Monthly Archives: November 2009

Stumble-free running

Nov 5, 2009 1:19 pm by Paul Jenkins in Evotions, Fitness, Running

Proverbs 4:11-12
I guide you in the way of wisdom and lead you along straight paths. When you walk, your steps will not be hampered; when you run, you will not stumble.

When I woke up this morning, I realized that in one week I’ll be loading up my family and driving north to Richmond, Virginia, in order to run in my first marathon on November 14. I’m excited, nervous, and at times, scared out of my mind. Verses like the ones today are the kind that runners should always claim before a big race, because the last thing I want to do is find myself sprawled out on a road somewhere in downtown Richmond with hundreds of onlookers taking pictures that’ll get posted all over the internet. It makes me feel the pain of the people in the picture I added to this Evotion, because they experienced what I hope I don’t. It’s sad to go viral with a picture that captured such an epic fail. I hope it doesn’t happen to me in Richmond, but this passage gives me plenty of confidence that it won’t happen in my faith. Let’s break it down…

If we’re willing to walk in the way of wisdom, we get a couple of really good promises. The first is that we’ll be lead along straight paths. Now, this does not mean there won’t be curves or odd, unexpected turns. I’ve always wondered about that, because even though our experience shouldn’t dictate how we interpret scripture, any believer with a pulse can attest that there are plenty of life-altering turns along the way. So, we can’t read “straight” as meaning “easy” because it doesn’t. What it does mean is “right” or “what ought to be done.” When I think of my marathon, I’m kidding myself to think it will be easy, but because I’ve trained correctly and with wisdom, I should be able to run the right kind of race for me (which is slow in case you’re wondering!). Wisdom guides us along the correct paths and that’s a great benefit.

Second, we’re told that our steps won’t be hampered, which basically means that they won’t be bound up or hindered. Yes, wisdom allows us to walk free. It puts us in a place where we don’t feel the ball and chain of past failures or future fears. And when you walk like that, it’s just a matter of time before you can’t help but pick it up a little. Notice that progression? You walk along the right path – the road which you were made for – and you walk in total freedom. Like a child on the first day of summer break, your walk turns into a run, and you find yourself laughing at how much fun you’re having. There is no thought of not finishing, or of falling, because you were made for this! You were made to run without stumbling!

Sounds good, doesn’t it? Sounds like we should never get tired, never want to quit, and never have bad days. Yeah, right. All of us experience those feelings from time to time, but when you’re walking where you should, and the freedom that you feel leads you to a run, you suddenly find yourself running with confidence – even when you’re experiencing a bad run.

Whether you’re walking, running, or just getting started, you can take confidence in this: when you let the wisdom of the Lord guide you, your race – no matter how long or hard – will never end with you sprawled out along the road of life with onlookers gawking and pointing. There is no epic fail waiting for the believer who is led by wisdom.

Run today in the strength of that promise.

What do you see?

Nov 4, 2009 9:41 am by Paul Jenkins in Evotions

Romans 12:1
Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual worship.

Seeing certain things always makes us react. When we’re driving a wee bit too fast and see a cop, we hit the brake, hold our breath, and pray. When a child is doing something he shouldn’t and his parent walks in, his face turns pale and he stands very still. Seeing has an effect on us, and sometimes it’s even a good effect. At the end of a long training run, when I really want to stop, seeing the last downhill slope before home keeps me going. It actually makes me run a little faster because I know I’m almost done.

Romans has been like that long run for me. I’ve been studying it and, even though I know there are good things in the faith (like healthy benefits from a long run), it just feels hard at times because I know that I’m sometimes so far from what I what to be for the Lord. And then, at just the right time, I see something that causes a reaction in me. I see God’s mercy. I see the One who saved me and now wants to help me look even more like His Son.

Paul encourages us in this passage to see something that will cause us to sacrifice something. He has just finished a brutal stretch of writing (Romans 1-11) in which he has told the Romans that they all are sinners but that God’s mercy had saved them. Then he kicks off the last section of the book with this verse. Here’s why it matters:

Christianity can be hard at times, brutal in fact. There can be the feeling that no matter how hard we try, we’ll never be useful to the Lord. Just like a runner in the last few miles of a long run, you can easily begin to wonder if it’s been worth the hassle, and then, you see it. You see the goal or the last turn. You see God’s mercy and realize that no sacrifice you make, no pain on the journey, could make you not want more of that. With God, there is always a payoff, and I’m so thankful for that.

