The Joy of Giving Life
When I hear those words, I think “He’s going to ask me to donate blood….or an organ!”
Not it.
The joy I’m speaking of comes from watching a man go “all in” for Jesus Christ and then seeing God redeem his marriage, his children, his business, his relationships. Everything. That’s life for me. Watching God radically transform a young man before he goes his own way and totally screws up his life.
It’s the life that sweeps over us after we’ve started to care for other’s spiritual life. This quote from Nate Larkin’s book Samson & the Pirate Monks has stuck with me…
“When we make another man’s progress our concern, giving him a listening ear and a caring heart and opening ourselves as a conduit for God’s grace, we find our own walk propelled to a whole new level. We are truly helped by helping, taught by teaching, and encouraged by encouraging”. Nate Larkin
I KNOW in my soul that my real life began when I embraced Christ and accepted His call to be an ambassador for Him. After a period of preparation in a Masterlife discipleship group, I began to invest in the lives of others for Kingdom purposes. First my own children, then younger men in my church, then at work and through High Tech Ministries. Little by little, I took more and more risk with people who were further and further away from the “safety” of my “holy huddle”. Now I show up for the first night of my new Radical Mentoring groups and meet most of the guys I’ll invest in for the first time.
I’ve also learned that the best antidote for selfishness is giving…not of your money but your time and emotional energy. Lots of men give their money. That’s easier, because their time is SO valuable to them. But isn’t now the time to start to move away from just writing checks and start to invest in others? to trust God to cover gaps in your businesses and your families? Besides, when you’re serving others selflessly, you’re modeling empathy and selflessness for your wife and kids.
Question : What keeps you from having ‘life to the full’ by investing in others?
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Responses (2)
Ever since I made God the priority–life has been filled with so much to do, so many people to connect with for the sake of their salvation, and it’s been exhilarating to watch that transformation Regi writes about in his blog. However, of late, the right words seem harder to find, and my witness has begun to feel contrived and somewhat dispassionate.
Close to home, my evangelistic efforts have been less than successful, and I’ve grown weary from watching people I love slip through the cracks. Having spent several years in the mission field, I am humbled whenever I think of those that came to Christ seemingly because of something God said to them through me, even when we didn’t speak the same language. Yet, how my own child can listen to my prayers for his awakening and salvation in a language he fully comprehends still baffles me.
As blessed as I am to live, work, and worship with enthusiastic Christ-followers, for the past several weeks, I have allowed myself to believe that the cocoon method is the key to my restoration. And, I’ve taken great pains to try and nestle in and get cozy by keeping people at arm’s length. But, God knows better, and He’s been keeping me up nights this past week, deep in His Word, trying to help me find my way out and the next step.
I would love to end this post saying that I found the answer, and I know what to do next, but the truth is, I am still figuring it out.
The upside is that I’m almost out of the cocoon, and between the Gospel and all the insight and wisdom I’m gleaning from trusted friends in Christ (such as that found in Regi’s blog), I am beginning to understand that it’s worth the risk to do whatever it takes to try and reclaim that joy that comes with giving life to others. I miss it, and I want to experience it once again.
I completely relate to how you’re feeling right now. Where there’s passion, there’s frustration. Or said another way, if there’s no passion, there’s no frustration. But there’s also not as much joy or exhilaration when our passion is blessed with visible movement in the direction of our passion. Remember, the word passion comes from the Latin passiō, which connotes suffering and submission. John 6:44 (and it’s in red ink in my Bible) says that no one comes to the Father unless the Father draws him. So we’re not responsible for outcomes…only our actions. God must give them “eyes to see” and “ears to hear”. We can’t. And we have to rest in the fact that not everyone we share with will “get it”, at least not such that we’ll ever know about it. Howard Hendricks has this quote “It’s more important that we talk to God about men than talking to men about God. Amp up your prayers for the folks you know and love who don’t know Christ. Be p-a-l-s. P – pray , A – accept, L – love, S – serve. And trust God for the outcome. Worrying does no good. Praying is worrying God. That can help!