Called Out In Kansas

Well, I got the CME’s done, and am still licensed to practice medicine.  Now I am trying to dig myself out from the avalanche that fell while I wasn’t  paying attention!  Charts, messages, paperwork, financial management issues, the list goes on.

“Lord, I don’t have time to get these things done, and I am having trouble finding time to spend with you, studying your word.”

That was my mindset until several days ago, while listening to a Hillsong United song, “Savior, King”.  Awesome powerful song, if you want to listen to it.

The pertinent part is in the first verse, and says the following:

“And let the poor, stand and confess, that my portion is Him, and I’m more than blessed”.

I have listened to this song many times in the last few weeks.  In fact, if you haven’t heard Hillsong United’s “The I Heart Revolution” you should check it out.  Very powerful music, and the Lord has done much in my heart lately through this music.  Anyway, I’ve heard this song, and taken note of the above lyrics, but that night it just hit me like a ton of bricks.  The busy-ness in my life will always be there, and will always prevent me from seeking Him, and His kingdom.  Before I explain I want to step back a bit.

After leaving the church I went through a long period of time where I was not allowed to study the bible.  My problem was that I always approached it intellectually, trying to figure things out.  God had to take me through a period of cleansing, so that I could approach His word from a standpoint of weakness, so that He could reveal truth to me.  Once I did begin to feel the stirring to read, I often times found myself busy doing the things required to accomplish the works I felt (and still feel) He had instructed me to do (starting two kingdom-oriented business).  At that time, not studying was permitted by the Holy Spirit, and He continued to lead me further day by day into Christ.  Lately, for the past few months, I’ve had an understanding that He is calling me into even greater commitment, and understanding that, to complete the season He has me in now will take greater dedication and greater sacrifice than the previous season.  So, having understood that for several months, the lyrics above finally cemented what He had been working in my heart, and I finally understood.

You see, I’ve been busy doing His work, doing what He has instructed me to do.  But this one thing I’ve learned:  doing things for God, even things that He’s instructed us to do, is no excuse to not SEEK Him.  Hearing those words “My portion is Him” made me realize that all the trappings of the works He’s had me do are meaningless if I am not pursuing Christ actively.  Those works will lose their power if I don’t keep them His, and keep them in their place.  The work can never take the place of the one who called us to the work.

I now understand that I must seek Christ first and foremost.  I MUST KNOW Christ.  He is my portion.  He is my inheritance.  He is my reward and my prize.  He is all that I ever wanted, and all that I’ll ever need.  I have vocalized an understanding of the central importance of Christ in the past, but now am beginning to really understand just how central He is.  Christ is everything!

The next step and latest step in the process has been reading Philippians 3.  Philippians 3:7-11 especially.  Paul talks about how all things are rubbish compared to the value of knowing Christ, and I meditate on that frequently now.  Verse 8 says “and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ”.  To me this means that if I am not counting all things as rubbish, I will not gain Christ.  Even my beloved coffee must be considered rubbish, as I fear it holds an unhealthy place in my life (I  imagine I will one day drink again, but for now I feel I am to give it up).

So, this is where I am….transitioning.  The day where this all came to a head was a difficult day.  I was stirred by the Holy Spirit to approach my life differently, but was still controlled by the daily demands, and the two were not co-existing well.  Once I set down and talked things out with my wife, the Spirit took the greater prominence, and the pressure eased.  I am still journeying in this manner, but the understanding gained is crucial as I now begin walking it out.

I recently posted something on my facebook profile, and I thought it was important to post it here, because to me it is a major issue for Christians today.  In reality, it is probably not a black and white issue, but more like a scale, where we can tend towards one or the other, and move either way as we mature or digress.  Anyway, here is the statement:

We need a change in mindset. We need to allow God to shape and order our lives in accordance with His eternal purpose, instead of trying to incorporate God into our life as it is. He is calling us to so much more than we can even imagine, but we have to open our hearts to that greater calling, and be willing to go where the grass doesn’t appear green.

I want to give some background behind this statement, and how it has applied to my life:

Three years ago I was working as an employed doctor, in a hospital owned practice, employed by an organization that was more concerned about money than patient care.  I became frustrated, and finally tired of fighting the system and decided that something had to change.  I had multiple options, and at one point decided to quit Family Medicine altogether, and work full-time in the ER.  It would pay better, require less hours, and thus result in a better quality of life for me and my family.  There was a part of me that didn’t want to do that, because the thing I love most about medicine is the relational aspect of it, and you lose this in the Emergency Room.

