Charging hell with squirt guns

As Mark Driscoll wrote, "Here we go again, charging hell with our squirt guns." To the naked eye we are idiots...to the human eye. There is a part of me that thinks that every ministry should seem like this...that a group of people are trying and doing things and praying for things that make others who look on shake thier heads in disbelief. Charging hell with squirt guns.

Today, our ministry sits in a deficit of $17,656. That number is more red than it has ever been. Ministry with kids has never been stronger or healthier, but financial support has never been harder to come by. Our area has more leaders reaching more kids, doing ministry in more schools in the history of East Alabama Young Life.

I'm praying about what to do next, who to talk to, and what steps to take to get us to a place where we have enough funding to pull off the minsitry that God has called us to. Not sure what to do...feel sort of out of options. Perhaps this is the exact place Jesus wants us. No option but him.

In ministry we go with the total dependence that Jesus will show up. And if he doesn’t it is hopeless. We’ve all run out onto the battle field, this level plain that has become flat in the midst of this hill country; the enemy in sight. Two huge crowds are converging. A few hundred on one side and a few thousand on the other charging towards each other. Closer we come, not much space left between us. And Lord, the only reason we agreed to charge out here is because you said you would go with us and would come in might and strength. You said all we need to do is be still and trust; to wait on you. Well, we haven’t much time left. I can see the whites of their eyes.

The High Calling

(I did not write this. It was given to me by a friend. I doubt he wrote it either)--EF

If God called you to be really like Jesus in all your spirit, He will draw you into a life of crusification and humility, and put on you such demands of obedience, that He will not allow you to follow other believers, and in many ways, He will seem to let other good people do things which he will not let you do.

Others who seem very spiritual may push themselves, pull wires, and work schemes to carry out their plans, but you cannot do it; and if you attempt it, you will meet with such failure and rebuke from the Lord as to make you sorely penitent.

Others can brag on themselves, on their work, on their success, on their writings, but the Holy Spirit will not allow you to do such a thing, and if you begin it, He will lead you into such deep mortification that you will despise yourself and all your good works.

Others will be allowed to succeed in making great sums of money, or having a legacy left to them, or in having luxuries, but God will supply you daily because He wants you to have something far better than gold—and that is the helpless dependence on Him—so that He may have the privilege of providing your needs day by day out of the unseen treasury.

The Lord may let others be honored and put forward, and keep you hid away in obscurity, because He wants you to produce some choice, fragrant fruit for His coming glory, which can only be produced in the shade.


God will let others be great, but keep you small. He will let others do a work for Him, and get the credit for it, but He will make you work and toil on without knowing how much you are doing; and then to make your work still more precious, He will let others get the credit for what you have done, and this will make your work ten times greater when Jesus comes. The Holy Spirit will put a strict watch on you with a jealous love, and will rebuke you for little words and feelings, or for wasting your time, which other people never seem distressed over.

So make up your mind that God is an infinite Sovereign, and has the right to do as He pleases with His own, and will not explain to you a thousand things which may puzzle your reason in His word; and if you absolutely sell yourself to be His slave, He will wrap you up in a jealous love, and let others say and do many things that you cannot do or say.

Settle it forever, that you are to deal directly with the Holy Spirit, and that He is to have the privilege of tying your tongue, or chaining, your hand, or closing your eyes, in ways that others are not dealt with.

Now when you are so possessed with the living God that you are, in your secret heart, pleased and delighted over this peculiar, personal, private, jealous guardianship and management of the Holy Spirit over your life, you will have found the vestibule of Heaven.

Fools like me

“Then he called the twelve together and gave them power and authority…. He sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick, with these words, ‘Take nothing for your journey-neither a stick nor a purse nor food nor money, nor even extra clothes! When you come to a place, stay there until you go on your way again.’
Luke 9:1-5

Jesus always wants to move us into a place of total dependence, so that we can understand that he “will supply all that you need from his glorious riches.” (Phil. 4.19). He puts us in places where we can know his provision. At times, like Abraham, the Lord may call us to mountaintops to sacrifice and asks us to only take our one and only son, so that he can provide a ram from a nearby thicket. This is how he shows his love for us; it is a gift, an honor, a special privilege to be in a place where we can know that we are truly under his constant care.

