Rest and Burnout Series, parts 7 & 8 (re-post) Suffering, Restoration, and Rest & Moving In The Opposite Spirit of Cynicism
Suffering, Restoration, and Rest
I will restore (repay) to you the years that the swarming
locust has eaten,
the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army,
which I sent among you.
-Joel 2:25 (ESV)
It is hard to rest when we focus on our losses,
disappointments, and unfulfilled dreams; but we must.
What about all this lost time? Why do we have to wait
for our promises? Not to have what we have dreamed about and been
promised is a loss and we keep losing time in the time between the times.
But God is the great restorer. The whole Bible is a
story of restoration. God is all about restoration.
While you wait, God is upgrading you in many areas;
stretching you and maturing you: enlarging your heart. God walks beside you
in your losses, when you are betrayed, passed over, and hurt. You are
growing in faith, hope, and love. You are learning deeper and deeper
forgiveness and grace. You must choose God a thousand times over
bitterness.
The person called to healing ministry that prays for a
thousand people without success or the person called to write or preach
messages that writes or preaches a thousand times with little fruit; what is
the difference inside of them after the one thousand compared to how they would
be if they had immediate success? The "one thousand step"
people experience a lot of pain through the one thousand, a lot of death to
self. Finally, they are doing it (there could be a hundred other
examples), for One. They are doing it from and to love. They are
praying for the sick out of the Father's heart for the sick or writing and
preaching out of God's love.
So, you might think that there's something wrong when your
gift does not work or is not called upon; but God is implementing a larger,
deeper, longer plan for you.
You will also notice people along your journey who seem to
have had it easy. They got married easily, had children easily, found a
great job, or are living in prosperity, got healed, have succeeded in ministry;
and the list goes on and on. Two things: You don't know their suffering-
God's unique plan for their lives which also involves their personal brokenness
and you are called (like Peter in John
21:22) to follow him and not compare yourself to other people. Jesus
had to tell Peter that it's none of his business what he does with the other
person. You have to find your way as a unique child of God. God has
a perfect plan for you that very well may involve delays.
When God shows us his plans for us (Jer.
29:11), it is a destination that requires a journey and it is a finished
thing that requires building, starting with a foundation and that all takes
time.
"I will restore the years"
“It will strike you at once that the locusts did not eat the
years: the locusts ate the fruits of the years’ labor, the harvests of the
fields; so that the meaning of the restoration of the years must be the
restoration of those fruits and of those harvests which the locusts consumed.
You cannot have back your time; but there is a strange and wonderful way in
which God can give back to you the wasted blessings, the unripened fruits of
years over which you mourned. The fruits of wasted years may yet be yours.”
(Charles Spurgeon)
In your in-between-time, you feel like you are dying.
Your patience is stretched and broken. You are not resting well.
You are getting burned out, standing still. You cry, "what's
happening to me?" Job went through a terrible time of
suffering. He lost everything except his wife, some friends, and
God. Job is a long, 42 chapter book in the Old Testament. Job tries
to figure out why. Job's friends try to figure out why. Job gets
some bad advice from his friends and his wife. Job never gets the answer
to the why question.
In his loss and perplexity (suffering), Job cries out:
"Though He slay me, yet I will trust him."
-Job 13:15
This is what Oswald Chambers has to say about this
statement:
- God
frequently has to knock the bottom out of your experience as His saint to
get you in direct contact with Himself.
- God
wants you to understand that it is a life of faith, not a life
of emotional enjoyment of His blessings.
- The
beginning of your life of faith was very narrow and intense, centered
around a small amount of experience that had as much emotion as faith in
it, and it was full of light and sweetness.
- Then
God withdrew His conscious blessings to teach you to “walk by faith” (2
Corinthians 5:7) And you are worth much more to Him now than you were
in your days of conscious delight with your thrilling testimony.
- Faith
by its very nature must be tested and tried and the real trial of faith is
not that we find it difficult to trust God, but that God’s character must
be proven as trustworthy in our own minds.
