by Aarron Pina | Aug 13, 2012 | Uncategorized
One of Cristine’s favorite Old Testament figures is King Josiah. Thrust onto the throne at age 8 after his father was assassinated by his own cabinet at the end of his two year reign. How does an eight year old kid cope with his dad’s untimely murder? The same way you and I ought to respond – “He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and walked in the ways of his father David, not turning aside to the right or to the left.”
I’m sure he grieved the loss. I lost my dad to divorce when I was about his age. My dad was still alive and it marked me for life. I won’t sit here and tell you it was easy. But, Josiah’s heart was all God’s. At eight, he’s crowned. At 16 he begins massive reform figuratively equivalent to bombing ESPN, MTV, FOX, and NBC’s broadcasting operations (2 Chron 34:3-6). He completely turned their culture upside-down. At 26, he restores the temple and the Book of the Law was found.
If I’m this 26 year old “kid”, I’d be feeling pretty good about myself at this point – I’ve made up for my father’s wickedness, I’m serving the one, true, living God and routing out all other rival gods… I’d be fired up to see how my actions were lining up with this famous manuscript. It’s report card time!
“F.”
I don’t know how far off the mark Josiah was or even where he was missing the mark, but when he read the text, he “tore his robes (v. 19)” in shame. Even though God had put the wheels in motion to begin the demise and exile of Israel because of their wicked disobedience to Him, the prophet Huldah tells the administration that Josiah will be spared this destruction. For the remaining 13 years of his reign, it’s pretty much “all good in the ‘hood” for Israel and they celebrate a Passover feast that even rivals anything put on in the time of King Solomon or even David, all on Josiah’s dime.
The key is pretty obvious here – God postpones judgment on Israel a few years “because your heart was responsive and you humbled yourself before God… (v 27)” It’s a gospel message all over again. Repent – change your mind and turn your heart away from idols and lesser gods – and you shall be saved.
Seasons of Life is about relationships restored, first to the Father, then to the people. When our vertical relationship with Him is intact, often the relationships with those around us bang on all four cylinders with less stalling and coughing. In relationships, one of the greatest idols that comes between us and our God is expectation. When pride gets the best of us, we bank all we have on our plans and expectations of how things should go, people should act, outcomes should manifest. In so doing, we leave little or no room for the plans of God, leading to death, destruction, depression, and/or discouragement either figuratively or literally.
The Good News:
As always, the gospel offers a reset button of sorts. When we set aside our altars and high places, holding our plans with open hands, we’re free to let God remove from our hands what is temporarily “ours” and replace it with what He knows we really need. With open hands we also lower the risk of losing our fingers when He removes something from our possession very quickly.
As we grieve our oldest daughter’s departure to live with her dad, we thank many of you for your heartfelt prayers and encouragement. We thank others for tearing their clothes, sitting on an ash heap with us, and weeping without words. But, we also thank God that He has shown us two things: 1) that our children are not ours forever – we are to raise, love, and steward them as any other charge He grants us and 2) that we can trust Him with the expectations we had for how her life would go. Yes, we must grieve the loss of “our plans”, but Josiah’s dextrous feet shifted his balance so nimbly. God grants us the grace to repent of our plans, however good they may have been, and concede to His higher, greater, and better plans.
What expectations are you holding onto? Will you trust God as Josiah did and run full force in the opposite direction if God so guides you? Even if it means going against what culture and comfort say is right?
The Better News:
The message of the gospel is not “be good”. It’s “an A+ is completely unattainable” or “you’re wicked and completely incapable of pleasing God, so He did it for you.” You don’t have to try harder to tear down the altars and high places in your life. You’re incapable of doing it on your own. Thank God!!!
Be encouraged. Jesus took your test and passed it with flying colors! His grade can be trusted.
in Christ,
AP
by Aarron Pina | Aug 13, 2012 | Uncategorized
Romans 8:24b-26a:
“But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.”
by Aarron Pina | Aug 8, 2012 | Uncategorized
I just got Daniel Diaddigo’s email newsletter and I think you should, too. If you’re too lazy to click here, I’ve posted his latest – spot-on, might I add – edition below as a guest post, with permission. He’s planning to do some great things with the newsletter, so here’s your second chance to “click here” and subscribe.
Daniel is also the author of a very important book called “Unfinished Business with God”. He’s on point with that piece, too. Click here to take a closer look at this poignant book, or to order or share it with someone who takes your opinion seriously that has unfinished business with God.
-AP
—
“Let everything that has breath
praise the Lord. (Psalm 105:6)”
 |
Daniel Diaddigo is a husband, father, author,
and thought leader in marketplace ministry. |
“If you’ve got a business… you didn’t build that, someone else made that happen.”
These words, arranged and dispersed by President Barak Obama and broadcast ad nauseam by talk radio, have become the epicenter of late for a national discussion around the role people play in achieving success.
Pundits on the political right, with whom I would normally agree, have seized upon the President’s comments as proof positive of his collectivist soul.
They would argue that the American Dream resides not upon dependence upon government but dependence upon self, that rugged individualism made this country great, and that achievement is the net result of a person’s hard work and ingenuity.
And they would be wrong.
Don’t hit delete yet. Hear me out. I’m writing from the vantage of an entrepreneur.
If you count the Jolly Rancher racket I ran in middle school, I have owned, managed and/or created about a dozen companies over the past thirty years.
