Thinking about broken vessels…

As I consider the anguish, the frustration, anger, disillusionment, even the despair the Haggards and close friends are contending with at this time my heart breaks with them, though I’ve never met them.  

Tonight I’m especially thinking of the one whose choices brought it on – the one learning to live with but two titles: husband and father.  The days ahead are going to be difficult beyond description.  The enemy is going to resort to cheap-shot temptations to undo the repentance we read in his letter to his congregation before the ink dries completely and resolve solidifies. Waves of unworthiness, shame and inadequacy may bring him closer to yet another edge – that of truncating his life along with his public ministry.  The enemy knows it would be the ultimate defeat – there’s no restoration in that.  His sinister delight would be in such – I pray God’s protection on his life.

Finances are going to enter the picture now.  The regular, predictable income replaced with looking for work.  Dismissals of this sort don’t come with severance packages that make life easy.  He may hear himself soon pray “Anything you make available, Lord, anything. Just care for my family.  Please.”

There will be awkward silences to endure in counseling and other conversations while he decides yet again how honest he needs to be.  ”Completely” will come to mind and he will hopefully take a breath and answer truthfully, even if the truth brings tears he wished were not of his doing.

It’s a long list – or could be -  all part of what God does with some of us in life.   This is what the Lord said in Jeremiah 18. 

1 The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD saying, 2 ”Arise and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will announce My words to you.” 3 Then I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, making something on the wheel. 4 But the vessel that he was making of clay was spoiled in the hand of the potter; so he remade it into another vessel, as it pleased the potter to make.

Remaking is painful, especially at first.  When a man enjoys what God WAS doing in his life, at least publicly, to be broken down completely and re-crafted is one of the most humiliating things a leader will encounter.   But the word “another” does mean  another of a different kind.  The re-made servant has to accept not only that he is being made over by Almighty God, but also that the most enjoyable things about life and ministry as they were - may truly be a thing of the past.   Yieldedness to His sovereignty is easy to describe – much more difficult to live out, but essential. 

And there will be moments, perhaps more than a few, when the re-molded servant must be content to say “I’m just thankful He decided to re-make me.  He didn’t have to, but Grace brought a new form to mind.  I will yield to His touch more fully this time.”

The Lord doesn’t limit His re-making just to leaders, though.  He lovingly applies this approach as needed, with any and all of those truly His own.  Are you in similar straits?  At the end? Broken beyond description?  Come to the Savior.  You’ll not find stronger, holier, more skillful hands anywhere in the world, past, present or future.   Come to Him now.

–PLR–

Thinking about moral failure…

When I wrote on Friday about my concerns for Christians forfeiting their freedom in Christ to live as enslaved, I had no idea I would hear what I did on the news that evening.

“Have you been following the news today?”  my wife asked me.

“No, I haven’t”  I replied.  She told me briefly of what was happening in Colorado Springs at New Life Church, that Ted Haggard, the senior pastor had resigned, and why.

My heart sank. 

Through the weekend I watched and read what I could of the news, as long as there was some attempt to remain objective.  I watched Mrs. Haggard’s face, especially her eyes, as the camera tried to find her husband behind the wheel as he answered questions.  I read and listened to his words. Watched his face.  His eyes.  His mouth as they formed the words.

And I prayed through the resulting nausea.

Today I’ve read perspectives from various points of view on blogs that belong to thinkers, and in the press.  It’s a full spectrum of emotions and perspectives from as many points of view as there are Christians, and many who aren’t.  

“Vibrance”  is not a place for controversial discussions.  I have intentionally not gone there.  We children find it easy enough to bicker and quarrel without my adding my 2-cents worth to stir things up.   I do have some strong and urgent thoughts on this situation, though.  As I collect and present them I hope you will understand these thoughts will not be posted here for controversy-sake.  What I post will be consitent with the purposes of this place  (see “C’mon In!”  up above) and while I welcome comments, I will moderate comments without apology. 

I will say this much as a preface to the thoughts to come:

We ought not take too much stock in current comments and press releases.  We need to look for the same thing the Master Gardener, God Himself, anticipates.  And that is renewed fruitfulness, though it won’t be in the same venue as fruitfulness recently truncated and forfeited.   To say anything at the time of pruning is premature.   Pray.  Hold your tongue several months and then see how things are as God works in and through people closest to this situation.  “What’s changed? What’s improving?  What’s still a struggle?” will be questions we who look on may feel free to ask. 

Jesus said “By your fruits you will know them”.   We know what exists right now. It’s not fruit.  But let’s let God do His work, knowing He sees the beginning from the end and His is the only opinion that matters.   Ted Haggard’s life has not come to an end.  He is still a husband, and he is still a father.  The efforts of those working with him right now are not in vain, even if he disappears from public view and all we ever read is that he is walking with God and faithfully leading his wife and family at home.  That’s God’s call – not ours.

Those who are only happy when they have life & ministry all figured out will have quick assessments, even forcefully stated.  Some of them you may have already seen. I am not in that camp as there is much I do not know, much I do not understand, or need to.  I have neither the energy nor the desire to play Jr. Holy Spirit.  But I can pray. 

• For a church suddenly faced with questions of authenticity and believability, their leader having been removed a few days ago.
• For five kids trying to find their way through the debris this moral tornado has hurled into their world.
• For a wife suddenly yanked from her ministry —not because of what she’s done, but because of her husband’s sin— faced with decisions, responsibilities and emotions she never thought she’d face.
• For church leaders faced with challenges unimaginable last month but real today.
• For a minister of the gospel now a layman, stripped of all authority, credibility, respect and honor, by actions admittedly of his own doing.  While his Lord’s forgiveness is available to him —already granted if he’s done business with God—  the rescue, the reconstruction, the renewal of his own heart and family will take longer and be harder than he dares to imagine right now.

I need to pray.  We all do.

And we all need to be self-disciplined and on the alert.  We have an enemy on the prowl.   More on that in 1 Peter 5.  We can be alert without being suspicious – and we must.

Next:  Thinking About the Mind