The
Winning
Way
Contents
________________
Chapter
1. Touched
by a Homeless Man: A
Changed Life…….. 5
2. Successful
but Unsatisfied …………………………..17
3. Giving
Up .………….………………………………23
4. Finding
Our Purpose in Life ………………………..27
5. “Transformed”
God’s Way .………………….……
43
6. Letting
the Holy Spirit Take Charge .…………..…...59
7. Where’s
the Fruit? .……………………….……........81
8. Prayer
- Key to the Good Life …..…………............
95
9. What’s
Love Got to Do with It?………………….... 121
10. Powered
Up to Overcome Temptation .....….……....131
11. Sharing
the Good Life .………………………..……151
12. Winning
Instead of Whining…………………..…....173
Discussion
Questions – 191
Notes – 203
Bibliography – 207
About the Author – 210
CHAPTER
1
___________________________________
Touched
by a Homeless Man:
A
Changed Life
Do
not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have
entertained angels without knowing it.
Hebrews
13:2
While
waiting for my train to arrive at the Philadelphia 30th
Street Station, I passed the time reading the newspaper, oblivious to
those around me, until I noticed a homeless man walking up to where I
sat. His approach was slow
and deliberate as he seemed to focus on me. When he reached me, he
stood quietly before me waiting to make eye contact.
When our eyes finally met, I became uncomfortable.
It wasn’t the hands covered with grease or the tattered,
dirty clothes that caused this discomfort.
It was his eyes—indescribable eyes that seemed full of love,
compassion and sorrow, and that seemed to know me.
As
he held me in his gaze, I thought I must be imagining all of this
about his eyes and I began thinking of how to dismiss him, but before
I could do so, he quietly asked, “Sir, may I speak with you?”
My
first thought was, “Oh no, here we go again, another bum begging for
a handout.” I had never appreciated the plight of the needy.
They made me uncomfortable and perhaps a bit afraid.
I felt they should stop bothering people and go out and get a
job like everyone else.
I
wasn't inclined to give homeless people any attention, and I certainly
didn’t want to give this man any money.
But he hadn’t asked for money.
He asked only, “May I speak with you?”
What kind of a question was that?
As I pondered him and his question, his incredible eyes gripped
me. Finally, I couldn’t
remain seated any longer and I stood up to face him.
“Will
you feed me?” he asked.
I
wasn’t prepared for that question—at least not asked that way. All
around me, finely dressed men and women hurried off to dinners, shows
and business meetings. Others,
like me, looked forward to getting home to their families.
Many milled about in the cathedral-like structure, with its
spacious halls and its magnificent columns rising to meet beautifully
carved and painted ceilings high above.
Others slept. Some chatted with colleagues or friends.
Others sat idly, lost in thought, daydreams or fantasies.
I
wondered why this man had so intentionally picked me out of this mass
of people. So, I asked
him, “With all these people sitting around daydreaming, why did you
choose me? Why did you pick me from behind a newspaper?”
“Because,”
he answered, “you look like a gentleman with whom I should speak.”
Those were his actual words.
His
English diction was perfect and he seemed oddly articulate.
He spoke like a well-educated and intelligent man, not at all
like what I would have expected. This
in itself was disquieting. He
used better grammar than I normally do as an attorney and writer.
I began to wonder who he was and why he was here.
Even
stranger than his speech was the fact that instead of asking for
money, he said his reason for picking me out of the crowd was that he
thought he could “should speak” with me.
That got my interest. What
could he possibly have to say to me?
In my cynical heart, I was disdainful and critical of this man.
He looked perfectly capable of working for a living, but had
chosen to live the life of a homeless person instead. I just came
right out and challenged him.
“You’re
obviously a well-educated man. You
speak better than I do. Why
aren’t you working instead of being on the street?”
“I’m
glad you asked that,” he replied. “I hoped that you would permit
me to share something with you. I’m
a pharmacist by training. For
twenty years I was employed as the pharmacist at a hospital right here
in town. Life was good.