During this time, my wife and I sought direction from the Lord.  I wanted my life to be in line with His plan, and this was obviously a major life decision.  One night, while we were lounging in our jacuzzi tub, the answer came.  I was to take part of the building we had just procured for our other business, and turn it into a clinic and practice out of that.  Doing this would mean I would have to work without call coverage, and basically be on call 24/7.  It would also require that I not only work full-time for the clinic, but that I would also have to work full-time in the ER, in order to pay the bills.  In November of 2007 I started working in the ER in Dodge City, KS, after not working in any ER for almost 2 1/2 years.  In January I quit my job and by late February my clinic was open.  It has been 2 1/2 years now since the opening.  I still do not draw a salary, I still work in the ER, but my clinic is growing and we are nearing the fruition of our hard work.  Now, the point here is not to brag about how hard I work, as I am only able to do it by His grace, and there were many other reasons He had me take this path (one of which was to reveal and overcome what turned out to be a pretty severe anxiety problem.  God is efficient in His working!).  The point I am making is that I could’ve taken the path that made sense from a natural perspective.  I could’ve made more money and had more time with my family by changing to ER work exclusively.  However, the Lord had other plans, and thus I embarked on what has been the greatest journey of my life.  During this time I learned a lot about myself, learned a lot about Him, and have learned more about faith than I ever thought I would.  I will, by the way, get to Part 2 on faith, hopefully soon.  The journey has been lonely to a certain extent, because the positions I have taken on issues in the community pertaining to healthcare have been unpopular, so we have been at odds with the powers that be, and even had lies spread about us in the community.  It turned out that the right path was the harder path, small surprise given what we see from Christ’s example.

So, this brings me to my statement.  The Lord brought me to a jump-off point in my walk with Him.  He brought me to a place where I had to make a decision to follow His direction, or to choose to follow conventional wisdom and do what seemed right to me.  By His grace I chose to follow Him, in a way radically different than I had ever followed Him before.  It required continued, implicit trust in His plan and provision, and it is the best decision I ever made, apart from my decision to follow Him in the first place.  Previously I had been comfortable in my life.  I lived it as I thought best, and although there was a general sense of wanting to follow His direction, I still, to a certain extent, incorporated Him into the life I had built.  I believe God is calling us to forsake everything for His calling.  This may result in job changes, or loss of friends (even Christian friends), but we HAVE to be willing to forsake all for the sake of Him, and His eternal purposes.  Since making the jump He has used my wife and I to build a foundation of the kingdom in our community, and I sense in my spirit that major changes are in store for us, and our community, all by His grace and working.

Like Paul stated, I do not count myself has having fully achieved the fullness of this idea.  There are still parts of my life that are not given over, and I have made some major mistakes in the past 3 years, some of which I will financially pay for for the next 4-5 years, and have paid for emotionally for the past 2 years.  These mistakes were made because I didn’t, in these areas, endeavor to seek His specific direction, and instead did what seemed right to me.  He is gracious, however, and has provided for me and my family in spite of these things.

I believe that life is cyclical.  The Lord has a direction He wants us to go, and if we miss it, He will cycle us back to give us a chance again, and again, and again!  He is so patient!  I encourage all of us to have our spiritual ears attuned to when He may be bringing us to a jumping off point, and have the courage to trust Him to take the jump.

A lot has been going through my mind since attending the worship conference.  It is interesting to look back at the notes that I took, and the things that I learned, and realize that the impact of the experience goes way beyond the sum total of all I learned there.  There was a very specific impartation there, which has put my mind to thinking in a different manner.  I feel that in the next month or two I will come to some new understanding on things, compared to how I see now, and that is why I am putting a date on this post title.  I believe the impact of that will be far-reaching, and want to reserve the right to return to that at any point!

I want to give links to the first two posts regarding the conference.  For some reason the Day 2 post had a pretty high readership, but either no one, or virtually no one, read the first post, or at least as far as I can tell.  There were some thoughts in the first post that were ground-breaking for me, so I wanted to share both links again, in case anyone missed the first one.

Worship Is Death

Today was day two of the worship conference.  We had some nice acoustic worship in the morning, with a more contemporary service this evening.  I have an eclectic selection of things to share tonight, but hopefully everything will tie together in the end!

