"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me – watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”
HUMMINGBIRD
Bruce Hogarth from GMI was leading our discussions on rest, authenticity and passion throughout the weekend and the Sunday morning discussion was on how to practically live out those things in our lives. We were in this great room that had 18 foot ceilings and at the top of the ceiling there were a couple of skylights. As Bruce was talking a little hummingbird flew in the door that we had open and pretty quickly realized that it had taken a wrong turn on its journey for the day. The hummingbird started semi-frantically flying into some of the windows trying to get back to what was familiar. Through this, Bruce kept teaching. After trying all of the windows, the trapped hummingbird flew up to the skylights to try to escape. This took place over about 10 minutes and the whole time, Bruce kept teaching about how to live out of rest. We were all watching Bruce and the bird at the same time. Finally, the bird exhausted itself and slowly fell to the floor. One of guys gently picked it up and took it outside.
At that point, all of us guys just looked at each other for a moment and laughed at God’s perfectly timed gift. I think that the vision of that hummingbird up the skylight beating its wings a million miles and hour and banging its beak against the glass will be forever burned in my mind.
BIRD HAD TO STOP FLYING AROUND BEFORE IT COULD BE RESCUED
We knew that it was pointless to try to rescue the hummingbird until it stopped trying to escape us. What are some of the reasons we keep us beating our wings and banging our heads instead of falling into God’s care?
FRANTIC ACTIVITY
If you are like me, you spend a lot of time in a flurry of activity or (for you “peacefuls”) maybe you sometimes feel anxious about not being active enough. I personally do both.
It’s hard for me to stop my frantic pace of activity. When you stop your frantic pace, you have to be honest about your own needfulness (neediness). It’s uncomfortable. God’s passionate pursuit of us is uncomfortable sometimes.
RESIST / PASSION IS UNCOMFORTABLE / ITS POWERFUL
One of the reasons that its hard is that it’s not just about giving a certain situation to God to fix. Its about letting go of all our little distractions and the things that we busy our mind with. And letting go of issues that we’ve allowed to own us and become too big. God doesn’t just fix a situation for us in a vacuum and then set us on our way. He desires that His passion consume us and that we receive healing at the deepest level.
When we resist His rest, we resist His Passion. God’s passion for us is a very powerful, sometimes scary thing.
ANNE LAMOTT
Anne is unique Christian writer. She probably won’t be invited to give the graduation speech at many Christian colleges.
(read passage)
Anne is not who most in the church would see as a pillar of the faith, but our great spiritual fathers and mothers were not normally accepted by the religious people. We need to take an honest look at the Biblical heroes and see who they really were.
NOAH
In Genesis 6, God chose Noah to take the most important role of his time. Noah’s passion in life was God and verse 9 of Chapter 6 sums it up by saying that Noah walked with God which is really what this Christian life thing is really all about. I don’t need to go through the story of Noah and the ark.
We know he was a man of incredible passion for God. We know he was obedient in the face of criticism. And we know that when the earth dried up and he left the ark he planted a vineyard, drank the wine and ended up drunk and naked in his tent. Let’s get this guy a seminary application!
When we need the kind of help and rescue that only God can provide, we sometimes continue to struggle on out of fear that the whole thing will collapse around us and we will be exposed.
PHARISEES
In scripture, the great men and women of the faith had their great moral failures exposed for all to see. It was the Pharisees who were so petrified of having their sin exposed. That’s why Jesus was such a threat. The Pharisees, like me, were afraid of being exposed.
We resist God’s passion because it’s difficult, as Bruce says, to come out from behind the bush.
Our shame doesn’t calculate into God’s equation though – He’s already dealt with it, so he keeps coming at us, asking us to be real with Him.
UNPOLISHEDNESS
God’s passion seeks the real and authentic. He draws close to our unpolishedness and least “shiny places” and often times that is exactly where he meets us. He views us according to our heart, which as Christians we know He has made pure, regardless if we have our life together or if it is falling apart.
OUR PASSION IS CHRIST
Noah’s passion according to scripture was God and he was in a very small minority of one. Scripture implies that he was the only person who was walking with God at the time. Noah’s passion wasn’t to build a boat or anything else. He didn’t ask, “What is my passion to do on this earth?” He was committed to his passion for God, and that led him to build the ark.
I’ve learned over the past 3.5 years of struggling with my own career that you can’t discover you passion by taking a personality test. Or by talking to people. Our passion as Christians is Christ and our only course of action is to in our imperfection throw ourselves into His passion for us and let him lead us toward whatever He has planned for us.
If you are not sure what to do with your life, pursue intimacy with God. I know that is a frustrating answer – and I know that because I am kind of there. God has led me out of one thing and I am still seeking him on the next step.
BALANCE
That can look pretty unbalanced at times. 100% Committed to Job Search.
Balance is a natural enemy of passion.
(read passage)
HERSCHEL WALKER
A deep passion requires that your life is unbalanced in that direction. Herschel Walker, the best running back ever at UGA, who carried the team to a national championship in 1980 and was the Heisman trophy winner 1982. As a kid was the family runt, was pudgy, had a speech impediment, and wasn’t even considered a natural athlete.
At age 12, however, he began a crash exercise program. Over the next year, he did 100,000 push-ups, 100,000 sit-ups and sprinted thousands of miles. All through his football career which ended in 1997, he maintained a training regime that included 2,000 push-ups, 3,000 sit-ups, 1500 pull-ups, 1000 dips DAILY.
That kind of passion for football and that type of commitment to training creates a healthy imbalance in life that the passion requires. “Your exercise is good but shouldn’t you balance it more?”
God doesn’t want us to worry about finding time for Him in the midst of our business. He asks us to be immersed and unbalanced in Him and allow Him to show us how to spend our time.
That’s what Jesus meant in Matt 10:34-39.
STOP RESISTING
Followers of Jesus have their PASSION already decided and its not a matter of balancing several priorities but to stop resisting. Let the cat in. Allow ourselves to come out from behind the bush. Let God pour His powerful Passion on us.
