Sometimes I get discouraged.  I make plans but they don’t turn out quite as I had hoped or expected.  A friend disappoints me.  My job feels mundane.  In spite of praying and waiting (and occasional bouts of whining), I’m still single.  My body reminds me every day that I am indeed growing older and slowing down.   I long for more out of church.  More out of life.  Something richer.  More meaningful.  Less lonely.  I wonder, “Am I wasting my life?  Have I missed God’s purposes for me?” (I confess I am a high idealist with strong melancholy tendencies.  Undoubtedly, this is a bad combination.)  I pray.  I do my duty.  Yet, each day feels increasingly like a long walk in the desert with little evidence of progress.   

Because I grew up in New Mexico, I appreciate the beauty of the desert.  A desert sunset is unequaled in color and hue.  The mountains on the horizon are both rugged and elegant.   But, I have also felt the desert’s arid assault.  A hot desert wind can gust for days filling the air with grit until it’s everywhere – in your ears, your eyes, your food.  It makes you irritable.  People snap at each other or else pass without a word, their heads tucked inside the edges of their jackets.  I know the feel of grit in my teeth.  When life is hard and discouragement blows in like a desert wind, I know the feel of grit in my soul. 

I have recently been captured by one little sentence I read.  Upon the recommendation of C.S. Lewis, I decided to read George MacDonald’s fantasy work, Phantastes.  The young wanderer, Anodos, comes upon a little spring where he stops to refresh himself.  After he drinks from the “cheerful little stream” he says:  

“It was born in a desert; but it seemed to say to itself, ‘I will flow and sing, and lave my banks, till I make my desert a paradise.’”

Oh, how I long to live like that!  You see, when life gets hard, my tendency is to withdraw.  I prefer to shrink back as if to conserve mental and emotional energy.  I tuck my head inside my jacket and head for home.  I begin to feel dried up – as if I have nothing to offer.  That’s not what Anodos’ little stream did.  No!  It was flowing freely and seeking to bless everything in its path.  I wonder if it’s possible for me to live with such freedom and generosity and joy that I could actually alter the world that surrounds me?  Could I love so well that what was once an arid desert could become a lush place? 

I once heard a speaker at a conference talk about the difference between living with an “abundance mentality” and living with a “scarcity mentality.”  I don’t remember much of what he said, but the concept stuck with me.  When I’m discouraged I begin to live with a mentality of scarcity, as if to say: “I don’t have much.  As a matter of fact, what little I have feels like it’s in jeopardy; so I must hoard it and hold onto it.” 

I’ve been wondering what it might look like as a follower of Jesus to live with a mentality of abundance: 

• These are lean economic times.  So, I will be even more generous than usual, because my Father is the one who provides for me.

• Do I feel like people are not meeting my needs?  Friends?  My husband?  I will work even more energetically and joyfully to meet their needs, because Jesus himself will be to me what I most need from others.

• I’m lonely.  I will pursue other people and love them lavishly because God has pursued me, never given up on me, and has loved me with an everlasting love.   

That is how Betsie ten Boom chose to live.  You may remember her story as told by her sister Corrie in the book The Hiding Place.  They were arrested for hiding Jews in their home during the German occupation of Holland in 1944.  Nine months later, Betsie died in Ravensbruck concentration camp.  Corrie tells how, through Jesus, and with Betsie’s prayers and influence, the barracks were transformed into a place of kindness and joy in the midst of terrible deprivation and misery. 

Jesus said in Matthew 10:8, “Freely you have received, freely give.”  That is how Betsie ten Boom lived.  It is the message of the little stream in MacDonald’s tale.  And that is exactly how I want to live as well.  I can afford to live with hope and with joy and with great generosity toward others – even when I’m in the desert.  Who knows?  God might use my little life to radically change the landscape! 

“I will flow and sing, and lave my banks, till I make my desert a paradise.”

Spike the Ball

A friend of mine thinks that we who do ministry need to learn to “spike the ball.” When football players finally get the ball into the end zone, they don’t stand around the goal post looking depressed, grumbling to one another about how many plays they had to run or talking about how they fumbled the ball on first down ten minutes
ago. No! They celebrate! They give each other high fives and jump up in the air and they spike the ball. At that moment it doesn’t matter whether or not they played flawless football. It doesn’t matter how many interceptions were thrown, or how many times the quarterback got sacked. They got the ball in the end zone and that’s the whole point of the game. It puts them six points closer to victory.

I have been thinking about this and trying to figure out why we often feel this way. (Is it just the women?) I’m sure there are many possible reasons. My guess, though, is that this vague feeling flows mostly from a failure to remember how the kingdom of God works – through ordinary people living ordinary lives. It also works slowly and out of sight, like the mustard seed and the yeast in the parables Jesus tells in Matthew 13:31-33:
“The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches.” The second parable says: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough."

• The series of weekly meetings where worship was awesome and the messages were creative, clear and compelling (move over Louie Giglio!)
  
• The small group Bible study you led that turned into genuine community, where girls shared their hearts, and brought their friends and they encountered God’s Spirit at work through his word
• That one on one where your words were not your own and seemed to penetrate to the very heart of the issue and a girl’s life was changed
• The party you pulled off and everyone is still talking about how much fun it was
• The ten women you personally led to faith in Christ this semester

A lot of parties are fun, but not that memorable. Not every Bible study or one on one will be so clearly effective. Sometimes you only get to be one link in someone’s journey to faith in Christ. So, be as faithful as you can with the ministry God has given you. Work hard. Pray hard. Learn from your mistakes. Accept the fact that both big events and small group Bible studies rarely come off without any glitches. Don’t beat yourself up over events or
conversations that were not “perfect.” (I often labor over these occasional articles and then don’t send them because I can’t get them just perfect.) Never forget for one moment that God is the ONLY ONE who is always faithful, perfectly insightful and, of course, wondrously creative. Consider the possibility that good is sometimes good enough. Go ahead and spike the ball.

© Melody Richeson, July 2010

I remember when I first began to understand that I wanted to give my life helping make disciples. I was introduced to the idea when I was still in high school. I began to grasp it and actually try to do it as a college student. I was captured by the vision of helping young men and women walk with God. It was a compelling life purpose; however, I often felt handicapped because I had never “been discipled.” Then, in my late twenties I went on staff with a collegiate ministry where this was to be my full time job: Making disciples. Suddenly, I felt woefully inadequate as I was faced day after day with the needs, questions, eagerness and sinfulness of a
large group of college students under my care and direction.

One weekend I was invited to join some friends who were hosting one of their mentors, a man who was well known as a very effective disciple-maker. God had used him tremendously in these friends’ lives and, although I had never been around him personally, I had a lot of respect for him. It was a small group of ten or twelve and we sat casually in the living room as he shared his thoughts on making disciples and tried to encourage us
regarding our various ministries. Toward the end of the evening he invited us to ask questions. Somewhere during the next few minutes I took a deep breath and found the courage to ask, “What if no one ever discipled me? How can I learn how to disciple someone else if no one ever discipled me?” (I’m pretty certain I said this with a distinct whine in my voice.) He looked at me and replied, “No one ever discipled me.” I was
stunned. And convicted. And challenged. Here was a man who had influenced hundreds of people and no one had ever personally discipled him. In that moment it began to dawn on me: there is no magic wand. No secret handshake. I am a disciple by following Jesus with all my heart, and I make disciples by loving people and coming alongside them on their journey to know, love and follow Jesus.

© Melody Richeson, August 2010