- Faith
being worked out into reality must experience times of unbroken isolation.
- Never
confuse the trial of faith with the ordinary discipline of life, because a
great deal of what we call the trial of faith is the inevitable result of
being alive.
- Faith,
as the Bible teaches it, is faith in God coming against everything that contradicts
Him— a faith that says, “I will remain true to God’s character whatever He
may do.”
- The
highest and the greatest expression of faith in the whole Bible is—
“Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15).
-Oswald Chambers, My Utmost, June 20
"When it was beyond hope, he had faith in the hope (Even when there was no reason for hope, Abraham kept hoping-) that he would become the father of many nations, in keeping with the promise God spoke to him: That’s how many descendants you will have."
-Romans 4:18
Abraham was in the midst of a 25 year wait for his promise.
In our instant culture, waiting this long seems unimaginable, but big things
and big times sometime require big waits. A man named Jason wrote this:
..at the ages of 75 and 65, long after their bodies were as good as dead, and they had settled in their hearts that they would never have kids, God shows up, tells Abraham to leave his father's household and head somewhere in "that" direction, and promised him the one thing Abraham and Sarah had been praying about for years: Abraham would be the father of many nations.
But the odds were stacked against them.
They had tried for decades to have a child, and were never able to conceive. They were leaving their home, the only place where they found support and encouragement and knew that people were praying for them. They were going to make a long journey to only God knew where, and they knew that Sarah was well beyond child-birthing years. The circumstances weren't looking too good.
But Abraham still believed.
In a place with no hope, in a situation where logic and science told them that God's promise would never come about, in circumstances that shouted that God didn't want to give Abraham and Sarah a son... Abraham dared to hope...
And received the promise of Isaac 25 years later.
Maybe, that promise you've been holding onto isn't dead just yet. Maybe that marriage you're believing for, that child you're praying for or that job you're looking for is going to happen. Maybe the deepest desires of your heart really will be yours.
Maybe, just maybe, the waiting is an opportunity to hope.
And so, my brothers and sisters, as you journey through your promise, waiting for God to bring about what He said He would, may you remember to hope. May you keep your eyes on Him rather than the circumstances. And may you, as you dare to hope that God will keep His promise to you, see that promise come to pass...
Even if it is 25 years in the making.
Daring to hope...Jason
Near the end of Abraham and Sarah's wait, they both laughed
when God told each of them that the baby will be here in about a year. I
believe their laughs were a bit cynical or out of incredulity. Then God
said, "as a matter of fact, you are to name the child Isaac".
Isaac means "he laughs". God will turn their incredulous
laughter to joyous laughter.
If you have ever received a promise that you waited a long
time for, you know that having the promise makes the wait worth it. God
really does restore those years that the locust figuratively ate in your
life. We can rest in peace as we wait with God, who has upgrade upon
upgrade for us in our spiritual growth, preparing us to be the person he sees
us as in the future.
Part 8
Rest Series: Moving In The Opposite Spirit of Cynicism
In this post, I want to share the idea that we can move in
the opposite spirit that our flesh wants to take us. We get to do
something in our spiritual growth. We get to walk by the Spirit and add
more into our spiritual lives, like someone adding weights at the gym or increasing
the distance or altitude of their walk, run, or hike. And all of the good
fruit that we're seeking to move in doesn't come from our efforts, but from
Christ. He paid for the exchange. Following him means we get the
exchange, the "in place of" or "instead of".
"But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not
gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are
against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for
these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to
do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity,
sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger,
rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy,[a]
drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before,
that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom
of God
But the fruit of the Spirit is love,
joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness,
self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to
Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires." Galatians
5:16-24 (ESV) [a. Some manuscripts add murder.]
"By his divine power the Lord has given us
everything we need for life and godliness through the knowledge of the one who
called us by his own honor and glory. Through his honor and glory he has given
us his precious and wonderful promises, that you may share the divine nature
and escape from the world’s immorality that sinful craving produces.