Praise and worship has always, or at least always as long as I’ve been alive, played a prominent role in the average church service.  Some congregations still sing hymns only, some are into the latest and greatest new material, and others are somewhere in between.  No matter the genre of music played, I think there has been a general misunderstanding of the purpose and function of praise and worship in the church today.  Usually the music is seen as a prelude to the rest of the service, an introduction so to speak, maybe a means to prepare hearts to receive the message brought by the pastor.  Often times, in our time-pressed society, the music is limited to a specific time period, because “the show must go on”.  All of these views miss the true purpose of worship.

Why Do We Worship?

1. Worship is partially vertical, between us and God.  It is us ministering to God, and God ministering to us.  As a part of this point, I want to take a little rabbit trail.  One of the speakers today was a Rodney DuCroq.  Rodney, like the other speakers for the conference, has an extensive background in leading worship, and he spoke on the 4 Faces of Worship, based on Revelations 4:7.  He taught the following regarding the 4 Beasts, and the seasons of worship they represent:
   1. The Ox (or calf)  The ox was a beast of burden, so the ox represents labor.  This is labor intensive worship, for the purpose of accomplishing things in the spirit that need to be accomplished.  This often times deals with breaking hard ground, like plowing a field that has never been plowed.  The ox also represents sacrifice, as in a sacrifice of praise.  This goes back to what I wrote about yesterday, that worship often involves dying to self, to bring about obedience to Christ.  We subjugate our own desires to accomplish His.
   2. The Man – this represents God ministering to man, as well as man ministering to man.  God wants to minister to us, so in this respect worship is vertical.  Ephesians 5:26 describes Jesus sanctifying His bride, “by the washing of water with the word”.  We need to view worship as a two way street.  We bring praise and worship to Him, but He also uses the experience to speak things into the world, either into our personal lives, or to speak things into the world that He is wanting to do.
   3. The Eagle – The eagle has great sight.  He can see for great distances, and God wants us to have His sight, His vision, concerning where we are in His grand plan.
   4. The Lion – The lion seems to represent victory, a season of praise where the people of God are exuberant in their worship, celebrating the greatness of  God.
2. As stated above, we worship to minister to one another.  Usually in the church today, and this is true of my past worship experiences, we get into the worship service, and form our own little  ‘worship cocoon’.  We are totally focused on God, and see nothing of those around us.  God wants us to minister to one another  in our praise and worship.  Three verses bear this out.
   1. Ephesians 5:15-19 – speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, etc.
   2. Colossians 3:12-16 – teaching and admonishing one another with psalms, hymns, etc.

Why should we want to minister to one another?  Because each of us has a representation of Christ that is unique on the earth.  If I am only receiving the part of Christ that is in the worship team, I am missing out on the parts of Christ that are in the rest of the body.   We’ve discussed this issue extensively in the blogosphere as it pertains to our meetings at large, but I believe, as was shared at the conference, that this same principle applies in our worship as well.

3.  We should not be relying on the music team to lead all the worship.  In 1 Corinthians 14:26, each one had a psalm, a hymn or a spiritual song, etc.  We are all responsible to minister to one another.

4.  Worship and music are not synonymous.  Worship can be done in the context of music, but not all music represents true worship.  True worship should be an extension of a life that is lived continuously in worship of Him.

Finally, Douglas made the following point:  “”If your worship is not built into the greater context of God’s eternal purpose it lacks the ability to impact the earth.”  In other words, if we are not continually seeking to know His purposes on the earth, both seasonal and eternal, our worship will just be music sung in unison.  If we want to see our worship become truly powerful and life-changing, we must worship, again, in the context of His purposes.

So, in short form, we need to see our worship as a life-changing and world-changing interaction, between God and man, and between man and man.  It is an important ministry in and of itself, not just an intro to some other, more important thing.

Unfortunately, this is new enough information for me that I can’t provide the biblical references for all the points that were made.  If you have specific questions regarding this, please feel free to comment ad I’ll get more details.  There are probably important details I’ve left out, but if I think of other things I’ve left out or mis-stated I’ll post again later.

