FINDING US FAITHFUL ​

“Oh, may all who come behind us find us faithful!
May the fire of our devotion light their way!
May the footprints that we leave lead them to believe!
And the lights we live inspire them to obey!”
[Chorus of the song FIND US FAITHFUL, sung by Steve Green]
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” – Hebrews 12:1 (NIV)

John Eldredge, author of the book Father by God shared one of his experiences when they were in the wilds of Alaska.

One of the most haunting experiences I have ever had as a man took place on an early summer day in Alaska. My family and I were sea kayaking with humpback whales in the Icy Strait, and we stopped off the Shore of Chicagof Island for lunch. Our guide asked us if we wanted to go for a hike into the interior of the island, to a clearing where grizzlies are known to feed. We were all over that invitation. After a 20 minute walk through the spruce forest, we came to what appeared to be a broad, open meadow about 400 yards across. Being midday, and hot, there were no bears to be seen. “They’re sleeping now, through the afternoon. They’ll be back tonight,” he said. “Come here! I want to show you something.”

The meadow was actually more of a bog, a low-lying jungle of bushy groundcover about two feet high, barely supported underneath by another foot of soaked moss and peat: A very difficult place to walk. Our guide led us to a trail of what seemed to be massive footprints, with a stride of about two feet between them, pressed down into the bog and making a path through it. “It’s a marked trail,” he said. A path created by footprints of the bears. “This one is probably centuries old. For as long as the bears are on this island, they’ve taken this path. The cubs follow their elders, putting their feet exactly where the older bears walked. That is how they learn to cross this place.”

I began to walk on the marked trail, stepping into the firm deep worn places where the bears had walked for centuries. I am not sure how to describe the experience but for some reason, the word holy comes to mind: An ancient and fearful path through a wild and untamed place. I was following a proven way, laid down by those much stronger and far more prepared for this place than me. And though I knew I did not belong there, I was haunted by it, could have followed the path for a long, long time. It awakened some deep ancient yearning in me.

[page ix, Introduction]
All of us are not in the places where we are right now as a direct result of pure self-effort. We are a product of a team. We are a product of a village. It took a team of doctors to deliver us into this world from the wombs of our mothers. It took a team of teachers to inspire and teach us the lessons that we need in life. It took a group of people who are older than us in the faith to be where we are in our spiritual walk with the Lord. We followed them because their lights were and are still burning bright. Sir Isaac Newton once said: “The reason why I see so far is because I stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before me.”

As people, we desperately need something like that marked trail on Chicagof Island. Not more rules, not another list of principles, not formulas. It is a sure path, marked by people that went ahead of us. We can be those people as well. We can leave a trail behind us so that others may follow the path.

WAITING ON GOD

“The Bible was written in tears and to tears it will yield its treasures. God has nothing to say to the frivolous man.” – Aiden Wilson Tozer

“Even the youths shall be exhausted, and the young men will all give up. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” – Isaiah 40:30-31 (TLB)

Charles Swindoll tells us this story:
A number of years ago, not far from the house where my wife and I lived for twenty-three years in Fullerton, California, a large section of a tree fell to the ground. The grand tree was one of the landmarks that gave our neighborhood its dignity and character plus a touch of charm.

Nobody saw it happen . . . but within minutes, several of us had gathered to grieve the loss. Those once sturdy branches full of leaves spread awkwardly across the sidewalk. As I stood there staring in disbelief, the thought struck me, this didn’t just happen . . . it’s been in process for a long time.

No tree suddenly breaks apart and plunges to the ground.

We tree-lovers had no way of knowing until it was too late. Once we were able to see beneath the thick bark and inside the tree through the break, it was obvious that some kind of killer disease had been at work. Slowly, silently, secretly, deep within the core of that tall and handsome timber, an erosion had been underway— an erosion which could not remain hidden forever.

Within a couple of hours, the city workers arrived in their orange trucks filled with heavy equipment; they had everything cut up, swept up, and whisked away in no time. Cleaning up after a fallen tree is a rather quick and efficient matter. Not so with a fallen life.
Swindoll, Charles R. (2011-08-01). Meet Me in the Library: Readings from Eight Writers Who Shaped My Life (Kindle Locations 452-462). IFL Publishing House. Kindle Edition.

