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We’re exploring lessons from locusts as they are described in Joel 2.7, 8:

• Like warriors they charge. Are we on offense, actively trying to make a difference?
• Like soldiers they scale the wall. Are we undeterred by obstacles?
• They march each on his way; they do not swerve from their paths.Does each of us know our job and do it? Can each of us operate within our own calling?
• They do not jostle one another; each marches in his path. Are we content to let others pursue their calling?
  
• They burst through the weapons and are not halted. Do we expect to be effective?

Today, let’s look at Like soldiers they scale the wall: are we undeterred by obstacles?

Whenever we attempt something significant, rest assured, there will be opposition. Nehemiah faced it in chapter 4 after the people got off to a good start building the wall in chapter 3. The Israelites gave up in the face of perceived insurmountable opposition in Numbers 13.

Then they said: “We went to the land where you sent us. It truly flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. Nevertheless the people who dwell in the land are strong; the cities are fortified and very large; moreover, we saw the descendants of Anak there… (the descendants of Anak came from the giants); and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.” (Numbers 13.27 – 33, NKJV)

When we are engaging in the specific project God has called us to, how shall we respond to the inevitable opposition? Nehemiah responded with prayer and persistence (see Nehemiah 4). The Israelites in Numbers 13 succumbed to a spirit of fear. But…

God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of self-discipline. (2 Timothy 1.7)

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Yesterday I wrote about learning lessons from locusts as they are described in Joel 2.7, 8:

• Like warriors they charge. Are we on offense, actively trying to make a difference?
• Like soldiers they scale the wall. Are we undeterred by obstacles?
• They march each on his way; they do not swerve from their paths. Does each of us know our job and do it? Can each of us operate within our own calling?
• They do not jostle one another; each marches in his path. Are we content to let others pursue their calling?
  
• They burst through the weapons and are not halted. Do we expect to be effective?

Today, let’s look at the first one: “like warriors they charge,” which I applied as: are we on offense, trying to make a difference?

I believe that the picture painted in Matthew 16.18 is one of the most misunderstood in scripture:

And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

Once when leading a Bible study, I asked the men, “What do you see when you read that verse?” One man said, “I see the church as a strong fortress being assaulted by hell, but hell is not successful in destroying the church.” This is a typical understanding, but it’s not what the verse says. It doesn’t say that hell will not prevail against the gates of the church. It says that the gates of hell will not prevail against the church! Who is on offense? The church is! God’s people are to be storming the gates of hell!

When Nehemiah heard that Jerusalem was in bad shape, he wept and mourned in chapter 1, but in chapters 2 through 6, he led the effort to rebuild the wall.

When Millard and Linda Fuller observed a lack of decent and affordable housing, they founded Habitat for Humanity, which, since its founding in 1976, has, according to their website, “…helped more than 22 million people build or improve the place they call home.”

When David Wilkerson, a white guy pastoring a small church in western Pennsylvania saw a news article about New York City gang members, he moved to New York and started a ministry to NYC street kids, resulting in the conversion of Nicky Cruz, a Puerto Rican gang member who went on to become a Christian evangelist. Their stories are told in the book and movie The Cross and the Switchblade.

What projects would God have us take on or join? Where would God have us make a difference?

Then the LORD turned to [Gideon] and said, “Go in this might of yours, and you shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have I not sent you?” (Judges 6.14, NKJV)

…I am sending you to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me. (Acts 26.18, ESV)

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I first shared these lessons publicly in Fort Morgan, a small town in northeast Colorado, and I almost didn’t do it. Less than a week before I was to speak, I said to myself, “I can’t speak positively about locusts in a farming community!” And that day I read Proverbs 30.24 – 28:

²⁴  Four things on earth are small, but they are exceedingly wise: 

• ²⁵  the ants are a people not strong, yet they provide their food in the summer;
  
• ²⁶  the rock badgers are a people not mighty, yet they make their homes in the cliffs;
  
• ²⁷  the locusts have no king, yet all of them march in rank;
  
• ²⁸  the lizard you can take in your hands, yet it is in kings’ palaces.
  

