Tim Clark’s Blog

Many of us find it nearly impossible to stay still. “If you’re not moving, you are dying”; sometimes that seems like the battle cry of our culture. We feel we must maintain momentum—the big MO—in personal and organizational life at all costs. To sit still and wait is a vice; initiative, energy, and ambition are embraced as the virtuous mark of somebody who really has something going for them.

If the next step or the right answer escapes us we can easily find ourselves depressed and/or in despair. So what do we do when momentum is absent? What goes on when there is no clear path ahead and life must slow down for just a moment? When patience is required, do we even have the capacity for it? Is there ever a time when it is right to refuse to grasp for our own solution?

I think there are moments God specifically leads us into where we don’t know the solution and aren’t sure we ever will. It is during those critical points that we can choose to grasp and manipulate our way towards an answer, or we can sit still before the God who knows all answers.

Elijah found himself stuck in this kind of moment. He needed an answer. Desperately. If anybody deserved a response to a sticky situation, Elijah certainly did. He had served God with dynamic passion and was forced to run for his life against an arch enemy of the Lord (read about it in 1 Kings 19). He was at the end of his rope. He was tired. He was alone. He didn’t know what was next. He asked God to take his life—“and would you take it now please”. I’ll say it again: Elijah really needed an answer!

But God didn’t give him an answer; at least not right away. He asked Elijah a question instead: “What are you doing here, Elijah?” And then God gave him a directive “Go wait for my presence to pass by”.

And he did. And as he waited for God’s presence to pass by a curious thing happened. First there was an epic wind—the kind that tears apart buildings and throws boulders as if they were pebbles. This is an incident that would surely seem, to most onlookers, like the manifestation of God’s presence. But in his heart, Elijah knew better.

Next came the earthquake. If I were Elijah I might be worried that God was somewhat frustrated with me for passing up the wind, that maybe the earthquake was the Lord’s way of shaking me to wake me up to what He was trying to do or say: “why haven’t you got moving yet, Tim?” The earthquake may have jolted Elijah but his resolve was not shaken.

After the earthquake came the blazing five-alarm fire. Fire (and wind for that matter) is often Biblically understood as representing God’s presence; surely this was the opportunity Elijah was waiting for. Even if he wasn’t yet 100% sure, fire as a sign when you are waiting for God to show up is about as close as it gets. He could have settled for that sign, but he didn’t budge.

By this point If Elijah had friends around, they would probably have said, “Hey, Eli, you are missing out on some great opportunities here—what in the world are you waiting for?”

Three separate opportunities to jump at a chance to get in on something powerful; something stirring; something that looked a lot like action and momentum. Nobody would have blamed Elijah for assuming God had been passing by and for interpreting what that meant for him. Surely action here was warranted. But he was committed to wait for the unambiguous presence of the Lord. He didn’t know how that would show up, but he was confident he would know it when he saw it.

And then he heard it: The gentle whisper—the still, small voice of the Lord. That was it! God was speaking and now He would show Elijah what was supposed to come next.

As I reflected on this passage, I discovered something: I think this story helps us understand what Sabbath is supposed to be about. Sabbath is a day to remind me to stop and wait. This is a day where I remember that it’s not my effort, activity, or grasping that produces what I really need in my life. Sabbath is a day when I allow great-looking opportunities that might help me gain momentum to pass right on by. And the day of Sabbath is really a weekly reminder that I need to always live with an attitude of Sabbath (Hebrews 4) where my trust is placed in God alone and not in what I can manipulate, manufacture, massage, or manage.

When I feel like I’ve given my all out on the field; when I feel like I’m all alone; when I feel like I want to curl up and die; I don’t just jump on the momentum train to work up more energy or excitement or drive. Sometimes I have to let the parade pass right by—wind… earthquake… fire—and keep on waiting for that still small voice that I recognize as the Lord.