I had a wife and two children.
I had a nice house. I
thought I had it all. Yes,
life was good ¾
until the day I received a phone call at the pharmacy telling me that
my house had burned down and my wife and children had perished in the
flames.”
Perhaps
his story would have made me suspicious since it had obvious potential
as a good come-on for a beggar to use.
But the truth was in his eyes.
Even the genuine sadness in the matter-of-fact way he told his
story made it impossible for me to doubt its truth. He went on to
explain his situation.
“After
losing my family, I could no longer think clearly.
I couldn’t concentrate well enough to make a prescription.
But even if I could, I no longer had any reason to work since I lost
my whole reason for living.
Everything I lived for was gone.
I’ve been on the streets ever since, talking to men like you
who need to know. I share
with them, and eat with them, but I never ask for money.
It’s been a long time since I’ve eaten, and I’m very
hungry, will you feed me?”
Looking
back on the scene now, I’m embarrassed to say that by this point in
the conversation I was still clueless about what was happening here.
My insensitive and foolish response was to offer a couple
dollars so he could buy something.
He looked at me with kind eyes and gently declined my offer of
money.
Once
again, he asked: “Will
you feed me?” Did he mean this literally and, if so, what did he
expect me to do? I asked
if I could buy him a burger and fries at the McDonald’s located in
the station. This,
however, was not what he had in mind.
Instead, he asked me to join him for lunch at the small
atrium-like café located in what might be described as a chapel hall
just off the main cathedral of the station.
At
this point, I didn’t know what to say.
What could I say to
this increasingly mysterious man who had picked me out a crowd and
then confidently directed me to the specific café where he expected
me to join him for lunch?
I had a train to catch. But
as I considered the homeless man, my heart was strangely moved.
What began as a passing thought became a compelling desire to
sit down and eat with this man. The train could wait.
Another would come later. Talking
with this man had become the single most important thing I could do at
that moment—even though I didn’t understand why.
We
went over to the café and ate a good meal.
We sat together and talked for quite a while. Our conversation
touched on issues that I wouldn’t normally discuss with an
acquaintance of many years. He
asked questions about me and what I was doing with my life.
Perhaps my conscience caused me to imagine things, but it
seemed that he knew things about me that I didn’t want him to know.
I felt like he could see that I was well on the way to
destroying my marriage and family.
Without actually saying so, he seemed to know that I was living
for my self, driven by the desire for prestige, power and enough money
to gain financial independence. My
life style was so well described by the motto, “I want it all, and I want it now!” that one of my colleagues had
fastened a large button with that saying onto the lampshade in my law
office.
As
we finished our meal and I rose to leave, he turned to me and asked,
“Will you make me a promise?”
I must have given him a surprised and bewildered look.
He held my eyes with his as he said, “Think about this. The
next time you see someone who is poor, needy or homeless, remember me!
I once had everything you have now.
I had a wife, two children, a good job and a home.
In an instant, I lost them all.
The difference between you and me is so small.
You could lose everything just as quickly as I lost it.
Remember me. And
remember that all you have is by the grace of God.”
When
he spoke of the grace of God I thought of how often I had heard
preachers, parents and teachers speak similar words.
They had always seemed so trite.
Coming from this man, however, I was awestruck by the
simplicity and truth of this statement.
In that moment, I experienced an odd sensation. I felt his
words hitting me hard right where I needed to be hit.
Even as I stood there, I found myself thinking this man had
gotten to me like no preacher or teacher ever managed to accomplish.
And he wasn’t even finished with me yet.
Looking
steadily into my eyes, he said, this is the promise I ask: “The next
time you see a homeless person or someone in need will you feed them?
Will you care for them? Will you clothe them?
Will you meet their need? Don’t
give them money. That isn’t what they need.
They need you. Will you give them
of yourself? Will you love
them?” This final
question stunned me.