This is why you must make every effort to
add moral excellence to your faith; and to moral excellence, knowledge; and to
knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, endurance; and to endurance,
godliness; and to godliness, affection for others; and to affection for others,
love. If all these are yours and they are growing in you, they’ll keep you from
becoming inactive and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Whoever lacks these things is shortsighted and blind, forgetting that they were
cleansed from their past sins.
Therefore, brothers and sisters, be eager to
confirm your call and election. Do this and you will never ever be lost. In
this way you will receive a rich welcome into the everlasting kingdom of our
Lord and savior Jesus Christ." 2 Peter 1:3-11 (CEB)
The Lord has given us everything we need. We have to
procure it, desire it, take hold of it, get activated in it, and develop
it. From the beginning, men and women have had to do something towards
God and towards their own spiritual growth. It has always been a
partnership and a covenant where both sides do something. This is in no
way to be confused with you earning your spiritual place or saving
yourself. It is always with God and towards God, even when you are
"in the dark" and have no sense of God.
What will I give my attention to, gaze at, look for, or move
in and towards? What we give our attention to is what we become.
You could call this the beholding - becoming principle. If you constantly
focus on not doing bad things, then you may become a person of good law; like a
good police person or judge; and then as a Christian, your witness becomes
that. If you are just a love person, saying "all you need is
love", without mentioning our savior; then as a Christian, you convey a
cross-less Christianity where we can all just say we're sorry and hold hands in
a circle.
It is about love and it is about doing good, but we can only
love because God loves and we can only do good through God because of
Christ. The person who has become cynical is constantly focused on the
wrong thing: they have a warped lens. We can intentionally change the
lens and start living differently, feeding our souls on the opposite of the
hurtful, heart sick, and bitter ways of cynicism.
Earlier, I wrote about how the ugly by-product of burnout is
cynicism. Burnout is the result of lack of rest. Burnout may also
be the result of continual disappointment that has not been put to rest.
Loses need to be grieved. Grief is a gift from God.
If you have a disappointment and you don't make appointments
to meet with God, you start to believe that disappointment is the rule or way
of life and you feed off it. As the saying goes, "you are what you
eat". Burnout needs rest and a plugging back into God for renewal
and refreshment. Burnout not turned to God goes into cynicism. What
if your disappointment is all the time: "my life is a
disappointment"? Then you need to get a new life. You can not
see the kingdom of God
The believer's walk with God results in the fruit of
God. We have to do something: Walk by the Spirit and partake of Jesus in
communion with him. Do you commune with Jesus? We become like the
people we spend time with.
The Christian life is not getting in a wheel barrow and
having Jesus or other brothers and sisters carry us. Actually Jesus paid
for the road he wants us to walk on and other brothers and sisters are meant to
help us along the way. Along the journey, we get to hear each others
story and share our dreams and encourage one another as we walk by the Spirit
and partake of Christ in community.
We have to move in the ways of God, rather than just
standing against the ways of hell or the works, ways, thoughts, ideas, and
arguments of the flesh. Some Christians are known for what they don't do
or for what they are against, but Jesus said his followers would be known by
their love. What are you for? What do you vote "yes" to,
with your feet, and with your words and thoughts and deeds? Those that
love, naturally don't do destructive things. Those that love God love as
God loves. They love their neighbor and love themselves. How are
you doing with love?
Some people are so afraid of legalism or earning their place
in God through works, that they are phobic or allergic to doing. The phrase,
"just do it", when applied to the Christian life even scares
them. To that person, I say this: What I am writing about starts in
your thoughts, in your being. It is all about looking at your savior who
did it all. It has all already been done for you. I believe in the church
of the walking wounded. We don't wait till we are ready to go or to fight or to
work. We don't pretend we are not wounded or broken, but we know that God
uses wounded and broken people.
