost without God’s power and Spirit. Not just sorta kinda. Utterly. There is NOTHING I can do in my own strength to effect life-change in others, or myself.
It is an uncomfortable feeling, this utter-dependence thing.
Especially when there are hundreds of eager faces awaiting, all ears, ready for a Word from God. I looked around the room, if only there was a way to escape! But I was dropped off at the camp, I didn’t even have a getaway car! 🙂
Of course I’m exaggerating, but not much! Those of you who have ever stepped out in faith in any way know this feeling: What if I step on the water and I SINK?!
Thankfully, I knew the truth: You set the sails and wait for wind.
Because I’m not alone in this, and neither are you. We all have to get from point A to point B, by faith. We can either believe we’re in a rowboat, miserably working all by ourselves, sweating and straining and stressing and moving very slowly. Or we can believe we’re in a jetboat, blissfully remarking, “Just let go and let God, man!” and completely ignore our very real part of the process.
But the truth is, the spiritual life is akin to sailing.
There’s work that we can do, and there’s a lot of work we can’t.
We work and we wait.
Our job is to set the sails. We create an environment where the wind of the Spirit can work. If we neglect our hearts, our habits, if we lazily pursue pleasure instead of doing the hard work of repentance, prayer, and raising the sails of God’s Word, we will miss the power and joy of His work in our lives.
But when we set the sails well, we can rest, wait, without fear, without anxiety.
Because it’s the wind that moves us, there will be fast seasons, slow seasons … still seasons. This is ok. This is normal. We must know the difference between stillness and stagnancy.
Is the stillness because of the wind, or because we’ve neglected our sails?
No checklist here or easy answers, but as we grow, we learn. We learn how to set the sails, and wait.
That first night at the conference, God’s wind blew in a powerful way. As some precious sisters in Christ stood on that stage before me and finished the work of setting our sails, and God was faithful to move us.
I learned all over again how to ditch the rowboat, the speedboat, the FEARboat! I learned all over again how to set the sails and wait. Our God is a mighty wind and He is faithful.
{Where do you need to go today? How can you set the sails and wait for His wind? Thank you for reading.}
“…Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” Phil. 2:12-13
*I know MANY of you precious sisters were faithfully praying before and during last weekend. So grateful to be ONE in spirit, together setting the sails and together watching Him move. Thank you!
Waiting in the dark and murky waters…
This past weekend I experienced this truth in a powerful way. Preparing for the CBNW Women’s Camp conference, I felt like God kept me “in the dark,” in many ways, urging me to trust Him even though couldn’t see exactly how things would work together. It’s one thing to do that for ourselves individually, but there were 500 women involved in this! Please, God!
Surprise surprise, He showed up in a mighty way. He is faithful! Oh those words seem so cliche but they are TRUE! He is faithful. When we TRUST Him, He will provide, show up, save the day. I was reminded of this story, from a dear sister-mother-friend. She’s been married 40+ years, so she’s had plenty of opportunities for living this out! Enjoy…
It reminds me of the time I was learning to scuba dive. My dear man, Damon, was my master diver instructor, so I trusted him with my life. One time he put me in the middle of a small lake that was muddy and had poor visibility. It was used for teaching rescue/recovery techniques, so there was a submerged car and an airplane at the bottom of the lake. He told me to sit on the wing of the airplane and stay there until he came back for me. Then he left, disappearing into the murky water. He was gone for awhile, and so I just sat there, listening to myself breath, since I couldn’t see anything further than a foot away. And then I saw the dark shadow moving near me, and he appeared and motioned for me surface. He told me that he was so proud of me to sticking it out and not panicking, as he had actually seen grown men do.
But I’m sure the difference is that I knew whom I trusted. I knew he would not put me in danger.
Do you see the implication that I am making? I can draw the parallel, and realize that Jesus would never put me in danger, that I can trust Him with my life, even when the water is murky and I can’t see more than a few inches in front of me.
Oh, by the way, did I tell you, I can’t swim?!
Friends, our beloved Heavenly Husband is our trusted Instructor. And perhaps today He’s called you to sit alone in the midst of dark, murky waters, and sit on the wing of a crashed airplane with no instructions whatsoever except, “Wait for me here.”
That’s it. Just, “Wait for me here.”
What will you do? Panic? Bolt for the surface? Begin a frenzied search for Him? Get bitter? What will you do? What will I do? Will I focus on the blackness, the murkiness, the fact that I can’t swim! Or will I focus on remembering Whom I have trusted? Will I focus on remembering His goodness, His faithfulness, His love. That fact that He can do immeasurably more than I could ever ask or imagine.
I am, by the grace of God, going to sit on that airplane wing today. In the dark and murky waters, alone, and wait for my God.
Because He will show up for me, and for you. That I know.
{Thank you, my mother-sister-friend for sharing your story with me. And thank you all for reading.}