An
uncomfortably long moment passed while I thought about the questions
that formed the promise. Quietly—almost
reverentially—I replied, “I will.” His eyes gleamed as he smiled
and wished me well. As I
boarded the next train for
Washington
, the impact of what had happened to me
in
Philadelphia
, and how it would fundamentally change
my life, had not yet dawned on me.
This man powerfully ministered to me with God’s love.
Since then, a day has rarely gone by that I have not thought of
him. I’ve often wondered
whether meeting him could have led to such change in my life unless it
had been a divine appointment. As
a new love and compassion seemed to well up inside of me from depths
previously unknown, I realized that when I said “yes” to the
homeless man, I said yes to God.
As
I took the two-hour train ride home from
Philadelphia
, my mind wouldn’t stop replaying the
scene with the homeless man. I
kept thinking about his strange, articulate way of speaking and his
measured words. I
especially thought about his eyes. As a new feeling of peace and joy
began to fill me, it began to dawn on me that something supernatural
had happened. I
disembarked from the train an entirely different man from the one who
had boarded that morning.
I
suddenly felt alive. I
felt a joyful sense of peace that I had never known.
And the more I basked in this feeling, the more unnatural the
whole experience seemed. As I pondered the homeless man’s words I
realized that I had been sleep-walking through life, taking my good
fortune for granted and squandering what God had given me.
In the weeks after my
Philadelphia
encounter, I found myself practically
overflowing with the sense of deep peace and joy.
I began talking to people and taking an interest in people whom
I previously would have crossed the street to avoid.
While traveling in other cities since then, I have found myself
asking homeless men to join me for dinner, buying bus and train
tickets for those who claim they need to get home, and spending time
listening to them and talking with them. That might even seem like odd
behavior for a man much more spiritual than I.
It was certainly extraordinary behavior for me.
In doing this, I learned that each of these men and women has a
heartbreaking story to share.
Down
and Out in
Chicago
and
New
Orleans
In
Chicago
, a man asked me to give him fare for a
subway. After treating him
to dinner at the hotel, I walked him to the subway and bought him a
ticket. He may or may not
have gotten on the train after that, but I felt good and knew that I
had honored my commitment to give of myself without just giving my
money. At least I knew he
had a good meal and a fellow sojourner willing to listen to his story
who could share a little of God’s love.
In
New Orleans
, I stood in line at a Burger King late
one night. A muscular
black man in his mid-twenties had just purchased his own dinner and
was getting ready to walk out with his burger and fries in a bag when
he took a long look at me and then asked if he could sit with me.
I have to confess that I was more than a bit surprised that he
would want to join me. As
an average looking, middle-aged, white guy, I wouldn’t kid myself
about being so hip that a young black man should just be dying to have
dinner with me for an edifying conversation.
Nevertheless,
something about him told me it was OK, and we sat down together for
dinner. During dinner, I
asked a lot of questions about him and learned that he had just been
released from prison. His conviction was for murder.
Before I had revealed anything about myself, he told me that he
had accepted Christ as his Savior just a couple weeks before his
release. I thought it odd that this man should volunteer such personal
information to a complete stranger.
But, by now I had learned to expect the unexpected and to look
for an opportunity to be of service no matter how strange the
circumstances seemed.
After
we had talked for awhile, he said he needed money for the train to a
nearby city where his sister lived.
I didn’t know whether his story was true, but it seemed that
I should spend some time with him and learn more about his profession
of faith in Christ. For
the next several hours, we walked all over
New Orleans
. If
he had not just gotten out of prison, he sure put on a convincing act
that he had. He was like a
kid in candy store. Truly,
he seemed like a man who had just gained freedom. He said he had
worked for the city sanitation department, and he excitedly showed me
streets he had maintained and trashcans he had emptied.
He kept stopping to talk to people.
He even stopped police officers to admire their horses and tell
them that he used to work with sanitation at the stables.