So here are some of the questions I ask myself in this: Do I demand an answer now or will I let God ask me the questions in his timing? Do I need to move the ball down the field, or will I allow The Lord to tell me to sit on the bench for a while until He sends me in for the play He has uniquely designed for me? I may tenaciously grasp a hold of an opportunity to propel myself to the next step, but if I’m not careful it will be a step that can take me far from God’s intended purpose for my life. Or as one friend is fond of saying “be careful what you ask for; you might be unfortunate enough to get it”.

I’m going to be talking some more about this on Sunday. If you are around San Dimas, CA and aren’t plugged into a church, I’d love to hang out with you at Lifehouse.

This morning in my devotions I found myself wrestling over Jeremiah 34. Here God’s people had made a decision to obey His directive to set their slaves free. But, like many of us, after they made the decision to walk in obedience, they went back on that promise because it wasn’t convenient. They went back and re-enslaved their brother and sister Israelites.

In response, the Lord says the following: “Therefore, this is what the Lord says: You have not obeyed me; you have not proclaimed freedom for your fellow countrymen. So now I declare ‘freedom’ for you, declares the Lord—‘freedom’ to fall by the sword, plague and famine…”

“Freedom” to be destroyed…I don’t want to walk in that kind of freedom! I don’t literally own any slaves, but it’s not difficult to see how I can enslave others though unforgiveness. When I hold a thing over another’s head and bitterly declare that “they owe me one”, I’m not letting them walk in freedom, and in a sense, I ‘own’ them.

I must bring freedom to others by forgiving them. I have to let go of any hold I may feel I have on someone else. If I won’t forgive—or if I say I will forgive but actually don’t—then I will find myself in captivity and will be destroyed by things from which I am currently being protected. This passage seems to indicate that God is preserving me from things He will stop protecting me against if I don’t extend freedom to others. That’s scary. It reminds me of another potentially scary thing Jesus said in Matthew 6:15 “If you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins”. It’s pretty clear in the Old Testament and the New: A life of forgiveness for others is an absolute prerequisite to living a truly free existence.

My prayer today is that the Holy Spirit would show me where I have not forgiven others and may have allowed a bitter root to take hold in my life. “Lord, let me honestly ‘free’ others from what they may owe me so that I can walk in your true freedom!”

A couple of weeks ago I had the privilege of speaking in the pulpit of East Hill Church in Gresham, Oregon. This Church means a lot to me, as its last three leaders are men of God who I  respect.

Jerry Cook is, in my opinion, a rock star (though I’ll bet he’d hate my using that term) when it comes to waking the church up to the need for Missional theology and practice. It’s recorded in a book that is still in print: Love, Acceptance, and Forgiveness. He wrote it 30 years ago. When nobody was talking about the Missional church, he and his congregation were living it!

Ted Roberts has helped the church see the need to teach healthy Biblical sexuality. In a culture that has given itself over to unhealthy sexuality that leads people into bondage, Ted has had the courage to stand up and declare liberation from satanic oppression and freedom to healthy God-ordained and honoring sexual functioning.

Jason Albelo is a good friend of mine. He’s younger than me by a few years (not too many!), and has been leading East Hill for only a short season. He represents the best of the new generation of pastors and leaders who are emerging into significant places of influence in the Foursquare Church. I can’t wait to see the impact he makes on our world from the pulpit of that great church.

Anyways, if you want to see my sermon about wrestling with an uncertain future (a word God gave me a few weeks ago as I was wrestling about what He had for me), you can find it at this link for a couple of more weeks.

Grace,

Tim Clark

This is part deux of my most recent blog post. Though I learned quite a bit about myself— including about some obsessive patterns—during my online slow-down, I am in no way suggesting we throw out the baby with the bathwater. Telling someone to stop emailing or Facebooking because they do it too much would be like saying that if a person talks on the phone too much then they should smash their cell phones and rip the land-line out of their wall.

As technology progresses, we have a responsibility to choose how to use it for good. What I have found in my own life, however, is that when new technology arrives, I tend to uncritically dive head first into a full embrace of its use without first determining how it needs to work for me as a tool. In other words, I end up giving it a measure of control over me instead of making sure I am controlling it.