– Am I busy?
– Am I preoccupied in the things of this life?
– Have I deliberately taken time on several occasions this year for personal restoration?
– Is my devotion to God more earnest as the days go by or am I now drifting?
– Are my meals choked down or do I take sufficient time to taste and enjoy my food?
– Is God being glorified by the schedule I keep… or is he getting the leftovers of my energy?

A friend of D. L. Moody once said:
It is because your life is so hurried. You do not take time enough for meditation and prayer. The Spirit of God within you and the Presence of God without you cannot be discerned while the senses are occupied with pleasure, or the pulse beats quickly, or the brain is filled with the tread of many hurrying thoughts. It is when water stands that it becomes clear and reveals the pebbly beach below. Be still, and know that God is within you and around you. In the hush of the soul the unseen becomes visible and the eternal real. The eye dazzled by the sun cannot detect the beauties of its pavilion till it has had time to rid itself of the glare. Let no day pass without its season of silent waiting before God.
[These are F. B. Meyer’s words.]

A child of God needs to learn to wait for God in his life. As he matures in God’s love he begins to become aware that his life is not about seeking his own dreams and fulfilling his own ambitions. It is about discovering what God has prepared in advance for him to do. The point of everything is that God might bring him to spiritual maturity which is Christ-likeness. It is the very reason why he needs to wait upon him always. He is not his own; he is bought with a price.
The works that we share with God in his vineyard are things that we do not do on our own strength or power. We do them by the power of his Holy Spirit who is at work in us.

CONSISTENT ATTITUDE

“Words can never adequately convey the incredible impact of our attitude toward life. The longer I live the more convinced I become that life is 10 percent what happens to us and 90 percent how we respond to it. This may shock you, but I believe the single most significant decision I can make on a day-to-day basis is my choice of attitude. It is more important than my past, my education, my bankroll, my successes or failures, fame or pain, what other people think of me or say about me, my circumstances, or my position. Attitude is that ‘single string’ that keeps me going or cripples my progress. It alone fuels my fire or assaults my hope. When my attitudes are right, there’s no barrier too high, no valley too deep, no dream too extreme, no challenge too great for me.” – Charles Swindoll

“So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up.” – Galatians 6:9 (NLT)

Here are different questions but each one has the same answer.
• What defines a person who is habitually successful in sports or some other skill?
• What brings security in relationships?
• What makes us choose a particular brand name over all the others?
• What draws you to the same restaurant over and over again?
• What single quality in a business builds respect deeper than any other?
• What will add more weight to our witness for Christ than anything else?

The answer to all of these questions is CONSISTENCY. To be consistent is to be there tomorrow just like it was yesterday. Whatever it is the time of the day, a consistent man stands firm. To be consistent does not mean being perfect. It means to have permanence in what we think, do or say.

What is attitude?
Attitude…
It is the advanced man of our true selves
Its roots are inward but its fruits are outward
It is our best friend or our worst enemy
It is more honest and more consistent than our words
It is an outward look based on past experiences
It is a thing that draws people to us or repels them
It is never content until it is expressed
It is the librarian of our past
It is the speaker of our present
It is the prophet of our future

TRUTHFULNESS IN THE INWARD PARTS

“Anyone who does not take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in larger ones.” – Albert Einstein

“Surely you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place.” – Psalms 51:6 (NIV)

THE NEW EMPEROR
Once there was an emperor in the Far East who was growing old and knew it was time to choose his successor. Instead of choosing one of his assistants or one of his own children, he decided to do something different.

He called all the young people in the kingdom together one day. He said, “Time has come for me to step down and to choose the next emperor. I have decided to choose one of you.” The kids were shocked! But the emperor continued. “I am going to give each one of you a seed today. One seed. It is a very special seed. I want you to go home, plant the seed, water it, and come back here one year from today with what you have grown from this one seed. I will then judge the plants that you bring to me, and the one I choose will be the next emperor of the kingdom!”

There was one boy named Ling who was there that day and he, like the others, received a seed. He went home and excitedly told his mother the whole story. She helped him get a pot and some planting soil, and he planted the seed and watered it carefully. Every day he would water it and watch to see if it had grown. After about three weeks, some of the other youths began to talk about their seeds and the plants that were beginning to grow.