We
ended our evening together by shooting a couple games of pool at a
local bar. I’m lousy at
the game, and I don’t like bars, but he wanted to play, and seemed
to enjoy being with me, so why not?
During the course of the evening I shared with him my own faith
in Christ and encouraged him in his new faith.
Finally, I walked him to the train station (probably a foolish
idea) and bought him a ticket to another city.
I
sought to build him up—to disciple him into a more confident walk
with Jesus. I explained as
best I could how the Holy Spirit is available to strengthen him to
withstand the temptation and sin that is so rampant, and how he could
accept the Holy Spirit’s control in his life.
Without the Holy Spirit’s power and influence in one’s
life, it would be impossible to stay out of sin in the city of
New Orleans
, or anywhere else for that matter.
Instead
of spending time with a convict, I could have joined a dinner at the
American Bar Association (ABA) meeting that I was attending.
At the
ABA
dinner I would have been with people
like myself and enjoyed conversation and companionship with old
friends and acquaintances. I
might have made important contacts leading to new clients.
But by heeding the opportunity to share spiritual conversation
to help build up a man who had just gotten his freedom, I went to bed
that night knowing that I had obeyed God and done something much more
significant.
There are many other men and women in spiritual and physical
need whose paths have crossed mine in the last few years.
For some, I have heard the silent call to listen to their story
and share God’s love. I
wish I could say that I have responded to each need, but I haven’t.
It is easy to get so tangled up in the daily routine of life
that I focus on myself and fail to hear or respond to the silent cries
for help all around me.
What
Would Jesus Do?
Having
no rational, reasonable explanation for the change that was occurring
in me, I concluded that I had experienced a spiritual encounter of a
most dramatic kind. In my
search for the source of this new experience, I bought a copy of The
New International Version ("NIV") Bible.
This proved to be much easier to understand than the King James
Bible I had while growing up. What
was particularly striking to me was that I had an actual hunger to
read the words of the Bible. Even
though I had read much of it many times before, this felt like the
first time I had ever truly read it.
For the first time, the message of the words seemed to jump off
the pages and began to sink in and become real to me.
As
I began my new study of the Bible, one of the first passages to catch
my attention was in the 25th chapter of the book of
Matthew, which describes a scene where people are brought before the
"heavenly throne." Two
large groups of people are standing before the King.
One group He blesses and the other He rejects.
To
those He blesses, He says: “For I was hungry and you gave me
something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I
was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed
me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came
to visit me.”
In
response to the surprise of the good people who answer that they don't
know when they did any of these things for the King, He responds:
“Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine,
you did for me.” He
turns to all those people standing at his other side and tells them
they are cursed and must depart his company because they didn't care
for Him when He was in need.
The
startled outcry of these people is that they attended religious
services and were good and decent folks.
They argue that there must be some sort of mistake because they
never saw the King hungry or thirsty, or a stranger or needing
clothes, or otherwise needing help. But the King responds,
"Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did
not do for me."
As
I think about all the homeless and needy people I have ignored as I
passed along my way, secure in my belief that I was acceptable to God
because I had put my faith in Him and attempted to live a good life,
my heart aches knowing that by ignoring these people who needed me, I
ignored and rejected God.
Much
of organized religion today makes a great show of pomp and ceremony
but seems to be lost in empty words.
It is not fulfilling God’s expressed desires. There is a lack
of any godly purpose or mission. Where
is the love and compassion spoken of by Matthew and my homeless man?
Christians often quote scripture saying, “It is by grace you
are saved, through faith . . . it is the gift of God – not by works,
so that no one can boast” (Eph. 2:8-9).
But we forget (or at least I forgot) the very next verse,
“For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good
works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10).
And
we ignore the scripture that admonishes us, “Suppose a brother or
sister is without clothes and daily food.
