Dear
One,
Over the years, I have found that there are two "never fail"
places where I can have an uninterrupted conversation with the Lord –
on the treadmill and in the shower. Why the treadmill is anyone’s
guess but I have always thought the shower was a natural (no pun
intended) place to let my thoughts wonder. For me, it’s a great place
to unwind and allow myself to think about things beyond schedules,
appointments, etc. And as for the treadmill, I guess that walking on the
treadmill is so monotonous that my mind is available in ways that it
isn’t during the rest of the day!?!?!? So with that said, picture
this.
Treadmill torture at the gym - hair
pulled back in a ponytail, water bottle within reaching distance and
headphones turned up far beyond a safe listening level as I play a
Steven Curtis Chapman tape. All at once, my ears do a double take –
"What did he just say?" – feet off the treadmill, grab the
safety bar with one hand and rewind the tape with the other… "Did
he say burn the ships? What in the world does that mean?" I
must have stood at that silly treadmill machine for ten minutes
rewinding that tape back and forth trying to catch a glimpse of what he
was really saying. I finally gave up, turned off my headphones
and went to the locker room in frustration. Burn the ships…burn the
ships...
A portion of "Burn the Ships"
by Steven Curtis Chapman - Written
by Steven Curtis Chapman and James Isaac Elliott Ó 1994 Sparrow Song
"In the spring of 1519 a Spanish
fleet set sail
Cortez told his sailors this mission
must not fail
On the eastern shore of Mexico they
landed with great dreams
But the hardships of the new world made
them restless and weak
Quietly they whispered, "Let’s
sail back to the life we knew"
But the one who led them there was
saying:
Burn the ships, we’re here to
stay
There’s no way we could go back
Now that we’ve come this far
by faith
Burn the ships, we’ve passed the
point of no return
Our life is here
So let the ships burn…"
Ah ha! "So let the ships
burn…" In other words, deny the impulse to go back to what has
worked before…I get it!
What has worked before…that sounds
like a definition of flesh, doesn’t it? (Flesh: patterns that you have
established in your life to satisfy your need for love and acceptance. A
common example of "flesh" would be performance-based
acceptance which establishes that you will accept others when their
performance or behavior lines up with a standard or expectation that you
choose as worthy – i.e., "when my husband treats me like I
deserve to be treated, then I will treat him with
respect…"). You and I know that as Christians we don’t have to
depend on our flesh anymore. We have Christ. But the impulse, the desire
to depend upon our flesh to meet our needs rather than depending on
Christ is a very real and strong urge.
We are not alone. Think about the sons
of Israel. In the second chapter of Exodus, we see that the sons of
Israel have cried out to God for deliverance from their bondage in Egypt
(Exodus 2:23). They are clearly looking to God for His provision.
Well, you know the story - God answers their cries through His servant,
Moses. But you know what? If we look throughout the book of Exodus and
even over into Numbers, we will find that when the children of Israel
found themselves in difficult circumstances, their immediate reaction
was relatively predictable. Even when they were sitting on the edge of the
Promised Land, they responded this way. Numbers 14:3 tells us, "And
why is the Lord bringing us into this land to fall by the sword? Our
wives and our little ones will become plunder; would it not be better
for us to return to Egypt?’" They had forgotten again
how desperate they had been to leave Egypt and how miserable their lives
had been there. So, could we say that their first impulse or reaction
was similar to Cortez’s men as depicted in Stephen Curtis Chapman’s
song…"let’s sail back to the life we once knew"? Can we
also say that very often our first reaction to difficult times or
unfamiliar territory is to turn back to what was familiar to us?
Ladies, please don’t be discouraged.
It is not up to us to live the Christian life. You can
breathe a huge sigh of relief! Jesus Christ has done it all. In Christ,
we have been given the very resource for living and He lives inside each
one of us. We now have a choice that we never had before we became
Children of the Living God. We can choose to walk after the flesh or we
can live by the Spirit. In other words, we can either "sail back to
the life we once knew" or we can "burn the ships"!
So, I have just one question. Anyone
got a match?
I love you,
Marcy
marcy@gospelfortoday.org |
