I spent the past week speaking at a camp in northern CA. As always, I was humbled and honored to be put in such a position.
At the end of the week, after all the events and lessons were done, the students and staff sat together around a fire and reflected on what the Lord had spoken into their hearts and lives throughout the week. I stood in the back tired, hungry, humbled, and thankful, as I soaked in all that the Lord had spoken into the students hearts over the week.
Towards the end of the meeting a senior girl stood up and began to share. What she said was simple, but struck me a deeply profound truth.
She spoke with anxious resolve:
“I have done the camp thing year after year. Every year I have gone home “on fire for God” telling him that it is all his, but time has proven that each year I have only been fooling myself. Every year there have been “but’s” and “if’s” attached to my trust and faith in Jesus. This year I have felt the direct call to give it all to Him. I mean ALL of it, my hopes, my dreams, my relationships, everything, and to be honest, I am really scared, because it feels like I just signed a blank contract with God.”
She said it quickly, I doubt anybody else thought twice about her words to be honest, but they fell heavy on my ears.
God has been speaking to me in similar ways lately.
Years into my journey with Him He is asking me, “will you sign the contract to follow afresh, though you stand more deeply aware of what it means to follow, and not knowing what is written above that dotted line, other than my good name? Do you REALLY trust me? Will you sign the contract, not because you have examined it and found it to be “safe”, but because you know I am its author, and I am above all things, good?
That young woman was on the right track I believe. We are all either in contract with this world, or in contract with God.
What if Jesus actually meant it when he said “the road is narrow and few find it” ?
What if the middle ground isn’t quite as broad as we think?
What if Jesus really meant it when He said “because you are lukewarm I will spit you out”
What if we never really signed God’s contract?
The contract this world sets before us is simple, written in bullet points and plain english.
You know what you are getting yourself into when you sign it. Money, comfort, sex, pleasure. Tough truth: These things are God’s deffinition of “vanity” and “vapor” apart from the infiltration of the life of Jesus Christ, and once His life has filled them, they become about His kingdom. Means and gifts, not ends in and of themselves.
God just cuts to the chase and says, “whoever seeks to safe his life will lose it, but whoever will lose his life for my sake will find it.”
What if it really is impossible to worship God and the things of this world (even the good things) simultaneously?
What if the church at large has been blinded to the fact that many “followers” are trying to adhere to both contracts at once and in doing so, rendering God’s contract null and void because in their very nature the contracts are mutually exclusive.
The “contract” metaphor only extends so far, but the question remains: do we trust Him? And it is a sobering realization when we find out our words alone have little bearing in proving the answer to this weighty question a “yes”.
Need rest in the midst of these high and difficult stakes? It is found in one thing: the strong, and unchanging finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross. He paid for my right to sign the contract with His infinitely valuable blood.
Perhaps the most soul calming truth I have heard in months, maybe years, was in a sermon by Tim Keller I recently listened to:
“It is not the quality of your faith that saves you, but its object”
This is calming because I have found my faith weak, and I wrestle with signing the blank contract so often.
Lord, give me the faith to sign the dotted line with nothing but Your Name above it, because you are good. Thanks for the words you gave that young woman this week.
You are good, above all things.
——
“Ooh!” said Susan,”I’d thought he was a man. Is he quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”
“That you will, dearie, and no mistake,” said Mrs Beaver; “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”
“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.
“Safe?” said Mr Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”
Chapter 8,
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,
The Chronicles of Narnia
I have just started reading, ‘Radical Together,’ David Platt’s second eagerly read-only-to-be-completely-ignored book.
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