If one of you says to him, ‘Go, I wish you well, keep warm
and well fed,’ but does nothing about his physical needs, what good
is it? In the same
way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action is dead”
(James
2:15
-16).
In that same chapter, James states, “Faith without deeds is
useless.” He makes the
point clear when he says, “You see that a person is justified by
what he does and not by faith alone” (James
2:24
).
And, he concludes the chapter by warning, “As the body
without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.”
I
can tell you that as I stood before the homeless man I was faced by
the striking reality that my “faith” in Jesus was fake.
It wasn’t real. It
was mere, empty, dead words. I
was guilty of giving lip service to faith while my actions were
producing anything but good deeds springing from the heart.
In
the book of Isaiah, God tells the people “Stop
bringing meaningless offerings. Your
incense is detestable to me. . . When you spread out your hands in
prayer, I will hide my eyes from you; even if you offer many prayers I
will not listen.” (Is. 1:13).
This
is rather dramatic. In
fact, it’s how I felt in my own life.
Just as God wasn’t listening to the Hebrew people, I felt He
wasn’t responding to my prayers either.
Why? How could God
turn his back and not listen to the prayers of His people who were
going to temple and offering sacrifices?
In rejecting their empty worship, God explained what He expects
from us. Through the
prophet Isaiah, God says: “Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! Seek
justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless,
plead the case of the widow (Is.
1: 17
).
So what is the religion that God accepts? In the book of
James we are admonished that, “Religion that God our Father
accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and
widows in their distress….” (James 1:27).
Apostle
Paul explains that we are to live by the Spirit of God and bear the
fruit of the Spirit, including “love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control”
(Galatians 5:22-23). If we take this seriously, and ask ourselves
whether we are genuinely experiencing and bearing these “fruit,” I
believe we will see that each of us needs to accept the homeless
man’s challenge to choose, from the depths of our being, to reach
out to those in need. This
means consistently giving of ourselves with a listening ear, a helpful
hand, and a compassionate heart.
This radical, personal transformation of bearing fruit, by
giving ourselves (and not just our money and our words) is the natural
result of answering the call of the homeless man—answering the call
of God.
_________________________________________________
For
Personal Reflection
1.
How do you react when homeless people approach you and ask for
food or money?
2.
Have you stopped to have a conversation with a homeless person
or other person that appears to be in need?
If so, how did you feel at the time you did that, and how did
you feel about it afterwards?
3.
What, if anything, prevents you from being more open to
spending time or sharing your money with those who are homeless or
needy?
CHAPTER
2
____________________________
Successful
but Unsatisfied
Command
those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put
their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in
God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.
I Timothy 6:17
What
good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit
his very self?
Luke
9:25
As
a young man, I dreamed the dream of most young people—that I would
find great significance in my life and one day help change the world and
make it a better place. In
college, I became president of the student government for resident
students and embarked upon a mission of improving college life.
After graduating from college, I became a teacher of ninth grade
science and coached wrestling and track. This was a great time in my
life. I was able to have a positive influence on the students in
Coatesville
,
Pennsylvania
. I
spent time with these young people in class, in after school sports and
even on weekend activities such a bicycle trips and caving (spelunking).
I was fortunate to have done my student teaching under the
supervision of teachers who taught me that discipline is not
accomplished by being tough or loud, but rather by developing
relationships built on respect. The
additional time required to show respect to students and gain their
respect is well worth it when you see the results—teenagers
cooperating in your class and enjoying themselves, even as they learn
the lessons of the class and of life.
In
looking back on those years, I think I never did anything more
satisfying or important than teaching and spending time with those
teenagers. After a couple of
years of teaching, I became convinced, however, that I was meant for
something more important. Incredibly,
I concluded that affecting the lives of my students was no longer
enough. I wanted to have a
greater and grander impact on society.
So I quit teaching in order to go to law school and become a
political leader. I had very
definite ideas about the law, the programs and the policies I’d like
to see enacted. These were
all worthy goals. The
problem is that I never consulted God to see what he had in mind for me.