If scripture can use locusts positively, then I can too!

Here’s the lesson: how would you like to be part of a military unit characterized this way:

The invaders charge. They climb barricades. Nothing stops them. Each soldier does what he’s told, so disciplined, so determined. They don’t get in each other’s way. Each one knows his job and does it. Undaunted and fearless, unswerving, unstoppable. (Joel 2.7, 8, MSG)

Yes, he’s talking about locusts! Here’s a standard translation with some applications:

• Like warriors they charge. Are we on offense, actively trying to make a difference?
• Like soldiers they scale the wall. Are we undeterred by obstacles?
• They march each on his way; they do not swerve from their paths. Does each of us know our job and do it? Can each of us operate within our own calling?
• They do not jostle one another; each marches in his path. Are we content to let others pursue their calling?
  
• They burst through the weapons and are not halted. Do we expect to be effective?

I’ll write more about these characteristics in the coming days, but in the meantime, can we be watching for life lessons in unexpected places?

Go to the ant, …Observe her ways and be wise. (Proverbs 6.6)

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Yesterday, I wrote about trusting God for step-by-step directions. Here’s another kind of trust: do I trust enough to stay with the process?

Here’s a simple example: we all know that losing weight in general requires some combination of eating less and exercising more. (For those looking for another, faster way, I’m sorry!)

The challenge is that often we get off to a good start, but we don’t stay with it long enough. We get discouraged when our weight goes up one day when we expected it to go down. Here is my actual chart from a couple years ago, showing daily weights and a drop of 8 pounds over 7 weeks. Note the leveling off and even increases. But the overall trend is downward.

Eating less and exercising more works…if we stay with it! Change takes time, but change does occur over time.

The same is true in the spiritual life. Growth and transformation occur, but they are not instant. We put some spiritual disciplines in place like daily time with God, scripture memory, and accountability with one or more friends or mentors. Then we stay with it…even when we miss a day’s time with God or experience “the worst day ever” after having time with God or when we lose our temper…again(!). We trust the process.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, … (Romans 12.2, ESV)

And he said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.” (Mark 4.26 – 28, ESV)

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What does it mean to trust? At its most basic level, trust leads to action. It does me no good to say, “I trust that the chair will hold me,” while I refuse to sit on it.

Here’s an exercise: do you trust your GPS when you can’t back it up with a map?

I’m content with turn by turn directions. Years ago, when you could get a “Trip-Tic” from AAA, I loved them. Every page had a short section of our road trip with clear directions marked. Not June. She likes a large map so she can see the big picture.

On a recent road trip, we needed to get from Dayton, Tennessee, to our son’s home in Cumming, Georgia (north of Atlanta). There is an interstate way, and a “direct way,” that’s supposed to be quicker.

Whether or not it was quicker is debatable, but it surely wasn’t easier! And to complicate matters, June couldn’t find any of the roads we were using on the paper map that we had with us. Ultimately, we just had to trust that the map program “lady” knew what she was doing.

She got us there, and we survived the experience. And we sure had to apply Proverbs 3.5, 6!

Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge And He shall direct your paths. (NKJV)

Upon reflection, isn’t it true that following God’s direction is a bit more like GPS’ turn-by-turn directions than a map where you see everything at once?

And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it…” (Isaiah 30.21, ESV)

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Faced with difficult relational situations, June and I try practice holy indifference, as I wrote earlier. Practically, there is no point in being upset about something we can do nothing about, such as how someone else feels about us. So we choose not to obsess over it.

But in one particular situation, we believe God has given us a promise:

The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.” (Exodus 14.14, NIV)

Stay tuned! I’ll keep you posted on what God does.

On a recent road trip we found ourselves having dinner at Cracker Barrel on two occasions. I like to study organizational systems, and Cracker Barrel obviously has a lot of systems in place, among them, how to train and recognize their servers.

