Fighting Off The Wolves

"The moment you wake up each morning, all your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists in shoving it all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other, larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in." - C.S. Lewis

Although the motion picture, The Grey, wasn't the "Liam Neeson-takes-names" action flick I thought it would be…it was still quite entertaining. I'll never forget how well the actors portrayed the urgency of starting fires in the wolf-infested woods of Alaska. Without an arsenal of weapons or safe shelter, a strong fire was the only hope the characters had of staving off the hungry, flesh-eating predators. 

As C.S. Lewis once stated, our only hope in "shoving back" the animal-like rush of our hopes, anxieties and expectations each day…is prayer. Not a simple "bless this food and all the people in the world" type of prayer. Not a "all about me" prayer either. Yet, the prayer where honesty and intentionality collide is where we commune with God and find hope.

When Paul wrote Timothy, he helped the young pastor in Ephesus understand the significance of prayer. He reminds his protege to present "petitions, prayers, intercessions and thanksgivings" before God. In essence, Paul is saying to "bring it all" before the Creator. He is big enough to handle it all. Petitions go beyond our personal needs. If our hearts are fixed on the gospel, we understand that the lost around us have the "great need of salvation." Intercession literally means "to fall in with someone" and "to draw near so as to speak intimately." In other words, our prayers for the lost and unreached should produce a compassion that "understands the depth of their pain and misery." We also focus on the "thanksgivings" of our lives…even in the midst of depression, tragedy and death.

This type of prayer constructs within us two primary fruits. 

First, the more attention we divert away from our world and to the great needs of the lost, impoverished and suffering…the more we see that our role is one of many on a grand stage. The Story of Redemption is the most beautiful of history and God wants us to see it and understand our role in giving Him glory. When we take the focus solely off of our needs, He is most glorified and we are most satisfied, as Piper would say.

Second, we experience the amazing privilege that Christ purchased with his blood. Paul said we have this honor to boldly approach the Lord because "we have one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for us all." This earth-shattering truth challenges me not to waste the blood of Christ completely on my needs, but to move towards a gospel-centered prayer life.

So today, with all of my wild "wolves" of desire, self-absorption, and narcism, I'm fighting off the wolves by setting ablaze the fire of prayer. A fire built on the fuel of "me" will die down all too soon. Yet a fire built on Christ-focused prayer will keep away the hungry predators.

Hindering Hurdles

Have you ever engaged in a conversation with someone, identified yourself as a Christian and quickly realized you had to qualify your descriptor? It happens often in our culture. It happened to me and my friend Jarred the other day. We settled in to our seats at our favorite Starbucks and struck up an exchange with our new retired friend, Lou. It was obvious to us that Lou did not share the same evangelical viewpoint. So when we pointed over I-75 to show Lou where we worked, that look of "Oh…you're those types" spread across his face. 

Now to Lou's credit, there are a myriad of issues that Christians, namely evangelicals, have raised higher than others. And not all of these issues deserve the center stage position we've given them. Whether we've become more partisan-happy than politically-responsible or divisively-driven than socially compassionate, many claiming to follow Christ have taken important issues and made them more "visible" than the Gospel. As Barna Group research has shown, many Americans see Christians as simply, "hypocritical, anti-homosexual, sheltered, too political and judgmental." Are social, political and ethical issues important? Yes, but not at the expense of blocking people from seeing Jesus…first.

Before I point my finger too long at the fundamentalists, let me make my confession. I have a tendency to take this the other way. Sometimes, due to my jaded and cynical view of unhealthy tradition, I'm tempted to abuse my freedom in Christ to "upset the apple cart." I'll go one more level of transparent….sometimes I thrive off of the shock factor. I become so frustrated with the pace of certain leaders that I go for "shock and awe" out of frustration rather than "truth and love." But maybe that's just me.

In Acts 16:1-5, Paul advises Timothy to become circumcised before visiting Jewish Christians. Wait a minute! Just a few verses earlier, the church had decided that circumcision was NOT a prerequisite of salvation. So is Paul simply reverting to his default mode of pharisaical requirements? A deeper investigation of the text shows that Paul is lovingly discipling Timothy. He's NOT encouraging him to ADD to salvation through rite of passage. He's teaching him to remove all hindering hurdles so people can see the simplicity, depth and beauty of the Gospel. 

In other words, Paul could be saying, "Should these Jewish Christians grow up and get over the circumcision issue? Sure they should. But's let's allow Christ and His Gospel to be on center stage and then we'll tackle these issues later." Paul's reminder to young Timothy: let's remove any hinderance from them seeing the Gospel first and foremost. 

What am I doing this week with those I encounter? If I allow the ceremonial, political, ethical, social to be the centerpiece of conversation, the best I could hope for is behavior modification. And that's neither deep or eternal. My prayer is to remove the hurdles so others can hear, see and respond to Jesus.