Ling kept going home and checking his seed, but nothing ever grew. Three weeks, four weeks, five weeks went by. Still nothing. By now all the others were talking about their plants but Ling didn’t have a plant, and he felt like a failure. Six months went by—still nothing in Ling’s pot. He just knew he had killed his seed. Everyone else had trees and tall plants, but he had nothing. Ling didn’t say anything to his friends, however. He just kept waiting for his seed to grow.
A year finally went by and all the youths of the kingdom brought their plants to the emperor for inspection. Ling told his mother that he wasn’t going to take an empty pot. But she encouraged him to go, and to take his pot, and to be honest about what happened. Ling felt sick to his stomach, but he knew his mother was right. He took his empty pot to the palace.

When Ling arrived, he was amazed at the variety of plants grown by all the other youths. They were beautiful—in all shapes and sizes. Ling put his empty pot on the floor and many of the other kids laughed at him. A few felt sorry for him and just said, “Hey, nice try.”

When the emperor arrived, he surveyed the room and greeted the young people. Ling just tried to hide in the back. “My, what great plants, trees, and flowers you have grown,” said the emperor. “Today, one of you will be appointed the next emperor!”

All of a sudden, the emperor spotted Ling at the back of the room with his empty pot. He ordered his guards to bring him to the front. Ling was terrified. “The emperor knows I’m a failure! Maybe he will have me killed!”

When Ling got to the front, the Emperor asked his name. “My name is Ling,” he replied. All the kids were laughing and making fun of him. The emperor asked everyone to quiet down. He looked at Ling, and then announced to the crowd, “Behold your new emperor! His name is Ling!”

Ling couldn’t believe it. Ling couldn’t even grow his seed. How could he be the new emperor?

Then the emperor said, “One year ago today, I gave everyone here a seed. I told you to take the seed, plant it, water it, and bring it back to me today. But I gave you all boiled seeds which would not grow. All of you, except Ling, have brought me trees and plants and flowers. When you found that the seed would not grow, you substituted another seed for the one I gave you. Ling was the only one with the courage and honesty to bring me a pot with my seed in it. Therefore, he is the one who will be the new emperor!”

Truthfulness in the inward parts is what God desires from his children. Sometimes it is very inconvenient to admit the truth but it is always easier to do. Mark Twain once said: “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.”

In the story of the Emperor’s Seed, truthfulness is something that the emperor was seeking in the hearts of his subjects. He understands that if he is able to be entrusted with the truth in small things, he can also be entrusted with the big things such as handling the kingdom. It must be the foundation of his reign. The Bible said: “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people.” – Proverbs 14:34 (NIV)

“Cry out for insight, and ask for understanding. Search for them as you would for silver; seek them like hidden treasures. Then you will understand what it means to fear the Lord, and you will gain knowledge of God.” – Proverbs 2:3-5 (NLT)

More information has been collected in the past three years than had ever been collected since the beginning of time. More than 100,000 scientific journals are published annually, featuring new research from the world’s laboratories. But the distance between the amount of information being generated and our ability to alchemize that information into knowledge and wisdom is growing ever greater.
[p. 122, Summoned to Lead, Leonard Sweet]

We must move from being a learned to a learner.
1. When I was learned, life was a quiz show. Now that I am a learner, life is Discovery Channel.
2. When I was learned, knowledge was everything. Now that I am a learner, kindness is everything.
3. When I was learned, I was frightened of new ideas. Now that I am a learner, old ideas frighten me more.
4. When I was learned, I loved to talk. Now that I am a learner, I’m slow to speak and quick to listen.
5. When I was learned, I always was trying to speed things up. Now that I am a learner, I’m always trying to slow things down, even when I am speeding up.
6. When I was learned, I was impatient with dumb people. Now that I am a learner, I’m grateful when people are patient enough to dumb down to me and care enough to smarten me up.
7. When I was learned, it was a question of how much I knew. Now that I am a learner, it’s a question of how much I’m being stretched.
8. When I was learned, knowledge went to my head. Now that I am a learner, knowledge travels the longest foot in the universe—the foot that separates my head from my heart.
[p. 123, ibid, from a selected number of items about the learner and the learned]

Christ’s followers are called disciples. In Greek, the word for disciple can also be translated as LEARNER. A disciple takes upon himself the attitude of always learning. He is aware that he always needs to empty his cup again and again so that he may be able to contain the things that God is pouring into him.

To learn involves humility. It begins by admitting that what we know is insufficient or that we may not know anything at all. To pour out the things that we already know seems like a waste but gaining insight from the things that we let go is priceless.

Futurist Alvin Toffler: “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read or write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”