One difficulty with receiving this daily provision lies all around us. Our next door neighbor has a house twice as big as ours and three new cars, while mine leaks oil which makes it appear that someone is grilling hamburgers behind my car. Their grass is cared for weekly by a professional landscape company while my yard has a variety of at least twenty kinds of weeds that are native to Alabama. My 401K is not “k-ing” and our bank account hovers around zero without any numbers in front of it.

Others need not depend totally on him; they have not been given the special blessing of knowing the faithfulness of the good shepherd. He has allowed them to be a little more self reliant, to provide for themselves. These folks are envied by others, but in the eyes of the Lord, they are not as special as the ones who get up every day knowing that without the provision of God they will have nothing.

I’ll be honest when I often think how nice it would be to have no worries and such a comfortable standard of living. But because of God’s deep love for me, I think he will not allow me such a life. His love is jealous, and he knows that my greatest joy will be in the fact that I know I have a heavenly Father that constantly reminds me to “consider the lilies!” and “consider the birds of the field!” “Aren’t you much more valuable than they!?” “Seek first my kingdom. Don’t you know I will provide all you need?”

I have never been without anything I have needed. I don’t have too much and I don’t have too little. It has always happened exactly how God told me it would. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. I have everything I need. I always have.


Paul wrote, “We are penniless, but possess everything worth having.” This radical and childlike trust is often foolishness to the world, but God, in his infinite wisdom knows that it is the fools, like me and those who trust, who will inherit the kingdom of God.

Picking and Choosing

My 8 yr old daughter tried out for a play at her school this past week. The lead is the role of Ramona Quimby. After two or three days of auditions and call-backs, she was placed as the understudy of the lead role. I sort of saw it as second place over all the others that tried out, but she saw it as having to do all the work and never getting to be on stage. I told her that she could always slip the girl in the lead role a little bit of swine flu on her lunch, but that would probably be overdoing it. So, Riley was a little sad at first, but soon began to see the role as a chance to learn and possibly even play the lead role in one of the performances. In her eyes, at first, she thought of the whole deal as, 'I wasn't good enough.' I see where she is coming from.

I thought more about picking and choosing; how our world system is based on performance, talent, influence, and resources. We are constantly being graded and evaluated by others. Some are included because they dress well or are considered pretty or handsome. Others are invited into influential positions (even in our churches) based on their net financial worth. Still more are considered funny because they make people laugh, and others are paid millions because they can catch a ball or run fast.

Everything is based on performance. People are picked and chosen based on what they can do or not do, and how well they can do it compared to others.

As I was reading through Mark's account of Jesus calling Levi, I was refreshed and reminded that how Jesus picks and chooses is based on a system that is entirely opposite of the world's system. Nothing is earned when it comes to the gospel. Nothing. Everything is freely given. Jesus gave totally of himself. Then he pursues us in order to give us something we have done absolutely nothing to deserve. It is the absurd reality of the gospel.

I only wish that we would begin to see each other more and more through this lens. Perhaps we would take more time to get to know people who are not influential, those who are poor, powerless, boring, addicted, lonely, quiet, shy, guilty, etc. Perhaps grace would be a greater and more needed and useful tool in our dealings with each other, because we find ourselves in relationships with those who desperately need it.

in the midst of comforts

"Very rarely does it happen that Christ finds us free and disengaged from the entanglements of the world. So far is every one of us from being ready to follow him to a desert mountain, that scarcely one in ten can endure to receive him, when he presents himself at home in the midst of comforts. And though this disease prevails nearly throughout the whole world, yet it is certain that no man will be fit for the kingdom of God until, laying aside such delicacy, he learn to desire the food of the soul so earnestly that his belly shall not hinder him."----John Calvin (writing about Jesus feeding the 5000 in John 6)