Falling
Up the Ladder of Success
After
graduation from the Villanova University School of Law, I moved to
Washington
,
D.C.
, where I became an attorney with a
small, general practice law firm. While
there, I met my future wife, Judi. I
like to tell people that we met through the “classifieds.” That
never ceases to get a skeptical look.
But it is more or less true.
Judi was a co-owner of an apartment building.
She placed an advertisement in the real estate section of The
Washington Post
classifieds to rent one of her apartments, and I responded to the ad.
I didn’t care much for the apartment—but I thought a lot of
the landlord. We became
friends and then three years later got married.
We have two children—Joel, born in 1985, and Julia, born in
1987.
After
a couple years in general law practice, I joined the Office of the
General Counsel at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency where I
received hands-on education and experience in environmental,
construction, and public contract law, as well as federal grants law and
management. After five
years, I left EPA to join a forty person law firm that specialized in
these areas of the law. Within
a few years I became a partner, and thought I had finally arrived—with
a good income and challenging work.
But the long hours and days spent in client offices, construction
trailers, and local, state and federal agency offices all over the
country didn’t turn out to be the glamorous life I had expected.
My wife and children were often home without me while I spent the
night in a hotel room many miles away—bored and lonely.
My interests eventually led to focusing my career on risk
management services for design professionals, environmental engineers
and contractors. I began
providing these services as a consultant for a large insurance company
and changed my status with the law firm to “Of Counsel” so that I
had greater flexibility to choose my work and my schedule.
But regardless of how good my job and income, or how noteworthy
my accomplishments, I still had this nagging feeling that I had not yet
quite discovered my “reason for being.” I felt that I should to be
doing something more with my life.
I
“Had it All” and had Nothing
By
outward appearances, life was good.
As explained in the first pages of this book, my motto had been,
“I want it all.” The
reality was that I felt I very nearly had it all.
One thing I lacked, however, was peace in my soul.
I felt directionless—without a rudder to guide me.
Success in my profession had produced an abundance of material
possessions, but in my heart I was running on empty.
Although
I had money in the bank, my spiritual bank was empty.
There was no genuine love in my heart for God or my
“neighbor.” I had no
comprehension of how to love Him or how to accept His love for me. By
the time I was 40, I was going through the motions of the Christian
life, with no deep faith in God. I
knew the right words and mouthed them nicely.
I could quote scripture. I
could sing Christian songs from memory.
I could even lead prayers at the dinner table or in front of a
Sunday school class. But all
the words were hollow and empty—void of true love for God.
And I felt that the Lord was not listening to me.
I felt cut off from His Kingdom and from His love because I was
not living the Christian life described in the Bible.
I
probably looked just like the average church-going man, but the reality
was that my mind was becoming filled with fantasies and daydreams of
inappropriate things such as sex, pleasures and greater wealth.
These were driving me on to work harder and make more money so I
could buy more things, go more places, and be “happier.”
As a result of what was going on in my secret personal life, my
love for my wife was adversely affected, as was my love for God, and my
respect for myself as a “Christian” was destroyed.
A
Fraudulent Christian
Due
to the thoughts and fantasies filling my mind (not to mention the
details of my personal life), I realized I had no room for Jesus in my
life. I was not reading the
Bible, and I was, at best, spending only superficial time in prayer. In
fact, it was uncomfortable for me to do these things because my life was
so out of control and so inconsistent with the teachings of Christ.
The
more I consciously sinned, the less I could read the Bible and pray.
God had become irrelevant to my life.
I found no need to attend church regularly and associate with
other Christians. I
justified this to myself by claiming I didn’t want to be in church
since there were so many hypocrites there.
Or, I would say that the things discussed in church were boring
and not relevant to the issues of my day or practical for my daily life.
