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Chapter-a-Day

Still Playing My Part, to the Best of My Ability

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Chapter-a-Day Psalm 71

Now that I am old and gray,
do not abandon me, O God.
Let me proclaim your power to this new generation,
your mighty miracles to all who come after me.
Psalm 71:18 (NLT)

One of the things I’ve learned from the stage is knowing your part and your place. I’ve played parts under many different directors. Some of them have been brilliant and knew far more than I will ever know. Others have been inexperienced and clearly struggled with what they were doing. In either case, my job is still the same: to play my part to the best of my ability.

I was a young man in my twenties when I was working in pastoral ministry. I was subjected to regular interrogations about my youth and inexperience. I felt under constant scrutiny. Times change. I’m a little further down life’s road and I’ve finally got a little life experience and wisdom behind me. It’s funny, however. Now I tend to feel old and irrelevant to the generations who follow after me. From young and suspect to old and irrelevant, the tipping point came and went without me noticing.

Perhaps that is the way of it. You can’t control such things. Psalm 71 is a lament from David’s elder years. I can’t imagine what he experienced as he got older. He was the boy hero of Israel who slew Goliath and then led countless military exploits for both Israel and Judah. He made his name on youth, strength, and the physical deeds of a warrior. He must have grieved getting older and coming to the realization that the things which made him famous were only a distant memory.

I can’t control who is directing  a show. I can’t control time. I can’t control the doubts or perceptions of others. There will always be critics. The only thing I control is the part I play. I control what I do and say and write each day. As the Bard said, “All the world’s a stage” and as I play out my part I have an audience of one. In old age I will recite the same soliloquy and proclaim the same Message I communicated when I was young. I will play my part to the best of my ability.  In this I have faith that I’m playing for the most creative and brilliant Director that has ever been and will ever  be. What He chooses to do with me on this grand stage is totally His call. He has a grand vision for this production called life which is beyond my capacity to comprehend. My job is simply to play the part I’ve been given to the best of my ability.

Places.

 

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Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Jeremiah 8

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So why does this people go backward,
   and just keep on going—backward!
They stubbornly hold on to their illusions,
   refuse to change direction. Jeremiah 8:5 (MSG)

It takes little or no courage to continue living in the same unhealthy patterns. We perpetuate cycles and systems that drain life from our souls because it’s what we know and there is fear doing anything different. The unknown terrifies us more than the muck in which we find ourselves wading each day.

Yet if it is Life we wish to experience in abundant and increasing measure, than a change of direction is required. Illusions to which we have firmly grasped must be released, old patterns of thought and behavior must be left behind, and new relational systems must be established.

When we walk with Jesus, old things must surely pass away. New things must surely come.

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Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day 2 Kings 16

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But the old bronze Altar that signaled the presence of God he displaced from its central place and pushed it off to the side of his new altar.2 Kings 16:14 (MSG)

We live in the culture of the "new and improved." We don't build things to last. We build things to be disposed and replaced with the "new and improved." My grandparents had the same television for twenty years. The "new and improved" HD television I bought seven years ago was out of date in less than five. Before we even have a chance to get used to our iPod or cell phone, there is a new "generation" to displace it. Even the government gives people [borrowed] cash for clunkers so that we will dispose of the old car and buy the new.

Certainly, there is nothing inherently wrong with new things. Even Jesus said he came to make all things new. I simply wonder how much of our dispose and displace culture creeps into the living out of my faith. The things of God are ancient. The things of God are eternal. They don't rust and wear out. And yet, I'm conditioned by my culture to distrust, displace and dispose of the old. I'm conditioned to yearn for something new and improved and trust that it is better, stronger, faster, quicker, more efficient, and more enviromentally friendly.

How easy is it for me to feel that faith of my fathers is old and outdated when I haven't even scratched the surface of its depth and truth?

I don't want to displace God from the central place in my life. I don't want to push Him off to the side. Instead of falling into the unconscious trap of dismissing the ancient things of God simply because they seem old, I prefer to spend my early morning hours digging in and plumbing their depths. Interestingly enough, I find that they are faithfully "new every morning."

Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day 1 Kings 15

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Cleaning house is making room for new things. Asa conducted himself well before God, reviving the ways of his ancestor David. He cleaned house: He got rid of the sacred prostitutes and threw out all the idols his predecessors had made. Asa spared nothing and no one; he went so far as to remove Queen Maacah from her position because she had built a shockingly obscene memorial to the whore goddess Asherah. Asa tore it down and burned it up in the Kidron Valley. 1 Kings 15:11-13 (MSG)

There is something about "cleaning house" that brings a fresh start. Cleaning house means purging old and worthless things that take up room, demand time attention and distract me from more important things. I might "rearrange house" so that there is a sense that things are fresh and new, but it is not the same thing as cleaning house. The old and worthless things are still there. They may be tucked away for the moment, out of sight, so I can fool myself to believing that things are clean. But, nothing has really changed.

"Cleaning house" requires uncomfortable decisions. I'm sure Asa's decision to remove grandma from power had tremendous ramifications in his life, his household, in his family, and in his community. She had been holding "position" within the family, the royal household, and therefore, the government, for multiple generations. The removal of something or someone that holds an old, secure position within any kind of system tends to throw that system into conflict and confusion for a while. That's why we avoid it.

"Cleaning house" is a requisite part of the process for anyone who wants to follow Jesus. You don't get far in the journey if you keep accumulating and never purge. A journey requires mobility and you can't move if you're loaded down. "Old things pass away, new things come," God's message tells us. But, there's no room for new things in our backpack if it's still full of our old stuff.

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