He isn’t a drill sergeant demanding you to perform meaningless tasks just to break you down. He doesn’t belittle you, or manipulate you, or guilt you into submission. Thankfully, He’s left that to the mother on Everyone Loves Raymond. Nope, God’s deal is this: “Look at my mercy. See the love I have for you and the price I paid for you and ask yourself if laying your life down as a sacrifice seems reasonable to you.”

As far as I’m concerned, my sacrifice pales in comparison.

The Parable of the Blue Poo

Nov 3, 2009 3:43 pm by Paul Jenkins in Evotions, Family

Apple sauce Evotions Poo

Luke 6:45
The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.

A couple years back, when my boys were but little tiny things running around on shorter legs and eating anything sweet, they spent some time with their Aunt Laura. They love their time at her house, because she’s fun and gives them plenty of that sweet stuff, and this visit was no exception. It was a nice break for Wendy and me, and eventually they came home and life continued as normal. Well, at least until the next time they went to the bathroom and everyone freaked out about the, ahem, blue poo that was left in the toilet.

Now, there are a lot of things that we see in bathrooms throughout our lifetimes that are, let’s say, a little weird, right? But BLUE POO??? How does that happen? Our minds were racing as we tried to assess what type of dreadful disease both of our sons had contracted? Colorful Bowel Syndrome? Blue-poo-enza?

A quick call to Aunt Laura, though, cleared it all up (well, not all of it – the poo took a day or so). Being the fun aunt she was, she had found a unique food that she thought they’d get a kick out of and had served them blue apple sauce. As it turned out, we all got a big kick out of it, and I got the perfect illustration for our verse. That “what goes in must come out” thing really is true (and sometimes, illustrated in Technicolor)!

As much as we want to hope that we’re strong enough to watch or listen to anything we want without it affecting us, Jesus knew it wasn’t possible. He knew that we were created to reflect outwardly what we’ve received inwardly. Want blue poo? Eat blue apple sauce (other blue foods may work, too, if you want to experiment). What you store inside will eventually show outside. Sure, we hate it, because it’s one of those principles that exposes us for who we really are, and that can be a bit, well, stinky. But let’s look at it from the positive side before we wrap this up…

If we’re faithful to store good things, then we can have all the confidence in the world that good things will come out of us. We’ll find ourselves saying the right things at the right times. We’ll have hope for hopeless people. Joy for joyless people. Normal colored poo for…well, you get the point, right? I guess there’s really no need to sit around any longer trying to work this one out.

Store good things now so you’ll be prepared to give good things later. And please, stay away from blue apple sauce.

When God says, “Shut up!”

Nov 2, 2009 5:40 pm by Paul Jenkins in Evangelism, Evotions

Evangelism Evotions Messages Speaking

Ezekiel 3:24-27
Then the Spirit came into me and raised me to my feet. He spoke to me and said: “Go, shut yourself inside your house…I will make your tongue stick to the roof of your mouth…but when I speak to you, I will open your mouth…”

One of the hardest things to do when you’re a communicator is to, well, NOT communicate. Can you put yourself in Ezekiel’s shoes here? God has called you out as His chosen messenger, He’s told you exactly who you are supposed to take the message to, and then he’s told you to, well, in a sense, shut up. Sure, He didn’t say it like that because God is able to say hard things without making it sound rude, but He did tell the prophet to go in his house and not come out until he had something to say. It was sort of like how our parents used to tell us not to say anything if we couldn’t say something nice. God knew that the potential for Ezekiel to go off on the rebellious audience was very high, and so He used some kind of spiritual peanut butter to make Ezekiel’s tongue stick to the roof of his mouth.

I don’t think God takes pleasure in making us be quiet. I do believe, though, that sometimes He keeps us silent because He can’t risk us ruining the message He has for the world. Spend time listening to church people talk, and then put yourself in God’s shoes. After the price He’s paid to secure such a great salvation for all who would call on His name, can you imagine how He must feel to hear us speak so lightly about it? “Oh, God loves you and He knows you’re really a good person at heart. No, that’s not really sin. It’s just something you struggle with. My God understands that.” I’m surprised He doesn’t peanut butter more of us!

Perhaps He knew that Ezekiel would be too careless, or too quick, to add his own twist to the message. Who knows? What we do know is that if we don’t have a specific message from God, we’re better off shutting our mouths than running them. God knows how easy it is for us to try to make what He said sound better. Unfortunately, He also knows how quickly His message can lose its power when we do.

Matthew 12:36 says that we’ll all give an account for every careless word we’ve spoken. That alone makes me thankful that I serve a God who is willing to shut me up in order to protect me – and His message – from my carelessness. In fact, if He needs to start a running tab down at Sam’s Club on wholesale tubs of peanut butter to do it, so be it.

It’s a small price to pay to protect a message so precious.