This all reminds me of something Jesus says in Luke 16:13 “No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.”

Money; Career; Technology…I can probably swap a number of words here and remain true to Jesus’ meaning. These kinds of things are designed to serve us as we live effectively and freely in the Lord. If we start serving them, they become idols.

I am also drawn to something that Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:12 “Everything is permissible for me”—but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible for me”—but I will not be mastered by anything.”

As a Pastor and a Dean of Students at a College, I find online social networking valuable. As a friend to many who use these tools I find them constructive to relationship. There are people who I’ve reconnected with and encouraged (and been encouraged by) through this technology that I would have missed otherwise—and that would have been a real loss.

But I don’t want to ever be controlled by anything, even if that thing is permissible…even if it is beneficial. If I find myself unfocused or distracted or mastered by anything, then I need to re-assess its place in my life and regain mastery over it. If I am a slave to anything, I have lost control, and that is not the stance of a person who has been liberated in Christ.

Or, as the poet Bob Dylan sang, “You’re gonna have to serve somebody”!

Six weeks ago, I told everyone that I would take the month of July off of blogging, twittering, and Facebooking. I also declared that I would check my email infrequently and only get on the Internet when I needed to. This was in response to a growing dependence on electronic communications and social networking. So the questions are: How did I do, and, what did I learn?

First: How did I do? Honestly it was a mixed bag. The first week I found myself often reaching for my iphone to start to check twitter updates or email, and then realized I had made a commitment not to do that. I have to admit that my hands were a bit shaky and my eyes darted around like an addict looking for his next fix (OK, that’s an exaggeration, but it’s a bit what I felt like). Fortunately, that feeling didn’t last long. About 10 days into it, I really didn’t care.

But it wasn’t all success. Though I mostly refrained from checking my work email at home, and I didn’t look at it at all on my 3-week vacation, I still got sucked in more than 3 times a day. And I did find myself surfing the Internet after having done some “necessary” research or gathering of news.

Second: What did I learn? The first thing I discovered was the liberation of my attention. I’m generally not a “focus on the cell phone instead of a conversation” type of person, but before this season, in most of my down moments I would find myself popping open an app to check twitter updates or Facebook status or email. What I realized was that in the in-between moments of life—in minutes or even seconds when there is nothing to do—is when we are surprised by everyday grace. When I default to my iphone, I tend to miss the people walking by, the overheard snippets of conversations, or the beautiful sunset sky. More importantly, I miss the opportunity to notice something that should be attended to: A hurting or lonely person, a child who would love to play, or a challenge that needs to be prayed over. I learned that taking time to breathe, and think, and letting margins stay margins, is a really good thing for a human being to engage in.

I also learned that instant communication is rarely necessary. Most emails used to hit me with gale-force urgency, pleading with me to answer in the blink of an eye. Text messages are even worse; people know I have my phone with me and can find a little time to text back! Twitter and Facebook tended to seduce me into following tangents of conversations and observations to which I felt I must contribute. Email, text messages and social networking isn’t bad in and of itself, but they should not drive me or own me and I learned that I shouldn’t feel guilty if it takes me a day or two to respond to folks.

I learned more, but I’m not going to share it all right now. If ever. Because that is another thing I learned; everybody doesn’t need to know everything we are thinking. Sometimes its OK to learn something and treasure it in my heart for a while. Not every observation and experience needs to become a blog post or a twitter update. We don’t need to position ourselves to become the electronic equivalent of the kid in the class who knows everything: Maybe sometimes we should be the old, wise person at the meeting who says one thing, but it is radically profound.

Finally, I learned that after being off of all of this for a month, my friends are still my friends, the work I needed to do got done, and nobody is really any worse off for my absence. I’ll go back to using some of these tools, but I’m still in the process of figuring out how and how much I want to use them. I would encourage anybody—especially if you lead other people—to take some level of break or slow-down from electronic communications, not because the tools are bad (I’m still convinced they are valuable) but because it will help you redefine what—and who—is important in your life.

Continued in part 2: Online Social Networking as the Servant, not the Master