When we have a negative in our lives, like cynicism; we need
to move in the opposite spirit.
Please look at Isaiah 61, especially verse 3:
"The Lord God’s spirit is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me.
He has sent me
to bring good news to the poor,
to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim release for captives,
and liberation for prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
and a day of vindication for our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
to provide for Zion
to give them a crown in place of ashes,
oil of joy in place of mourning,
a mantle of praise in place
of discouragement.
They will be called Oaks of Righteousness,
planted by the Lord to glorify himself.
They will rebuild the ancient ruins;
they will restore formerly deserted places;
they will renew ruined cities,
places deserted in generations past."
Isaiah 61:1-4 (CEB)
I learned about moving in the opposite spirit from wonderful
Graham Cooke: God wants to give us the opposite of the negative. He
has an instead of or in place of for us. Instead of cynicism, God wants
to give us a trusting, optimistic spirit. Do you know who the most
optimistic and positive person is? This person is also the most
intelligent person in the world and loves Jesus more than anything. You
might have guessed. The Holy Spirit. He wants to fill our
lives. He's not a bit discouraged, cynical, or disillusioned.
All the facets and manifestations of cynicism have been
getting free reign in the lives of some people. God wants to replace
these negatives with godly positives. Each of the positives are our new
map. As we travel in God in them and toward God in them, we grow in God
in them, deeper.
Cynical definitions and opposites:
In place of: Negativity
- Positivity
In place of: Distrust
- Trust
In place of: Disdain: {To regard or treat with haughty
contempt; despise. To consider or reject as beneath oneself. A
feeling or show of contempt and aloofness; scorn. From Old French desdeign, from desdeigner to
reject as unworthy. Disregard, despise, hate, indifference, and arrogance.}
- Admiration,
love, favor, praise, respect, honor, esteem, adore, cherish, accept,
toleration, veneration, appreciation.
In place of: Skepticism:
- Optimism,
trust, faith
In place of: Sarcasm
- Kindness,
praise, accolade, commendation, or compliment
In place of: Misanthropic (distrustful, suspicious)
- Trusting,
unsuspicious, cheerful, optimistic, idealist, romantic, and
sentimental.
In place of: Sardonic (disdainfully or skeptically
humorous : derisively mocking)
- Gentle,
playful, amusing, gracious, affable, diplomatic, and hospitable.
Moving in the opposite spirit from cynicism is described
below:
- Positivity:
being a positive person.
- Trust:
trusting, willing to trust, willing to give a chance, to give permission.
- Admiration
- love
- favor
- praise
- respect
- honor
- esteem
- love
- adore
- cherish
- accept
- toleration
- veneration
- appreciation
- Optimism
- faith
- Kindness
- praise
- accolades
- commendations
- complimentary
- Unsuspicious
- cheerful
- idealistic
- romantic
- sentimental
- Gentle
- playful
- amusing
- gracious
- affable
- diplomatic
- hospitable
These are ways that are the opposite of cynical. These
are a list of the ways that are not natural for the person who has been cynical
as a defense. To come out of cynicism it is not enough to just stop it,
but doing the opposite dis-empowers it and the enemy's power in the sinful,
fleshly realm.
There are 7 points and 30 sub-points. These are just
my notes, my sketch of what the opposite of cynicism is to me. A work in
progress. I might have left dimensions out that apply to your experience.
You can do the same thing: writing down the negative and then the
opposite. They are not affirmations, but positive thrusts at the negative
ways that cynicism manifests in the person who is burned out.
When you move in the opposite of the ways of the sinful
nature or in destructive ways, you are moving in harmony with God's ways:
loving, gracious, faithful, hopeful, wise, or merciful; for example, and God
gains ground and the enemy loses ground in you life. When this process
happens, you are growing towards becoming the person God sees you as in the
future. You can make a prayer list of these positive opposites.
When we are heart sick in burnout, we are not inspired to pray. These
exercises can help you pray.
Comments
Post a Comment