Fears: Part 2 Fathers Day

Seeing that it is the day after Father’s Day and that I
haven’t posted another edition of my “Fears”
blogs, I’ve been saving this one for just the right moment. Hopefully this is
the right moment…

The other night while hanging out with God, I was
enlightened about my relationship with Him and our calling as a team for the
World Race October 2008. I was fearing
my inabilities and lack of gifts and strengths. Most people in our world have
different vocations and jobs and talents they can use to aid in the spreading
of Christ’s love, while I really don’t have anything that I’m really “good” at.
Perhaps I’m mediocre at a lot of different things and I can hold my own when it
comes to different tasks. But I don’t really have that one thing or those two
things that I’m really good at. Even when it comes to my job I just get by with
my work and lesson plans and such. I’m certainly not this great teacher or
youth director by any stretch of the imagination. And as far as the World Race
is concerned, I’ve never traveled before. I’m not good at articulating the
thoughts God puts in my head, including wisdom He’s given me, thoughts on
others’ teachings, and about His written Word. I’m not the most physically
strong guy you’ll ever meet, in fact far from it. I may have a desire to offer
myself, physically and mentally, for the sake of others, hoping to serve them
in any way I can, but I don’t even have the initiative to figure out how I can
help. I can’t think of anything within me that God could use to further His
Kingdom and that’s not even taking into consideration the sin that surrounds me,
keeping me from completing my task.

So I began to profess, with
the help of The Holy Spirit, who God is. And I realized that there are no
words that the tongue can form that will even begin to describe a fraction of
who God is. He just IS. I took a look at the stack of books sitting next to me
and I said:

I could study all of
the books written about God and become a great scholar and historian and
theologian, or, I could sit here in this very spot (on the couch) literally for
the rest of my life without doing anything at all… AND YOU ARE GOD.

And I thought about how I fail on an hourly basis to serve
God and to spend time with Him and praying and fasting with my World Race team.
And I said:

I could be completely
organized, planning out every little detail about The World Race, spending
every waking moment in prayer and fasting for my team and becoming an amazing
world traveler, or, I could be unorganized and unsure about how to prepare for
this trip and fail to pray and fast for this trip… AND YOU ARE GOD.

And I talked to God about how I’m inadequate in every way to
serve Him. And I said:

I could be like the
great theologians of yesterday and today. I could be like the well-known
missionaries, even like Paul, or like John the Baptist, calling a generation of
people to return to their Father, or, I could be some loser from central
Pennsylvania without any formal training in anything, not well-versed in
Scripture, and having an inability to communicate what is in my head… AND YOU
ARE GOD.

I thought back to when I was a young kid, playing my
Nintendo or riding my bike around the neighborhood pretending the mailboxes
were fast-food drive-thrus, and my dad would be out in the garage trying to
build something. It was probably a bookshelf or a fort or something for us
kids. And he would call me out into the garage to help him. Now keep in mind,
I’m not the best with tools and before this one incident I’m not sure I ever
even picked up a real hammer. But my dad handed me some wood pieces, a nail,
and a hammer. I did what every little kid does the first time they pick up a hammer
and nail, and I missed. I couldn’t even get the nail set so I could use two
hands on the hammer. And I’m swinging away at this nail and hitting the board
over and over. And finally, as all of you have guessed, I smashed my finger
(don’t ask surprised)… So long story short, I was useless to my dad in his
ultimate plan for this bookshelf. 

Even before I stepped foot in that garage I was of no
practical use to my dad. I didn’t know what I was doing. I smashed my finger
and was in a worse position than when I started. And I left that garage with
nothing under my belt except pain and two pieces of wood not stuck together by a nail. And I know my dad had no real
expectations about me building this fancy bookshelf that could even stand, let
alone legitimately hold anything. So why in the world would anyone, including my father- the homegrown carpenter
that he is- want to ask me to help
him in the garage?

Because he loves me. He
wants to spend time with me doing whatever there is to do. At this time it was
“helping” in the garage. He knew I couldn’t really build anything but he wanted
me to be a part of this, so we could spend time together. I’m not too good at
basketball, but we played all the time. I never played baseball for a team but
we always played catch out in the yard. I remember getting hit in the face (I
promise it’s a funny memory, Dad) with a tennis ball my dad served one day at
the park. And the whole time when I continually failed at all these activities,
my dad enjoyed being with me and spending time with me, whether I was a star
athlete or just some dorky kid trying to have fun.

When we try to do God’s work and we succeed, does God become
more into existence? Does He increase
in His reality? And when we fail to do God’s work every day and we sin against
Him at every turn, does God decrease in existence, in His power, in His
ability? Is God like Tinkerbell in the children’s story/movie “Peter Pan,” like
whenever a kid says “I don’t believe in fairies” and a fairy falls down dead,
and then we all need to clap to bring the fairy back to life? No! God just IS.

In Exodus 3, when Moses was talking to God through the
burning bush, he asked God what he should say when the Egyptians ask “what is
[your god’s] name?” And God replied, “I AM WHO I AM.” That’s it. He didn’t give
some theological explanation of who He is, or some speech on the being of God,
or the Trinity, because they wouldn’t be able to describe WHO HE IS. God just
IS. He exists beyond our understanding and no matter what we do or what we say
He will still always BE.

We can’t increase who God is. It would be arrogant for us to
think that we can increase who God is. Like I’m sitting with God one day in the
park, we’re eating some Pringles and I turn to God and say, “yo check this out,
I learned (insert theological doctrine
here) in church today.” And God says to me, “wow, I never thought about
it that way. Thanks for the insight, Braedon.” That’s a joke! I have nothing to
offer God in His mission and in His existence. I can’t even pronounce who He
really IS. I don’t have any skills or gifts or learned trades to help God in
building His kingdom and yet He’s called me out into the garage, which in this
case is The World Race, to help Him. Why, in all of creation would He do that
when He knows I’m going to smash my thumb and be of no real help to Him?

BECAUSE HE LOVES ME.
He wants to spend time with me and wants me to be a part of His building of His
kingdom, His God-sized bookshelf. He can do it all by Himself without me (and
no offense, my team) fumbling around smashing our fingers and each others’. But
as we read in Genesis, God created us and wants to love us. He wants to spend
time with us. He wants us to be a part of His creation, His Kingdom. He doesn’t
need forty men and women in their
twenties and thirties to travel around and love people. He can do that on His
own. AND YET He asks us to join Him because He loves us. He loves us. That is why we
are going on The World Race. To love our God. That is why we are praying
and fasting together. To love our Father. That is why we are preparing in such
a grueling manner for The World Race. To be in the presence of our Creator.

Our fears consume us everyday, but I AM is with us. We have
nothing to fear but I AM.