Brown's Daily Word 6-3-08

Good Morning,
We have been studying the book by John Ortberg, "If You Want to Walk on Water, You've Got to Get out of the Boat". It is about risking. It is about being doers of the word and not hearers only.
Henry David Thoreau said, “Most men live lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.” Abraham Maslow put it this way, “A musician must make music, a builder must build, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be.” I think we focus way too much on not doing anything wrong and way too little on doing something right. I’m not convinced that the greatest tragedy is the thing we do wrong. Albert Schweitzer said, “The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives.” I think too many of us are playing so as not to lose instead of playing to win.
In I Samuel 14, Israel was held at bay by a battalion of Philistines that controlled the pass at Mikmash. What was the leader of Israel doing? Verse 2 speaks volumes as it reveals, “Saul was staying on the outskirts of Gibeah under a pomegranate tree.” I can just see Saul kicking back with a cluster of grapes held to his mouth, being fanned by palm branches. Instead of fighting on the front lines Saul was sitting on the sidelines. This was not an isolated incident in the life of Saul. Do you remember what Saul said to David when David offered to fight Goliath? He said, “You are only a boy.” But Saul didn't step up to fight Goliath in place of David. He sat on the sidelines while a shepherd boy fought his battles for him! Scripture says that Saul was head and shoulders taller than any Israelite. So the only one who even came close to matching up to Goliath physically was cowardly. In his book, "Divine Appointments", Erwin McManus says that most of us are what he calls sideliners. He says that a sideliner is “an observer of life rather than a liver of life.” He argues that most people live vicariously, saying, “We find our romance in "You’ve Got Mail", and we fight our battles through William Wallace and Maximus Aurelius.” There is no place for sideliners in following Jesus Christ. The Christian faith and walk were never intended to be a spectator sport. If we are looking for an excuse to stay on the sidelines we will find one. . . We’re all too busy. We all have too many problems. After he retired from his counseling career, Carl Jung was asked how he helped people get well. His response was pretty profound. He said, “Most people came to me with an insurmountable problem. However, what happened was through our work together they discovered something more important than the problem and the problem lost its power and went away.” That’s what ministry is. It’s something more important than our problem. If you have problems you need to start serving others in the Name of Jesus Christ the Risen one. Keep trying to solve our problems and our problems will get bigger. Let us Start serving others and our problems will get smaller. If we wait till we get our act together we will be warming the benches for the rest of our lives. Saul was sitting on the sidelines, but Jonathan was listening to the police scanner. I Samuel 14:3 says, “No one was aware that Jonathan had left.” Jonathan was tired of sitting and waiting. He wanted action. Verse 4 says, “On each side of the pass that Jonathan intended to cross to reach the Philistines outpost was a cliff; one was called Bozez and the other Seneh. One cliff stood to the north toward Mikmash, and the other to the south toward Geba. Jonathan said to his young armor-bearer, ‘Come, let’s go over to the outpost of those uncircumcised fellows. Perhaps the Lord will act in our behalf. Nothing can hinder the Lord from saving, whether by many or by few’.” I love the armor-bearer’s response, “Go ahead. I am with you heart and soul.” I think we underestimate the importance of armor-bearers. We all need armor-bearers in our life—people who are with us heart and soul. They pray for us, believe in us, and encourage us. I think most people spend their entire lives waiting for something amazing. Perhaps what we call waiting on God isn’t always really waiting on God. It’s lack of faith, a passive waiting, sitting under a pomegranate tree waiting for something amazing to happen. Proactive waiting is picking a fight with the Philistines. I love Jonathan’s plan because it is such a bad plan. If there are only two of you and entire battalion of Philistines, your only hope is the element of surprise. So let’s wait till the middle of the night and then sneak up on them. Jonathan did the exact opposite. Jonathan walked into the middle of a gorge in broad daylight and exposed himself to the enemy. Then he said, “If they say to us, ‘Wait there until we come to you,’ we will stay where we are and not go up to them. But if they say, ‘Come up to us,’ we will climb up; because that will be our sign that the Lord has given them into our hands.” Jonathan made up the sign. I don’t know about you, but if I’m making up the signs I do the exact opposite. If they come down to us that’ll be our sign. In fact, if they fall off the cliff that’ll be our sign! This makes no military sense. Not only are you outnumbered, but you’re going to give up the high ground? The Philistines taunted them, “Look! The Hebrews are crawling out of the holes they were hiding in.” So Jonathan and his armor bearer climbed the cliff, defeated an entire Philistine battalion, and triggered a panic among the Philistines so they started fleeing in every direction. Verse 20 says, “So on that day the Lord saved Israel.” The course of Israel’s history was changed by one man with the right mind set: “Perhaps the Lord will act in our behalf.” What if Jonathan had sat on the sidelines like the rest of the Israelites? Are we sitting under a pomegranate tree passively waiting for something good to happen? Or are we proactively picking a fight with the Philistines? Let us go and "climb a cliff".

In Jesus, the Author and the Pioneer of our Faith,
Brown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1rqb1BG4JU&feature=related