Of course, what was really going on was that I felt I was
unworthy to spend time with God in the Bible, in prayer or in church
because I was a fraud. While
appearing to all who knew me to be a good family man, with
"Christian” values, I was living so far from Jesus that I felt I
had no right to even call myself a Christian.
I
knew both intellectually and spiritually that I was living strictly for
myself and not for Christ—that I was not in love with God and was
certainly no follower of the example given by Jesus.
Yet, despite all this, I had convinced myself that God would
accept me anyway, because He is a God of mercy and understanding.
It was true that I had fallen out of love with God and was not
obeying His commandments. It
was true that I was living a life centered on myself and not Him.
Nevertheless, I believed that no matter how far off the path of
righteousness I might get, it would still be OK because I had been
baptized in the church, and I had professed belief in Jesus as the Son
of God and as my personal Savior.
In
reality, I was not a servant and child of God.
I was mastered by the desires of this world.
Even though I knew this, I kept holding onto a false confidence
that because I believed Jesus to be the Son of God, I would be welcomed
into God's eternal salvation no matter how far my heart was from God.
That false hope permitted me to ignore the voice of my conscience
that was not so subtly whispering to me, saying something like this:
“You’re a phony. You’re
a fraud. You’re not a
Christian since you won’t live for God instead of this world.
Your talk about believing in Jesus won’t save you.
Remember, the Bible says that even Satan knows that Jesus is the
Son of God but that knowledge certainly won't save him.
There's a difference between knowing who Jesus is and really
knowing Him and committing to a relationship with Him.”
But
what could I do to change? I
had tried so many times to get right with God.
It seemed that I didn’t really know how to love Him or how to
accept His love for me. When
I found myself feeling particularly distant from God, I would
“rededicate my life” to the Lord and try again.
Sometimes this was in the privacy of my personal prayers, and at
other times it was in the front of a church or even at a revival
meeting. Within a short time
of these “rededications,” however, I always found myself worse off
than before. My efforts to
live for Christ inevitably failed. In
no time at all I was back to feeling like a failure and a phony again.
I looked around church and wondered how it was possible that all
these other people seemed to be successful in their lives as Christians
and why I couldn’t do it. Maybe
it just wasn’t for me.
________________________________________
For
Personal Reflection
1.
How much does your life today look like the dream or idea you had
for it when you graduated from high school?
How about from your vision when you graduated from college?
2.
How fulfilling and satisfying is your career, job and current
position?
3.
For you to be able to look back on your life three years from now
and feel good about it and feel that you had been successful, what will
you need to have accomplished?
4.
If your life were a glass, would say at this point that it is
more full or empty?
5.
What do you believe is missing in your life, and what do you
believe it would take to make your life full and satisfying?
CHAPTER
3
________________
Giving
Up
I
know that nothing good lives in me, that is in my sinful nature.
For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it
out.
Romans
7:15
If
righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!
Galatians 2:21
I
had reached a point where I felt that I was failing so miserably at
being a Christian that I might as well quit trying.
It seemed that no matter how hard or diligently I worked at
getting it right as a Christian, I was destined to repeat my same
failures again and again and again.
I was deceiving myself into thinking that if I just tried a
little harder and formed some improved habits I could do better at
imitating the exemplary life that Jesus modeled for us.
I was seriously leaning toward concluding that either the power
of Jesus to "transform" the hearts of those who believe in Him
was not real, or that if it was real, I was so bad that even that power
could not transform me into the good person I sought to be.
It
was during this low point that I happened to be flying home from a
California
business trip and sat beside an
interesting couple who put me on the spot.
We were making small talk and they told me that they were
Australian and had just attended a conference where the popular
evangelist and author, Tony Campolo, was one of the speakers.
This was a pleasant surprise for me since he is my uncle. After
telling them that, I expected them to ask me questions about him.
Instead, the woman asked, “Then, are you a Christian? Are you
follower of Jesus?” This caught me completely unprepared.