I know what it is to navigate regulations, litigation, and innovation. Leadership development, employee benefits and incentives, marketing campaigns, personnel issues, price points and competition occupy my daily discourse. I am familiar with eighteen-hour days and “vacations” stalked by market volatility.
Simply put, I understand experientially what people mean when they say they “built this business”. I, too, would like to believe that I am responsible for my own success.
But I am not. Someone else made that happen.
If we could hear past the static of American discourse and think biblically for a moment, I believe we would agree that we are not owners and we are not creators.
We are stewards.
Our gifts and talents, relationships, upbringing and proximity to opportunity are ordained by God. It is true that we reap what we sow and there does exist a causal relationship between our achievement and our diligence. But even the spark that drives us to achieve does not self-ignite. No, someone else made that happen as well.
That someone is God.
We are shepherds of that which the Lord entrusts to us. To the extent we follow Him, we lead well. To the degree we trust Him, we manage well. And where we depend on Him, we decision well.
But when we yield to the belief that that business is our own – we substitute ourselves for God as the center of all things.
I’m not making a political statement here. Our friends on the left are equally wrong, for they would insert government in that same space.
Here is truth: anything that occupies the center of our hope that is not Jesus is a distraction and a lie.
We who believe we are the reason for our business should remember He Who provides the breath with which we boast.
by Aarron Pina | Aug 7, 2012 | Uncategorized
While I disagree with Steve Brown’s use of “sinner”, (theNew Testament constantly refers to those in Christ as “saints”. Not because we don’t sin, rather because we
by Aarron Pina | Aug 6, 2012 | Uncategorized
“If the Lord delights in a man’s way,
he makes his steps firm;
though he stumble, he will not fall,
for the Lord upholds him with his hand. (Psalm 37:23-24)”
OK, hermeneutical time out – a psalm is poetry, poetry is not a promise. However, throughout both Proverbs and Psalms are great nuggets of wisdom, insight into the character and nature of God, and a repletion of principles we can regard as “best practices” or “bet your 401K on it”. Are we tracking?
Our family is at a very difficult crossroads right now. Over the weekend we were faced with a decision so big, I literally woke with a 6 hour headache and took two hours to write a 4 paragraph email. To say that we were mentally and emotionally taxed would be grossly understating things. Repeatedly, I found myself talking out loud to God, begging Him for either overall clarity or at least enough mental acuity to stir the pasta sauce on the stove – neither of which I felt any mastery over. There was nothing useful in my head. Just a pile of unorganizable, edgeless thoughts.
I’m an external processor – my thoughts untangle themselves best outside my head, such as in discussion or writing. Saturday, I had no one I could talk to immediately who’d bring appropriate experience to the table and mere moments to move on some of the moving parts of the decision. I felt mentally stranded, struggling to find internal resources to bring to bear on the situation.
On top of that, I had three toddlers running around the backyard, each asking me to play something different with them or screaming that one of the others wasn’t sharing. I felt as if I was holding a live bomb with both hands while having my legs pecked off by a chicken. “Lord, I’ve got nothing to add to the situation but my need for You. Help. Me. Please.”
Out of respect for your time, I’ll skip to yesterday, when answers came – I opened a bible to Psalm 37 and began reading. If you’ve never had an experience where the words are jumping off the page, pray for one. It will blow… your… mind. With all the thoughts swarming through my head and all the background “noise” outside it, I have never experienced a moment where everything around me just seemed to stand still and the living word calmed my storm. I was flooded with encouragement (I mean, just read that thing!), perspective, counsel, and peace.
Why does this matter to you?
Glad you asked.
The bible does not promise us a wrinkle free life. It does not promise that good things will only happen to good people and the wicked will fail in all of their evil endeavors. It’s never that cut and dried. You’re going to be lied to by people who believe wholeheartedly that if you’re not experiencing great prosperity and material abundance, it’s your fault and your faith is not strong enough. But, scripture speaks forcefully against this:
1 Thess 5:23-24: “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass.” God is in charge of outcomes and He will achieve His purposes
Ultimately, the Lord upholds our hand. His plans, not ours apart from Him, will ultimately succeed. If calamity is on us, it is no surprise to Him and He can be trusted to bring us through it. We may fall, even fall off a cliff, hitting rocks and branches on the way down. This does not make scripture a liar. Remember, poetry is figurative literal, not word-for-word literal. In the end – after everything we try so desperately to preserve is turned to ash at the coming of the Lord and the new heavens and earth – we who are made righteous by the blood of Christ will have a “safe landing”.
I’m not waxing eloquent today to tell you “God is in control” and leave you with that. I’m passing this on in hopes it will spark one of you to lean into God and beg him for the encouragement you need when you need it and to remind you “it’s in there”. God has not left us to wander without direction. He has sent the Holy Spirit to “come along side us” and comfort – one of the ways He does this is to illuminate scripture as we seek the living God who inspired it. Trust in the Lord, wring the truth out of His word. That’s why He put it there. That’s why He sent the Spirit.
in Christ,
AP
One of Cristine’s favorite Old Testament figures is King Josiah. Thrust onto the throne at age 8 after his father was assassinated by his own cabinet at the end of his two year reign. How does an eight year old kid cope with his dad’s untimely murder? The same way you and I ought to respond – “He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and walked in the ways of his father David, not turning aside to the right or to the left.”