One of my biggest pet peeves lately is the general lack of understanding in the body on what it means to be a man in the Kingdom.  I have seen multiple instances lately of men in the church, and often times in “the church”, doing things to further their own ambition or desires, to the detriment of, or at the expense of, their wives.  For example, some men place a lot of importance in their hobbies.  Whether it be golf, hunting or something else, the tendency is to make this activity a priority, without regard for its effect on the spouse.  No expense is spared, either in the way of time off from work or the expense of the actual activity, to allow the man his good time, but when it comes time for his wife to spend money scrapbooking, as an example, it is “just a stupid hobby” or a “waste of money”, and therefore is either restricted, not allowed, or allowed grudgingly.  This is just one simple example, but the fact of life is that men in America do not understand what it means to be a true Man of God.  While the purpose of this post is not to bash men, I think we need to examine this issue, so we understand our roles as husbands.  I imagine that the average reader of this blog already understands these things, but I felt like getting on my soap box.

I love Ephesians 5:25-30

²⁵Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, ²⁶so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, ²⁷that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. ²⁸So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; ²⁹for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, ³⁰because we are members of His body.

I think we all understand the depth of the sacrifice of Christ.  He gave all He had, all He was, to redeem for Himself a radiant bride.  To this day He is patient with us, to see His bride brought to perfection.  Having said this, how many men in the church approach their relationships with their wives from this perspective?  I know I didn’t early on.  I remember when we were engaged, and working on the wedding list, I used to moan and complain about not wanting to work on wedding things all the time.  Or when my wife didn’t want to move into the master bedroom of our house when we moved until we had the room completely finished.   I didn’t understand, so I complained, every night.  Now, I didn’t complain too bitterly, but bitterly enough.  Even worse than these things there have been plenty of times where I got angry, because of my perception of being wronged, and complained internally that things just weren’t fair.  Over time, I have learned one simple thing:  this is my job.  I am responsible to lay down my life for my wife, to subjugate my wants and my needs in order to further her well-being, to support her as she walks her path with the Lord.  The end-result is the “Proverbs 31” wife, a woman that has reached the fulness of her potential in Christ.  Now, in a good relationship, the same process is going on in the wife.  She is submitting herself to her husband (with the end result that both are submitting themselves to each other), and supporting her husband, being patient when he doesn’t live up to the fulness of his husbandly responsibilities.  In reality this street is supposed to go both ways.  In the end, however, whether or not the wife is adequately considering her husband, the husband has the RESPONSIBILITY to consider his wife above himself.

1 Corinthians 11:3 says “³But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ.”.  Paul later states in verse 7:  “For a man ought not to have his head covered, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man.”  The intention of this post is not to discuss head coverings.  The part I want to emphasize is that the woman is the glory of man.  I take these verses in conjunction with Ephesians 5, and the picture I see is of the husband laying down his life for his wife, in order to foster her spiritual growth and development, with the end result being his radiant bride, who is his glory, as 1 Corinthians mentions.  Now I understand that in Ephesians 5:32 Paul states he is speaking of the mystery of Christ and the church.  This is the greater truth here.  But the correlation still holds between husband and wife.

Now, I fear that I risk offending some of my sisters in Christ with the above passages.  I think our society has grossly misunderstood the idea of “gender roles” in the bible, and has given the picture that the “female role” is something to be shunned, while encouraging women to strive to achieve to the male role.  This is a huge mis-service to women, and to the body.  I can not go into specifics of what the “gender roles” should be in the body, as I can’t claim to have full revelation on that issue.  This is not the purpose of this post.  My purpose here is to speak in generalities, that there are specific roles that men and women are supposed to fill in the body, and each is vitally important, and each sex is specifically made to carry out their respective roles.  Notice in 1 Corinthians 11:3 that “God is the head of Christ”.  Even Christ Himself willingly submits Himself to the headship of the father.  The point here is not to point a finger at our sisters in Christ, command them to submit and then dominate them.  The point is, again, that God intended each sex to fulfill certain roles, and expected Christ to fulfill His role (which he already has), and nowhere in this equation does a person’s worth or value even come into play.  The worth and value of each sex is inherent and unquestionable, and the value of each role is unquestionable.  Again, it is a simple matter of roles.  And again, I won’t go into those roles here!  I will say that each sex will find true fulfillment and freedom when fulfilling those roles.

Well, I fear that I’ve taken a bunny trail, and not even stated what I sat out to say in doing so.  I hope that I’ve made my point clear, and have not brought offense to anyone.