Instead of giving an automatic “yes,” or saying something
like, “Of course! I've got an evangelist in the family,” I found
myself pondering what she had really asked.
For
the first time in my life, I candidly admitted that although I attended
church regularly and called Jesus my Savior, I was failing so miserably
at living as a “Christian” that I would no longer call myself a
Christian or even try to be one. When
I told her that I was giving up on trying to be a Christian, she
exclaimed, “That's great! Now the Holy Spirit can work with you. Your
decision to give up on your efforts to be a Christian is precisely what
the Holy Spirit needed before He could accomplish what God has planned
for your life.”
I was clueless to what she was talking about.
It sounded like religious nonsense.
I was of the opinion that God helps him who helps himself.
If I had a problem living the Christian life, I thought it was
either because I had not worked hard enough at it or that the whole
story of salvation through Christ was not for me.
It seemed to me that if God were real, and if He really loved me,
He would have made it much easier for me to overcome my vices and become
successful in following Christ’s example. I was beginning to agree
with one of the speaker’s at an attorney’s conference who joked that
“faith is belief in something you can’t see and that you know
isn’t true.” My own
“faith” certainly wasn’t empowering me to overcome my
shortcomings. So there I sat
on a plane listening politely to a woman telling me that I had it
backwards
¾
that I had to quit trying to be a
Christian my way and let the Holy Spirit go to work on me.
This
woman offered me the book she was reading—The
Helper. I took it out of courtesy, having no intention of reading
it. Having just given up on
Christianity, the last thing I wanted to read was this book that was
apparently of special value to her—being well worn, I assumed, from
many readings. When I
arrived at my office, I took the book out of my briefcase and put it on
my credenza with a stack of papers, where it sat—unopened.
The
book probably would still be sitting under that stack of paper if it had
not been for the subsequent encounter with the homeless man.
After meeting him and experiencing an unexplainable new awareness
of God, I remembered the Australian couple and their book.
I wondered if there could possibly be some spiritual connection
between my encounter with them and with the homeless man.
When
I finally read the book, I found that it was about how to invite the
Holy Spirit into one’s life to live for Christ.
What this book taught me about the person, power, and purpose of
the Holy Spirit was so different from what I had learned growing up in a
number of evangelical churches that I questioned how I could have been
taught so differently or could have so completely missed the point of
what they were teaching. I
had been taught a lot about Jesus and a lot about God, but virtually
nothing about the Holy Spirit.
What
I learned about the Holy Spirit in The
Helper changed my understanding of what it means to be a Christian.
I learned that the reason I had been incapable of living as a
Christian despite my sincere efforts was that I had been trying to be a
Christian through my own
efforts. I had tried to
develop good habits, avoid obvious wrongdoing, and generally behave in a
manner that I thought was appropriate and good.
No matter how hard I tried to be good, however, I'd fall back
down and feel worse than if I hadn't even tried.
I get up and try again, only to fall down and feel even more
helpless.
My constant lack of long-term success was shaking my confidence
and my faith. What I learned from The
Helper, and later from another book entitled
The Wonderful Spirit Filled Life, was to give up my efforts at
trying to behave as a Christian. I
learned that it is actually easy and enjoyable to live the Christian
life if we will just quit working at it and allow the Holy Spirit to do
the work for us. If you find
that idea to be incomprehensible, contrary to your beliefs, or contrary
to what your religion teaches, don’t worry, I had the same reaction.
In the balance of this book, I explain how I got beyond my old
beliefs and “religiosity,” in order to allow the Holy Spirit to make
me a new man
¾
a follower of Christ.
___________________________________
For
Personal Reflection
1.
Have you ever felt so frustrated with trying to be a Christian
that you:
·
questioned whether you are
really “saved” (i.e. experienced a crisis of belief)?
·
questioned whether the
promises of Christianity are really true?
2.
To what extent do you believe God will empower you today
to live a holy life in the
present?
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