The stars on servers’ aprons indicate how long they’ve been there and responsibility levels they have attained from one star to four stars. Interestingly, we were served once by a one-star server (relatively new) and once by a four-star veteran. The service was identical, indicating an effective training system.

And what is that system? It includes on-the-job training with close observation. I watched a few tables away as two servers took the order. One was new, and the other was the trainer, who did no talking but who carefully wrote down the order herself, I suppose to check her protege’s work before they put the order in.

Two things impressed me about that process: one, the trainer was a two-star, not a four-star. That is, they let their servers train early in the process. Second, the new guy’s apron wasn’t plain with no stars, it had a rising star on it. I like that. They expect the trainees to earn their first star and progress from there.

All of it reminds me of 2 Timothy 2.1 – 2: You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others. There are no permanent students; all are expected to become teachers.

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We have started reading a very important book, just released: Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport. The book starts by comparing the purveyors of Internet content to tobacco companies who finally admitted they had been working to make cigarettes even more addictive. The programmers at FaceBook and other companies are doing the same thing: figuring out how to keep us clicking and staying on their sites.

The book recommends the following criteria for using any particular app:

1. Does it contribute to a deeply felt need?
2. If yes, is it the best way to meet that need?
3. How exactly will I use it to meet that need?

For example, if I have a deeply felt need to stay connected to my adult children, I might need to be on FaceBook for that purpose. Criterion 3, however, requires that I determine how and when I will use Facebook so that I don’t end up spending hours instead of minutes online.

The book also has a decluttering chapter that reminds me of Marie Kondo’s house decluttering strategy.

I’ll be writing more on this later, but for now, consider (as my wife, June, reminded me) that when we declutter our houses and declutter our minds, we have more space to listen to God.

Be still, and know that I am God. (Psalm 46.10)

“I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but I will not be mastered by anything. (1 Corinthians 6.12, NIV)

(By the way, I don’t make any money promoting others’ books!)

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June and I were on a road trip; we’d been driving all day and were nearing our hotel, but we weren’t sure which exit to take. One map program said one thing and another app said another. So we pulled off the road for a minute to evaluate our options. One option was to get off the interstate sooner but drive longer into town. Another kept us on the interstate longer with a bit of a double-back into town. What to do? What to do? Finally, June said, “You know, in the amount of time you’ve been analyzing this, we could have been driving and either option would have gotten us there!”

She was right, of course. I wasted more time in analysis than I saved, even if I knew what the better option was!

Sometimes, we just need to act. Sometimes, especially in men’s Bible studies (I don’t know about women’s for obvious reasons), people seem to think that they get credit for discussing the meaning of the scripture. But the scriptures themselves decry that approach. We need to act!

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. (James 1.22, NIV)

[Jesus said, ] “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” (Matthew 7.24 – 27, NIV, emphasis mine)

But if you just use my words in Bible studies and don’t work them into your life, you are like a stupid carpenter who built his house on the sandy beach. (Matthew 7.26, MSG)

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I wrote yesterday that we serve people by our work. Our work is part of God’s continuing work in the world. It’s a blessing that we are surrounded by working people! And it’s blessing for those of us who are able to contribute to those around us by working (and that includes the chores of day-to-day living!).

We also serve people at our work. Our work is a place where we’re in contact with co-workers, bosses, and clients. We have an opportunity to serve them. I’ve always been fascinated with Joseph in prison. In charge of the prison (Genesis 39.22), Joseph noticed that the cupbearer and the baker were dejected (Genesis 40.6). I don’t know if I would have noticed that two guys in prison were more dejected than they usually were. But Joseph noticed, and he served them.

I still remember a young airman at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska more than 40 years ago. He was a “lowly” gate guard, but he made the job special. He not only saluted appropriately and waved cars in, he greeted very person entering the base with a big smile. That included busloads of people of which I was frequently one. He was an inspiration. He served people at his work.

The 6Ms from a couple days ago included Model godly character, Minister grace and love, and Mold culture. What better place to do those things than at our work?

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters. (Colossians 3.23, NIV)